Etsy Craft Party

On June 5th we hosted an Etsy Craft Party alongside the Wildwood Rose Vintage Market. It was a blast!

Tons of people dropped by to craft, visit, and see what WEST was all about.

The market itself was a huge success, with many WEST members taking part. It was so successful, a second market is already being planned!

Need Help with Your New or Stalled Etsy Shop?

Our friends over at Etsy Markets MB are hosting a panel discussion
May 28
7-830 pm
St James Assiniboia Library
2nd floor program room
Free to attend!
Join the facebook event

A panel of experienced Etsy sellers will be available to answer any and all Etsy questions!
Struggling with shipping? Unsure how to do a listing?
Curious what the costs are?
Join them for what is sure to be a knowledge enhancing evening!

Still lots of time to get your Etsy shop up and running and apply to the Etsy Made in Canada market to be held
September 26
Applications for vendors close June 21

WEST Sale VII Wrap Up

Photos by Caitlin / realswanky

What a gorgeous day we had on May 2, 2015 for WEST Handmade and Vintage Sale VII!
Over 700 customers through the door on a beautiful May Saturday!

Always great to see so many creative and beautiful displays taking place during our set up morning.

Huge thanks to all our awesome vendors

HoopsByGypsy

Dawn M Teasdale

PrairiePeasant

Bixipix

BlacksSideshow

Emms Pocket Shop

Upcultured

SweetAdelineHandmade

Smash Knits

Tawny Bee

aeliosdesign

AradiaNaturals

just the goods

Filiforme

Cockroach zine

Little Spaniel Designs

Little Feather Designs

Daisy Thirteen

TigersandDragons

We Are Bound Together

babyinstitches

Flatlanders Soap Co.

playfulpeanut

Silver Moose Arts

NancyBloklandPottery

PeriwinkleDzyns

Sew Dandee

BitchinKitschKitchen

Blue Pendulum

RealSwanky

TBLBoutique Find them and many other awesome WESTies at www.etsy.com/ca/teams/5032/west-winnipeg-etsy-street-team/members

Etsy Canada Captains Summit

On February 2 and 3, Etsy Canada hosted over 40 Canadian Captains from across Canada!

From coast to coast: Tofino to Charlottetown and as far north as Whitehorse and Fort McMurray, team captains traveled through the snow to attend this conference of networking and knowledge sharing.

Did the little bit of snow in Toronto stop us? hardly!

From Winnipeg, myself and Ryan Poworoznik, of Compendium Artist Market, were fortunate to return to the summit for a second year. Last year it was all new and led to 23 markets this past September with over 45,000 attendees!

This year we anticipate close to 50 markets and at least double the attendees! It's a lot of pressure to have such high expectations after last year's amazing day, but luckily the 2015 Manitoba edition of Etsy Made in Canada committee also has Jennifer Cloutier of WEST and Blue Camel Baby joining the organizing team!

The summit was amazing beyond belief; the highlight for me personally was winning the summit's only Achievement Award--I was for once speechless. I wasn't speechless when I shared with the group a few tips on encouraging your team and fostering volunteerism. I was a small part of an amazing program of dedicated and commited creative community organizers.

I have made so many friends from my experiences in Toronto at the Captain's summit. I was so sad to see this event end but I'm excited about all the things we have planned for September 26, 2015 for the Manitoba market. We plan to bring you, our loyal local Etsy fans, an even bigger and better market so mark your calenders!

Ruth
WEST Captain
Etsy Made in Canada co-chair for Manitoba 2015
PeriwinkleDzyns

WEST 2014 Wrap Up - Message from the Captain

Hi Westies and Lovers of all things Winnipeg Etsy!

This is WEST captain Ruth checking in after another amazing year working with the most talented bunch of makers and keen-eyed curators a captain could ever want. WEST is an amazing group that continues to work and flourish in our wonderful city and province. As the lead volunteer, I have the honour and privilege of serving this dynamic group. From all walks of life, genres and points of view, we come together to work as a team towards our common goals.

2014 saw many new and exciting opportunities for WEST. We started off the year slowly and cautiously with a move to a new location for our WEST sale in April when we moved from Wolseley to St Boniface. We loved the space and really exploded the sale so that our customers joined us en mass for an awesome event in November! In June we hosted a Craft Party at Makers Market, August a Meet Your Maker event at Exchange Uporium and on September 27 we joined forces with another local Etsy team, Compendium (and thanks to the support of Etsy Canada), hosted an amazingly well attended Etsy Made in Canada Day.

What a year! Along with team meetings and lots of sharing on our private Etsy discussion board, we learned and grew with each other--a few bumps along the way, but all in all 2014 was a very positive year for WEST.

To help our team continue to grow and remain focused on our core reason for existing, which is to promote and support our Manitoba Etsy selling members, our leadership team has set goals for 2015. We have determined our focus to be in 3 areas: Marketing, Local Promotion and Developing the local Etsy community. WEST will continue to make our community and social media presence known as we continue to support our members through local sales and promotions and directly through the Etsy discussion board, team meetings and workshops.

As captain I would like to thank all current and former WEST members and leaders for their support, dedication and encouragement in making this team the phenomenal local presence it has become! I am looking forward to sharing our exciting plans for 2015 with you all soon.