Meet Etsy artist Julia Di Sano from the Etsy.com shop EbiEmporium. I met Julia via Twitter (you can follow her at @JuliaDiSano) and she also shared a bit about herself on my Etsy Item of the Day shop submission page!

“I was born and raised in Ontario, Canada and lived there with my family until about 2007, when I started moving around for university and travel abroad in Japan and Hong Kong,” she told me. “I suppose I’d always been a bit of a homebody until then, and enjoyed quiet time alone, even as a child. Haha Maybe I was a bit of a loner… But I liked it that way, and it allowed me to really develop the creative side of who I am.”

“I always turned to art to express myself,” she continued. “And I attended a specialty school of the arts in Ontario for high school for formal training, going through numerous auditions and creating a hefty portfolio of my work to be considered. That really forced me to take my work seriously, as something more than just self-expression and fun. I started to see it as a powerful mode of conversing with onlookers, and wanted to learn as much as I could about every kind of art.”

“I worked with many different techniques and materials at the school, including all sorts of paints, wire materials, ceramics, etc. For a while, watercolour paint was my passion, but I started to branch out again a few years later – and that’s when I fell for acrylic. And that’s been my passion ever since,” Julia said.

Julia has great advice to share with other Etsy sellers:

“I would suggest that you do your research before opening up your shop and posting items. I probably spent a good 2-3 months looking around and familiarizing myself with Etsy, to get a feel for what sellers where most successful and how they laid out their shops, how they photographed their items, etc,” she advises. “It also helps you get a feel for general pricing and popularity of what you might want to sell in your own shop.”

So what’s coming up next for EbiEmporium?

“I have so many ideas, and am still deciding which ones I truly want to bring to fruition and which ones I’ll leave in the back of my mind. For this coming month, I am really excited to announce that I will be starting to offer postcards and greeting cards with my original artwork prints on them!” Julia tells me. “It will help me target a new market, perhaps with an interest in art-buying, but not quite the budget to order an original piece. And, after that, we’ll have to wait and see, I suppose!”

Connect with Julia online!  Visit her Etsy shop by clicking her shop name (EbiEmporium) at the top of this feature.  You can also find her on Facebook.

- Jackie

Check out this sweet (but oh-so-grey) print by Etsy artist majalin.  It’s selling for about $20.00 USD and I am really drawn to it!

- Jackie

Thought I would share this pretty 11 inch by 14 inch print today with all of you!  Isn’t this lovely?

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

- Jackie

I featured this Etsy artist yesterday, but I was in a bit of a hurry because of my hectic day.  After I posted the feature, I took a second look at this shop and really loved what I saw!

My favorite prints from this seller are the lovely “city scenes”.  The one I think is the coolest is the one inspired by San Francisco pictured above (selling for about $185 USD).

Here are one other ones you guys may like too:

This is Paris, Latin Quarter!

This print is Amsterdam.

Loving this print too… New York City.

I cannot get enough of this seller’s whimsical and refreshing style.  Check out this Etsy shop by clicking the shop name (lauraamiss) at the top of this feature!

- Jackie