Earthling

Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.

My first double-best. The Huxtable Dog Sweater I wrote about when I gave Etsy.com its first best last December is long gone now. I'm giving the site a best again today for a feature I just noticed after visiting Etsy this morning via a blog called Miss Malaprop.

The feature is called Alchemy. eBay has something like this where you can create a Want It Now listing (sort of the opposite of "buy it now," though not quite) if there's some object you don't see for sale but want to find out there. Etsy's "Alchemy" lets you ask Etsy's talented merchants if they'll agree to make the gifts, clothes, and art objects you've dreamed up but can't make yourself. This way, getting no results on an Etsy search isn't a dead-end. Since this is the world of hand-crafting, with Alchemy you can request an object or combination of objects that doesn't even exist yet. Want a hand-knit Google sweater? A scale diorama of one of the hatches from TV's Lost? Just ask the crafters if they'll do it for you, and how much they'll charge.

Whatever you dream up, you place a free custom request and fill in some details, and then crafters bid on the price and right to make that thing for you. You can also make a request to a particular seller if there's some crafter's specific handiwork you want to entrust with the project.

Looking at the current list of Alchemy requests, there's everything from a Baby Luigi Baseball Cap to a Kimono Dress to Pumpkin-flavored Chapstick. If you put in your requests now, you could probably get all of your crazy ideas made for you well in time for the holidays.