A long time ago — back when I lived in the US — I had an online shop on my own website. It was neat to host my own store, but when I moved to Japan I didn’t want to run the risk of messing up any orders during the chaos of starting a new life, so I closed the shop down.

Since then, the internet has changed so much that hosting my own shop isn’t all that great of a deal anymore. The networking possibilities at new, internet-based artist communities are so valuable that they eclipse the coolness of having your own private web store.

Back in Philly over the holiday, I talked with my friend whose girlfriend recently started selling handmade art she’d been working on for a while — and who is doing quite well at that. Apparently she made a lot of her contacts through Etsy, one of said sites, and he recommended I try it out as well. (Thanks Sam and Chen!)

I signed up the other week but I didn’t put any pictures up until, well, last night. I was tired so I only put up a couple, and then only a couple more today. And today some time, I made my first sale! I was shocked and delighted, naturally, as I hadn’t even put a lot of effort into developing the store front. In fact, even now I’m a little embarrassed at the utter lack of… anything… on my page. But I’ve got a little motivation to add more now.

Anyway, that said, here is my link: http://osarusan.etsy.com