Monday, February 16, 2009

Want a Handmade Wishlist? Make a Spotlight!

Almost since Etsy was born, people have been asking for a Wishlist. They wanted a simple way to show their family and friends the handmade items they'd like to have as gifts. Many have also floated the idea of a handmade registry... a way to choose handmade items for their wedding gifts, baby showers, or house warmings. Etsy's Favorites feature, while very useful for bookmarking, just wasn't cutting it for a sharable, customizable wish list that could easily be passed to others via a link in an email.

Many global wish list alternatives have cropped up in the mean time, but all require a download or tool bar button of some type, preventing the easy adding or changing of wish list items from alternate computers, like one at work or a friend's house. And serious proponents of handmade work longed for a dedicated handmade Wishlist... one that wouldn't showcase hand crafted work in the same space as a pack of underwear from Walmart.

Enter byhand.me Spotlights. Now true aficionados of handmade work have a reliable, easy method of creating a wish list and sharing it with others. Even better, it allows you to choose items from all of the major handmade venues including etsy, 1000markets, shophandmade, artfire, and more. You can share your list with the world, or keep different lists to share only with specific people (handy for sharing your love of handmade lingerie with your boyfriend, but not your grandmother!). You can allow comments on your Wishlist, or not. You can change out items, let the list live forever, or delete it whenever you choose.

My current Wishlist is below. It's fully operational, but I've included the direct link in case you'd like to see it in its native environment. You can make your own at http://byhand.me/

http://www.byhand.me/component/option,com_content/Itemid,70/id,967/task,view/

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Cool! I like this, I wish for lots of stuff, lol. :) Thanks for sharing
Jenny

Lumina Jewelry said...

Your blog is great. Don't you just love ByHand and spotlights?