Handmade Holiday Gift Guide: The Best of ETSY

I’m so excited to share my Best of ETSY & Small Business 2020 Handmade Holiday Gift Guide with you!

As a handmade ETSY seller, local vendor and small business shopper of 13 years, I’ve curated this Top 25 list with love, care and intention. So if you’re big on conscious consumerism, supporting small business, and making a difference in the lives of full-time artists, then you’ve come to the right place, my friend.

Be sure to read through to the end of my handmade holiday gift guide blog for tips on making the most of ETSY this holiday season and scoring one-of-a-kind gifts you won’t find anywhere else.

So, without further ado, here’s my Best of ETSY & Handmade Holiday Gift Guide:

1. Engrave to Remember: Personalized gifts and leather goods. Everything from wallets to journals, makeup bags to travel tags.
2. Bohemian Reves: High quality, plant-based skincare and Boho home decor.
3. Hoola Monsters: Fun, handcrafted hula hoops that are much higher quality and way easier to use than the store bought variety. With one-of-a-kind styles and customizable options, these hoops are great for kids and kids at heart. Just be sure to shop early since wait times for these in-demand hula hoops can be up to 3 weeks during the holiday season.
4. Playa Paper: Custom greeting cards, invitations, boxed note cards, and stationery with free postage included.
5. Meraki Designed: Where function and art merge… Truly some of the most beautiful coffee mugs and ceramics in all of the land.
6. Amelias Wreaths of Joy: Adorable, custom wreaths for holidays and year-round home decorating.
7. Esra Leather: Genuine leather bracelets, bags, and jewelry for men and women alike.
8. Adriana Soto: Mexican folk art jewelry and vintage home decor. This also happens to be one of my favorite ETSY shops of all time!
9. Akua Creative: Everyone loves great apparel with cool designs, and this is your one-stop shop for it. Featuring original artwork inspired by nature, Akua Creative even has an awesome selection of high quality yoga pants (I’m obsessed with mine)!
10. Traveling Soul Studio: Personalized, colorful license plate signs handmade in Maui; they’re adorable!
11. Ellectric Elliegance: Custom, handmade stained glass art, sun catchers, and jewelry.
12. DrapelaWoodworks: Incredibly unique and beautiful wood products made with love. From personalized piggy banks to docking stations, desk organizers and more… a gift from this shop will surely put a smile on your loved one’s face.
13. Mimi Green: Fur babies deserves holiday gifts too! Home of the coolest personalized dog collars around, Mimi Green’s designs are super unique and handcrafted with love in Albuquerque, NM.
14. RindleWaves: This shop turns your favorite songs into sound wave art. How cool is that?!? What’s more… A portion of every purchase is donated to help with autism education and assistance.
15. ETSY Gift Cards: You can’t go wrong with a gift card… especially one that encourages your recipient to shop small and choose their own handmade goodies on ETSY.
16. Solbaby: This one’s for the littles! Super cute children’s clothing for sun-loving kiddos. Solbaby also features a fun section of youth trucker hats and face masks.
17. Sea and Soul Charts: Unique & handmade coordinates signs for home or office.
18. Belles Apothecary 13: Great prices and high quality, handcrafted bath products.
19. Simply Snow Designs: Everyone loves cool, stainless steel tumblers and this shop does not disappoint! From personalized glitter & rhinestones to wood grain & marble designs, there’s something for everyone.
20. Good Vibe Nails: With more and more ladies turning to at-home, DIY manicures during these crazy COVID times, nail strips have become all the rage. These high quality nail polish alternatives are simple to use, non-toxic, and affordable. They also look just as great and can last as long as gel or shellac when you apply them properly.
    
    In fact, I’ve become so obsessed with them that I’ve launched my own line called Good Vibe Nails. Yep: #20 is some shameless self promo 😉 Good Vibe Nails also make great stocking stuffers.
21. Seasick Gear: A fun, family-owned business with a great selection of high performance fishing apparel and swag. Gifts for sun-lovers of all ages.
22. Element and Flow: My friend Jenny makes some of the coolest high-quality malas and natural stone jewelry in all of creation. She’s also a giant ray of sunshine, and she puts all the good energy into each and every piece she makes.
23. Be Hippy: A grassroots lifestyle brand with super cool merch that exemplifies a passion for music, the outdoors, traveling, fashion and living life to the fullest! Fun Fact: The company is owned by my long-time festival vendor friends, Leigh and Bart.
24. Stage Coach Treasures: Quirky, unique and custom gifts. From custom vinyl wood frame signs to keychains, mugs and more, you’ll find some great creations made by my friend Talia.
25. Warehouse Candles: Love beer, wine, and high-quality candles? Then this shop’s for you. This awesome company upcycles and cuts beer and wine bottles to create the perfect vessels for their hand-poured soy candles. And they smell oh-so-wonderful. Perfect for any man cave or she shed!

I hope my handmade holiday gift guide helps to jump-start your 2020 gift giving and save you some time!

Seeking out unique, one-of-a-kind gifts requires pre-planning, and I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t always my strong point. But I’m making a valiant effort to do so, especially as we move into a holiday season like no other.

As ETSY sellers and handmade artists like myself continue to adapt to a new norm of increased online sales in the midst of a pandemic, there’s a bit of a learning curve.

To further explain… I was primarily an in-person market and festival vendor before COVID-19.

Since March of 2020, my online year-over-year sales have increased by approximately 600%. All of my business is now online, and considering everything I sell is custom and handmade to order, there’s going to be a wait time, but this holiday season: I expect for that wait time to increase two-fold.

Most ETSY sellers put tons of love, care and intention into every single item they sell. Totally different than mass produced products found on Amazon or at Walmart, for example.

We also spend lots of time answering inquiries to set our customers up for success by delivering the best quality, most appropriate product for the individual.

So, if you’re planning to use this handmade holiday gift guide to shop on ETSY for presents this year, PLEASE plan ahead and be patient with your sellers. Understand that many sellers like myself experience increased volume during a normal holiday season. And this year is anything but normal.

ETSY reviews are so super important too. They help to maintain the integrity & positive reputations of our shops. So, when you shop with an ETSY seller, be sure to post a review! Finally, if you’d like to check out my shops, you can do so here: Hoola Monsters & Good Vibe Designs.

And if you’ve got a favorite small business or ETSY shop of your own, I’d love for you to share it in the comments below. Let’s help one another shop small and handmade this holiday season.

As always, thanks so much for taking the time to read.

About the Author: Abby Joan Lee is a full-time hula hoop and jewelry artist, fitness instructor, aspiring author, and mental health advocate.