Andy's Gift Guide: Part 2!

By now I'm sure you've all had time to read my 8th Annual Online Gift Guide (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). So I'm back today with some exciting news: this year I did two gift guides. That's right, for my job at The HP, I came up with a second, completely different gift guide than what you read yesterday.

About a month ago, a co-worker suggested I write a gift guide for the paper with stuff from my Etsy shop. I wasn't sure about using the paper to promote my own shop, but it did get me thinking. Three years ago, for a very short-lived marketing committee, I came up with a list of people from Southwest Michigan who were selling things on Etsy. Surely I could find 10 to 12 people who would be interested in doing a gift guide. It turns out, it wasn't hard at all. People love being included in gift guides.

Honestly, I liked the gift guide I did for the paper more than the one I did for the blog because I found some really interesting shops. One guy turns storm-damaged trees into salad bowls. Another makes things from Lake Michigan beach glass. A third, a former member of the band The Verve Pipe, makes paper notebooks out of old album covers.

And that's just three of the 12 shops. You'll have to read the story to get links and more information on the other nine.