Brooklyn's Tracie Howarth, an Etsy success story. Photo by Patrick Fagan.

Maybe you knit or throw pottery. Or make jewelry out of Phillips screw heads. Or crochet hamster huts (that makes three of you). Maybe all you ever wanted was to sell your handiwork and never work for anyone else, ever.

You may have heard that all you have to do is open your own shop on Etsy.com, the online marketplace that aims to provide artists with the technology they need to “make a living, making things.” You simply upload product shots, tack on prices, write cute captions, then wait for those millions of members to start placing orders.

It sounds perfect. And easy. But it’s not. (more…)

Michael Jackson was a brilliant, deeply strange guy, but he was no weirder than his fans—at least the ones who have marked his passing by making things to sell in his honor on Etsy.com. Alongside loads of t-shirts, lapel pins and other insta-crap are some kooky items like this 2008 painting by artist Adah Glenn, presciently depicting Jackson with Farrah Fawcett hair. Maybe that’s why she thinks it’s worth $5,000?

After the jump, a six-inch crocheted Michael Jackson, a Michael Jackson catnip toy, a Michael Jackson paper-doll cutout card and Michael Jackson rosary beads. (more…)