Featured Etsy Seller: Sweetheartsinner!

It's hard to find something you DON'T like in this seller's shops. Edit: I just bought one of her Geisha necklaces :) Ranging from rockabilly, goth, geisha, horror, retro, you name it, she's got it:

I am a 23 year old female and a graduate student with just 1 year to go before I earn my advanced degree. I currently have a B.A. degree in English. I plan to start a new sort of business entity after school is done. I have many interests including a deep infatuation with popular culture-especially from the 1930's to 1960's. I have a large collection of items ranging from pulp paperbacks to pop surrealism paintings to vintage photography. My collections are my obsessions!

About sweetheartsinner:


To start, I have a love of retro kitsch and popular culture in general. I love 1940's to 1960's imagery and designs. Whenever I wanted something cool with a cool popular culture design (like a shirt or necklace, etc...) I would go to the regular corporate stores like Hot Topic to look for cool things. Sometimes I would get lucky and find something really cool but for the most part, everything out there I found was lame or expensive.

As a student, I wanted stuff I could afford so I started to make things myself. Things I wished stores carried. Things that were good quality but inexpensive. I figured out how to make necklaces after careful consideration of how to design something I would like. I then made a few necklaces for myself. They were super cool. When I started wearing them, people noticed-they had not seen anything like them! Some friends thought they were cool, so I started to make some for them too. I had so many compliments from people asking me where I "bought" my necklaces, I decided to see how they would sell on ebay. I also thought about how cool my necklaces would be on more people. (there is satisfaction knowing someone somewhere is wearing something you made!) I know only cool people are going to want my stuff so I knew that my potential customers would be a bit like me-out of the norm, unique and into fashion and culture. So it was easy for me in choosing designs to make into necklaces. Because I knew that for the most part, that the people who would buy my stuff are probably like me, I made sure that when I started to sell my DIY, that I would offer my creations at reasonable prices using designs I liked at prices I could afford. Sure, I want to make money, but I also want others to wear my DIY creations. My items are not things you can buy in a store. Sweetheartsinner sprung from this and has been going strong for over a year now.

Though I have sold a lot of necklaces by now, I cannot ever imagine anyone running into someone else with my DIY creations on. These are truly unique in that sense. Also, my process is such that every necklace is different in some way. All have minute imperfections which come with any handmade product. But I am not a robot or a machine. I handmake almost every aspect of my necklaces. I use a homemade kiln and hand cast 98% of the settings/pendants I use. I hand-sand and handpaint my pendants. I then cut and hand apply each image and hand coat twice each and every pendant with a durable, glossy coating which gives my DIY necklaces a glassy finish. I do not think a machine would even be able to be applied to my process of making these creations. I hand assemble the jumpring and ballchain in each necklace I make (jumprings and ballchains are about the only items I do not make myself). I then make my own packaging to keep each necklace in. I do not hire anyone. I make everything myself the way DIY things should be made.

One thing that I am proud of in my design choices is that I feel I have a good grip on what is cool. I have been collecting popular culture stuff for a while now, am fanatical about art, especially lowbrow, goth, and tattoo artwork, and chose designs (and digitally design some myself) that express what I think most of us outside the norm think is cool in design and culture. Uniqueness is something I cherish.

I have sold some items whoesale to a couple of stores-but these stores are all independant stores that sell other cool stuff and not corporate megaturds like Hot Topic or some other mallrat skunkshop. My stuff is not mainstream and hope it never goes that way.

Please check out my wares at http://stores.ebay.com/Sweet-Heart-Sinner-Creations. Also, please also check out my wares on ETSY at: sweetheartsinner.etsy.com. Also, please check out my myspace at http://www.myspace.com/sweetheartsinner. My wares are affordable with over 95% of my items under $10.00!