Etsy

Etsy is a lovely site with beautiful pictures of the handmade and craft items it sells. It also has cool technology allowing you to find sellers by their location, and it gives good background information on them. It's not the place to buy a mass-merchandise item like a baseball glove, but it has pewter baseball glove stitch markers.

Because it is something of an alternative site, Etsy has odd quirks that you may find endearing (or annoying). The “Time Machine” channel is a cool Flash site that shows items from “the past” (if you can really call one minute ago the past). But it wasn't clear to me whether these items were on sale (or bought). Nor does clicking on them give you anything but a pop-up Flash picture.

Nevertheless, if you want to make a personal connection with a craftsperson and her lovingly made items, Etsy would seem to be a great destination.

More at:http://www.etsy.com/