Stellar Seller: Deadcraft

If you haven't read one of our Stellar Seller features before, the point is simple: We are not only Etsy sellers, but Etsy buyers as well, and we want to share some of our favorite purchases and great shopping experiences with the community at large. :)

This week's Stellar Seller was nominated by yours truly, suenosdejmi. I did some geek-friendly Christmas shopping for my boyfriend this year, and back in the summer when I was planning it out I stumbled across Deadcraft and her shop full of precious crocheted dolls!

Among my favorites are Link (I mean, come on, he's adorable!) and Cloud (can you tell I'm a gamer??), but the actual purchase that I had from her shop was the Batman doll below. Although it shipped from the Philippines, I got it quite quickly (I think it was something like a week and a half) and was packaged carefully and with care. I was just so happy with my purchase!!! So I nominated Deadcraft to be featured on our blog, and here we are! Read her interview and enjoy!!

Tell us and the Etsy world a bit about you, anything you'd like to share...

My name is Nissie, and I'm currently residing in the Philippines, which is easily one of the best places to live in if you'd like to go be inspired by good eccentrically urban art. I'd love to be a fiction writer someday, but until then, I divide my time with crochet and a bit of freelance writing during the day, and masked vigilante-ing at night. The latter doesn't really earn much, but I get to scare a lot of people for no reason, and that's almost as good. In between all that, I maintain sporadic blogs at both http://www.paperheroes.net for crafty things, and http://www.traveling.ph, a travel journal shared with my boyfriend.

How did you meet Etsy? Was it love at first sight?

I remember a few friends recommending that I sell some of my dolls online from time to time, citing etsy as the example. I've never tried selling online before, and thought there would be far too many pitfalls involved, so I didn't think much of it. After the fifty ninth time they suggested it, I gave up and finally agreed to give it a try. (Those same friends now have their own little dolls as a thank you.) I wasn't quite sure at first if I could even make sales, but etsy was so ridiculously easy to list and promote, that I quickly fell in love with it! Roughly half the sales I get come from etsy, and that's a lot.

How did you get into crocheting, and also into making the dolls?

Pretty much the most ridiculous reason to get into crocheting, I think: I couldn't sew. But I wanted to make dolls for myself and to make gifts for friends, and for someone who couldn't sew in a straight line even if her life depended on it, cloth plushies were obviously not the way to go. Trying to figure out other possibilities, I stumbled across crocheting in a youtube video, of all places. It took about a month of attempting and a lot of trial and error, mostly because I'm left-handed and most instructions favor the righties, but eventually I did learn. I'm not usually patient when it comes to using other people's patterns / instructions though, so right after learning the techniques I went right into making my own patterns, though for the most part they're usually freeform.

How do you choose which dolls to make?

The first dozen or so dolls I'd made were those from genres or series that I myself adored. My Mr. Darcy doll was the first ever completed prototype that I made, and it's still one of my favorites. Later on, some customers emailed, asking if I could make specific dolls for them. Some of those caught on and were also requested by a lot of other people, so I added them to my main list. I think I'm particularly proud of my Mythbusters dolls, especially. Being a geek at heart, orders that fall under particularly geeky fandoms make my heart go squee.

Describe yourself in 1 word: moist

Do you have a favorite:

word or saying? "The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept." I love George Carlin.

type of food? Sushi! Food that I don't have to cook (and possibly burn down the kitchen during the attempt) is always a good idea to me!

blog or website you frequent on a regular basis? The Onion is sheer genius. I'm also a big Stephen Colbert fan, so I make a pit stop over at Cobert Nation from time to time.

holiday? I love Halloween. We need more days when it's not odd for adults who are kids at heart to be able to dress up like one without needing to explain themselves.

Etsy seller? every once in awhile, I go and stare at thyme2dream's amazing works. Also, if I had Artsy's talent I could probably be ruling the world by now.