Eva Gifted Hands, the ultimate story
When I launched my own, standalone website this summer - www.evagiftedhands.com I felt like a grown up businesswoman.
It reminded me of times when I was 19 and I was moving out from my parents to study design 350km away from home at Academy Of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. Being an art high school graduate I loved all kinds of arts and crafts (hello jewellery making!) but I was convinced something more practical would be a smarter choice. And I must say - I wasn’t good enough at painting.
Poland is a fantastic country, where education on all levels is free (YAY!) but life in a big city is not cheap. This was where my story of selling handmade jewellery started in art markets, because what else an art student with not much of an experience could do? I loved this personal connection with a customer that is absolutely invaluable and helps a lot with developing new designs.
There are many sources of inspiration, for me it was my dad, and his everlasting collection ambitions. He used to collect antique watches, fountain pens, silver pencils - aspiring to fix them all - he got stuck with a large selection of old parts and mechanisms that I convinced him to give me for my crafts. This little lot awakened a desire of repurposing the old, sad and forgotten items into something useful and beautiful. Most Sunday mornings I spent rummaging on antique markets where I found the typewriters, nibs and - a bit later - maps, which I used in my designs. My jewellery became popular and I was just over the moon earning money on what I was doing with passion.
Time passed, I became a wife and a mother, then graduate.. and moved to England. So this eventually put a halt to my beloved markets. But creation is my other nature so I signed up for online marketplaces to keep selling my jewellery. Since 2012 I have been present on DaWanda, Zibbet, Folksy, Amazon Handmade and of course - the biggest player in the art and design industry - Etsy which became my full time job. You can still find my Etsy shop here .
Saying that now I feel like a grown up entrepreneur is not an exaggeration. My website www.evagiftedhands.com is me. It is how I want it to be, it is how I designed it to look like. My beautiful logo (created by tynkaland ), collections as I want to divide them, the finest jewellery curated my way and my top class customer service. Let’s not forget the safety of a well maintained platform. I don’t want to say that I treat it any differently than my Etsy shop - every single customer here or there is very important and I do try my best to deliver the best product I can, making it as fast as possible. I want to emphasise that it is my own place on the internet. It is like being a market host rather than only a seller. It is like moving out from the safety umbrella of your parents. I hope you will find awesome jewellery and meaningful gifts, feel safe, secure and well served.
I took part in three markets since we moved into the UK, but this year - due to restrictions - unfortunately no markets for any of us, makers!
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