A Reunion on Etsy

One of the fun things about selling vintage on Etsy is the people you meet, both customers and other sellers. I've written here about some of these encounters.

Recently I re-encountered an old friend, B. J. Elvgren, who sells her amazing handmade creations on Etsy (here). Years ago we'd met each other through our husbands--both playwrights and both at the time teaching theatre and playwriting at universities in Virginia and New Jersey. Her husband had invited my husband to give a talk at his university and I went along, spending a wonderful several days with B.J. and Gil sight seeing, talking, and admiring their antique-filled home. B.J. also had a beautiful studio filled with her quilted creations, and I bought several pillows from her that still grace our living room couches.

Time passed, and after a hiatus of quite a few years, B.J.'s husband got in touch with mine over some business. During their email conversations, my husband happened to mention that I had an Etsy shop and gave the URL. Gil said that B.J. did, too, and almost immediately I received a convo (Etsy lingo for its internal email system) from her saying that she'd checked out my shop and loved it. So I clicked on her shop link--I knew I'd love everything because I knew how talented she was--and got back to her and before long were talking back and forth and wondering how we could all get together again.

Then, after responding to a convo from her, I went back to check my Etsy activity stream for any new purchases. Suddenly I saw that wonderful green "view order" sign on this item:

B.J. had bought it! It's one of the few things that's not vintage in my shop--my husband makes bird houses, which we have up all over our property, and I've put a few in my shop (here's another one and here's another.)  but it's made of old barn boards and then left outside to "age" so it looks vintage.

Since we'd kept the bird house she bought on on a tree in front of our house...

my husband had to get a ladder and take it down from the tree:

After we'd done this, and I'd packaged it up so it was ready to send, I went online to B.J.'s shop and looked around at all the items I'd already hearted (Etsy gives a little heart on each item listing which you can click on if you like it). There was one particular paint and quilt collage picture she'd made that I'd thought would be perfect in our kitchen. Quickly I hit the "add to cart" button.

Within days I had received the packaged picture, opened it up, and set it on a nail on a wall in the kitchen.

I was right: it's perfect there, and gives me a jolt of joy every time I look at it:

So now that we've been reunited in cyberspace, all we have to do is figure out a real time reunion!