# Crafty Corner Marketplace Arts & Crafts HUB - Site: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/ ## Holiday Gift Guide 2026 - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/holiday-gift-guide-2026/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-07T06:09:46-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott This gift guide presents digital art prints made to order, organized into themed collections including landscapes, automotive scenes, children’s wonder, and lighthouses, with starting prices under $40. It also features a downloadable grayscale coloring book and an outdoor canvas art collection with fixed prices and shipping restrictions. A promotional code offers 10% off through December 17, with free shipping on most US orders. The guide specifies a holiday ordering cutoff date and notes that print delivery times vary while digital downloads are delivered instantly, and that certain outdoor canvas items ship only within the contiguous United States. Looking for a gift with a story behind it? Every Crafty Corner piece below is digital art, printed to order in the size and print type you choose. Prices shown are starting prices; the final price depends on the size and print type. From Nov 27 through Dec 17, code **KSHOLIDAY10** takes 10% off (one use per customer). Free shipping on most US orders. ## Under $40 prints * [Stormy Kansas Flinthills At Sunset](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/stormy-kansas-flinthills-at-sunset/)— from $36 * [Golden Sunrise Over The Sunflower Farm](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/golden-sunrise-over-the-sunflower-farm/)— from $37 * [The Crimson Magistrate](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/the-crimson-magistrate/)— from $37 * [Thunderhead Migration](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/thunderhead-migration/)— from $36 * [Glitterdeep Bazaar](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/glitterdeep-bazaar/)— from $38 * [Sunlit Redfish](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/sunlit-redfish/)— from $38 ## Everything Autos * [Heart Of Horsepower](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/heart-of-horsepower/)— from $36 * [Taillight Calligraphy](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/taillight-calligraphy/)— from $38 * [Where Old Cars Go To Bloom](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/where-old-cars-go-to-bloom/)— from $36 * [Neon Rain At Everything Autos](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/neon-rain-at-everything-autos/)— from $36 * [The Old Trucks Last Garden](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/the-old-trucks-last-garden/)— from $36 ## Small Worlds: Children’s Wonder * [Winter Frost In A Globe](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/winter-frost-in-a-globe/)— from $37 * [Leaf Village Lanterns](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/leaf-village-lanterns/)— from $38 * [Cotton Candy Forest](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/cotton-candy-forest/)— from $36 * [The Teacup Regatta](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/the-teacup-regatta/)— from $37 * [Block City Dusk](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/block-city-dusk/)— from $36 ## Lighthouses & Shorelines * [Northern Lightkeeper](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/northern-lightkeeper/)— from $36 * [Beacon Beyond The Stars](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/beacon-beyond-the-stars/)— from $36 * [Defiant Light](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/defiant-light/)— from $36 * [Between Heaven And Sea](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/between-heaven-and-sea/)— from $36 * [Where The Wild Light Leads](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/where-the-wild-light-leads/)— from $37 ## Prairie & Ink: A Grayscale Coloring Book A stocking stuffer for the colorer on your list: $7.99, available Nov 16. Twelve grayscale coloring pages in one printable PDF, delivered by instant download, to print at home for personal use. --- ## West of the Wind collection Outdoor canvas art from the West of the Wind collection. West of the Wind items ship to the contiguous US only (no AK, HI or P.O. boxes). * [Holiday House Outdoor Canvas Art – 24 x 24 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/holiday-house-outdoor-canvas-art-24-x-24-in/)— $169 * [Winter Home Outdoor Canvas Art – 24 x 24 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/winter-home-outdoor-canvas-art-24-x-24-in/)— $169 * [Cozy Cabin Outdoor Canvas Art – 24 x 24 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/cozy-cabin-outdoor-canvas-art-24-x-24-in/)— $169 * [Farmstead Barn Outdoor Canvas Art – 24 x 24 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/farmstead-barn-outdoor-canvas-art-24-x-24-in/)— $169 * [Cardinal Courtship Outdoor Canvas Art – 40 x 30 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/cardinal-courtship-outdoor-canvas-art-40-x-30-in/)— $289 * [Old Farmstead Outdoor Canvas Art – 40 x 30 in](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/shop/all-works/old-farmstead-outdoor-canvas-art-40-x-30-in/)— $289 ## Holiday ordering Holiday orders: please order by Dec 17 for our holiday cutoff. Prints are made to order and ship from our print partner; delivery times vary. Digital downloads arrive instantly by email. West of the Wind items ship to the contiguous US only (no AK, HI or P.O. boxes). _Created by Hand. Made with Heart._ The post [Holiday Gift Guide 2026](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/holiday-gift-guide-2026/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## The Cadmium Dilemma: Tightening Regulations and the Fight Over Historic Paint Pigments - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/the-cadmium-dilemma-tightening-regulations-and-the-fight-over-historic-paint-pigments/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-05T22:55:00-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Cadmium pigments remain legal for professional artists in both the European Union and Minnesota, though both outcomes required organized pushback against regulatory restrictions. The EU’s chemicals agency rejected a 2013 proposal to restrict cadmium in artist paints, finding their environmental contribution negligible. Minnesota’s 2023 law initially banned cadmium across consumer products, inadvertently sweeping in professional art supplies. Minnesota’s exemption, signed June 14, 2025, resulted from two legislative sessions during which art-materials trade groups cited the European risk assessment and argued synthetic substitutes lack cadmium’s vividness and lightfastness. The pattern in both cases suggests broad chemical regulations repeatedly threaten historic pigments until affected parties organize specific exemptions, a dynamic likely to recur as regulators continue tightening rules. The scoreboard, as of this fall: cadmium paints are still legal for professional artists in the European Union, and as of June 15, 2025, they are explicitly legal again in Minnesota — the state whose 2023 law briefly became the biggest threat to cadmium pigments in America. But the fight that produced that scoreboard is the real story, because it shows exactly how close historic pigments keep coming to the edge, and how much organized pushing it takes to keep them on the shelf. The science framing matters. Cadmium is a genuine toxic heavy metal — food-safety bodies set strict intake limits, and workplace regulators cap airborne exposure. Nobody in this fight argues cadmium is harmless. The argument is narrower: whether cadmium locked inside a tube of professional artist paint, used by adults and discarded in small quantities, is a risk that justifies erasing the most lightfast reds, oranges, and yellows in the painter’s palette. ## Round One: Europe Said “Not Justified” Europe ran this fight first. In 2013, Sweden proposed an EU-wide restriction under the REACH chemicals framework that would have limited cadmium in artists’ paints to under 0.1% by weight — a threshold that would have effectively removed true cadmium colors. The European Chemicals Agency’s Committee for Risk Assessment reviewed the proposal and, in its opinion of November 26, 2014, concluded the restriction was not justified: the contribution of cadmium from artist paints to environmental contamination was negligible compared with other sources. The paints stayed. Cadmium in the EU remains restricted in other product categories — plastics and many consumer goods are capped at 0.01% — but artist paints survived on the strength of the exposure evidence. ## Round Two: Minnesota Banned First, Exempted Later Minnesota’s 2023 law (HF 2310, codified at Minnesota Statutes 325E.3892) restricted lead and cadmium across 15 categories of consumer products, art supplies among them, and its broad drafting swept professional paints, pastels, and pigments into a prohibition built for children’s products and jewelry. Retailers testified they could no longer stock essential materials; art-materials groups — NAMTA and the Art and Creative Materials Institute — organized the response, pointing to the ECHA record and arguing in House testimony that non-cadmium substitutes do not match the genuine pigments’ vividness and lightfastness. The fix took two sessions. Bills HF 737 and SF 826 carried the exemption through committee in early 2025, and the final language landed in the budget bill HF 4, signed by the governor on June 14, 2025 and effective the next day. Professional artist materials — oil-based and water-based paints, pastels, pigments, ceramic glazes, markers, and encaustics — are now carved out of the statute, and the law’s paint category was narrowed to children’s paints. Minnesota artists got their cadmiums back not because the legislature reconsidered cadmium, but because the trade showed up with a decade-old European risk opinion and a specific, drafted fix. The dilemma isn’t settled; it’s procedural now. Regulators across jurisdictions keep tightening chemical rules category by category, and every broad drafting sweep puts professional materials in the blast radius until somebody files the exemption. The lesson of both fights is the same: the pigments survive where artists can show the exposure math and arrive organized. The next sweep is always coming. ## Sources SGS SafeGuardS 100/25, “Minnesota, USA, Exempts Certain Goods under its Lead and Cadmium Ban” — https://www.sgs.com/en-sg/news/2025/07/safeguards-10025-minnesota- usa-exempts-certain-goods-under-its-lead-and-cadmium-ban JD Supra, “Minnesota Legislature 2025 Recap” — https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=f7791b08- f855-46bc-a4a2-ca4f2a26faa5 Minnesota House testimony on HF 737 (Minnesota Retailers; ECHA RAC Opinion, Nov 26, 2014) — https://www.lrl.mn.gov/archive/minutes/house/aBpRBh7l- EOH1yREslFGeg.pdf Minnesota House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee minutes, March 5, 2025 — https://www.house.mn.gov/Committees/minutes/94004/101125 The post [The Cadmium Dilemma: Tightening Regulations and the Fight Over Historic Paint Pigments](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/the-cadmium-dilemma-tightening-regulations-and-the-fight-over-historic-paint-pigments/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## When Oxford Feldspar Vanished: Why Studio Potters Are Scrambling to Reformulate Their Glazes - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/when-oxford-feldspar-vanished-why-studio-potters-are-scrambling-to-reformulate-their-glazes/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-05T22:55:00-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Oxford feldspar, once a staple ingredient in American studio pottery glaze recipes, including those in Daniel Rhodes’s influential 1957 book, is no longer mined and has no guaranteed replacement. Potters, who represent a tiny fraction of the raw materials market, cannot influence mining decisions driven by industrial buyers, making Oxford one of several discontinued feldspars including Buckingham, Yankee, and Maine Spar. Reformulating affected glazes requires substituting within the same feldspar family( potassium, sodium, or lithium) and testing results, since material composition varies between deposits. The current feldspar supply remains limited to a handful of materials, each vulnerable to similar discontinuation, making material literacy and careful testing essential skills for potters. Start with the uncomfortable fact: Oxford feldspar is gone, and it is not coming back. The potassium-based feldspar — mined in Oxford County, Maine, and once a default ingredient in American studio pottery — is no longer being mined at all. If you have a bin of it in your studio, Ceramic Arts Network’s guidance is blunt: when it runs out, there may be no readily available resupply. Every glaze recipe built on it is now a recipe with an expiration date. This is not ancient history for the potters affected. Daniel Rhodes built nearly every clay and glaze recipe in his landmark 1957 book _Clay and Glazes for the Potter_ on Oxford feldspar, and generations of potters learned glaze mixing from books just like it. Those recipes never stopped circulating. They are in studio binders and shared glaze databases right now, calling for a material the market walked away from — which is why so many studio potters are spending this era doing the least glamorous work in ceramics: reformulating glazes they thought were finished. ## Why Potters Can’t Just Save It The math is not in the studio’s favor. Potters represent a fraction of a percent of the raw materials market — by one Ceramic Arts Network estimate, less than 0.01% of the producers’ market for clay-body materials. The fate of any given material is decided by industrial buyers in construction, glass, and manufacturing. When mining a feldspar stops being profitable at industrial scale, it stops — and there is frequently still enough of the mineral in the ground to supply potters for hundreds of years. It is not scarcity. It is economics. Oxford is simply the name potters know best from a long casualty list: G-200 has cycled through multiple reformulated versions, and older standbys like Buckingham, Yankee, and Maine Spar are gone too. ## The Reformulation Rules The working rules for substitution are strict, and getting them wrong changes the fired result. Feldspars fall into three families — potassium, sodium, and lithium— and a substitute must come from the same family as the original. Oxford is a potassium feldspar, so its heirs are the surviving potash spars such as Custer and G-200 HP. The classic mistake is reaching for Minspar 200, a sodium feldspar, in a recipe written for a potash spar: the glaze will melt differently, and the potter who made the swap often can’t tell why the surface changed. Even a correct-family swap is a starting point, not a finish. Raw materials shift subtly in chemistry and particle size from deposit to deposit and sometimes from bag to bag, which is why the standing advice is to test any reformulated glaze before committing it to a production batch. Today’s common U.S. feldspar shelf is short— G-200 HP, Custer, Minspar 200, nepheline syenite, and spodumene cover most of it— and every name on it is one mine’s business decision away from joining Oxford. The potters reformulating now are learning the durable skill: know your materials’ families, keep your test tiles, and never fall so in love with a recipe that you can’t rebuild it. ## Sources Ceramic Arts Network, “Out of Stock, Not Out of Luck: Guidelines for Raw Material Substitutions” — https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/out-of-stock–not-out- of-luck–guidelines-for-raw-material-substitutions Ceramic Arts Network, “Material Substitutions for Clay Bodies” — https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/ceramic-recipes/ recipe/Material-Substitutions-for-Clay-Bodies Ceramic Arts Network, “Glaze Material Substitutions” — https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/ceramic-recipes/recipe/Glaze-Material- Substitutions Ceramic Arts Network, “Economics and Raw Materials” — https://ceramicartsnetwork. org/ceramics-monthly/ceramics-monthly-article/economics-and-raw-materials The post [When Oxford Feldspar Vanished: Why Studio Potters Are Scrambling to Reformulate Their Glazes](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/when-oxford-feldspar-vanished-why-studio-potters-are-scrambling-to-reformulate-their-glazes/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## Gold Doubled, and Silver Surged 300%: How the 2026 Precious Metals Spike Is Reshaping the Bench Jeweler’s Bench - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/gold-doubled-and-silver-surged-300-how-the-2026-precious-metals-spike-is-reshaping-the-bench-jewelers-bench/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-05T22:55:00-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Gold and silver prices experienced extreme volatility between mid-2025 and late 2026, with gold rising roughly 66% to a record $5,318.40 before falling 22.86% by November 2026, and silver more than tripling before dropping 54.61% from its peak. This volatility has significantly impacted jewelers, who identified gold as the material most affecting their business, with mixed financial outcomes reported across the trade. In response, jewelers are adopting new practices: repricing listings based on current metal prices, shortening quote validity periods, monitoring scrap and dead inventory values, and preparing to address customer questions about metal weight and melt value. Additional cost pressures stem from the elimination of a U.S. customs exemption for small overseas shipments. Forecasts remain mixed, with some projecting continued price increases while recent market data show declines, suggesting that ongoing volatility will remain a standard business condition. The numbers first, because they are staggering. Gold settled at $3,390.20 an ounce on August 25, 2025. Five months later, on January 29, 2026, it settled at $5,318.40— a record, and the top of a run that saw gold gain roughly 66% across 2025 and end the year near $4,400. Silver was wilder: from a low of $36.71 on July 31, 2025, it more than tripled to a peak settlement of $115.50 on January 26, 2026. If you make jewelry for a living, those are not market trivia. Those are your raw materials, repriced like a meme stock. And the ride did not stop at the top. By November 5, 2026, front-month gold was settling at $4,102.50 — down 22.86% from its record settlement — and silver at $ 52.23, down a brutal 54.61% from its record. A bench jeweler quoting a custom piece in January and buying the metal in November, or the reverse, is working in two different economies. ## The Bench Feels It First Trade polling backs up what benches already know. In INSTORE’s Big Survey 2026, 94% of jewelers surveyed said gold was the raw material whose price changes had the biggest impact on their business — silver trailed at 2%. Asked how the spike ultimately treated them, 53% said it left them richer, 14% said poorer, and 33% reported no impact — a split that tracks who held inventory bought cheap, and who had to restock at the top. The quiet killer is the stale price tag. Guidance for handmade sellers this fall put it bluntly: as of early September 2026, gold was trading around $4,400–$4,500 an ounce and silver around $65–$68, with silver up more than 100% year over year— meaning any listing priced off last year’s materials cost is likely losing money on every sale. Add the August 2025 elimination of the U.S. de minimis duty exemption, which put customs costs on small overseas shipments of findings, chain, and beads that used to enter duty-free, and the materials line on a maker’s spreadsheet has been hit from two directions at once. ## What Working Jewelers Are Doing About It The playbook emerging across the trade is unglamorous and necessary. Reprice existing listings against current metal cost, not against what the piece “should” cost. Quote custom work with a shorter fuse, because a quote honored at January prices and cast at March prices is a donation. Watch the melt value of your own scrap and dead inventory— at $4,000-plus gold, the bench sweeps and the forgotten casting grain in the drawer are a bank account. And expect customers to ask harder questions: when a gold chain reads as an asset instead of an accessory, buyers ask about weight, melt, and liquidity, and the jeweler who can answer plainly keeps the sale. Forecasters are still split on what comes next. JP Morgan has projected an average gold price of $5,055 by the final quarter of 2026, rising toward $5,400 by the end of 2027, while the market itself just spent October doing the opposite — gold fell about 6% and silver about 19% in a single month. The only honest forecast for a working jeweler is this: volatility is the new normal, and pricing like it is not pessimism. It is survival. ## Sources Kitco / CPM Group market commentary, Nov 5, 2026 — https://www.kitco.com/opinion/ 2026-11-05/cpm-market-commentary-gold-and-silver-investments Wall Street Journal,“ Gold Settles Higher As Yields, U.S. Dollar Weaken” — https://www.wsj.com/finance/ commodities-futures/gold-flat-after-midterm-linked-rebound-2d7cca6a Global Economy Charts, “Gold & Silver October 2026 Slump,” Nov 3, 2026 — https://globaleconomycharts. com/2026/11/03/gold-silver-october-2026-slump-ratio/ INSTORE, The Big Survey 2026: Market Dynamics — https://instoremag.com/the-big-survey-2026-market-dynamics/ Price Profit Tools, “How to Price Handmade Jewelry: 2026 Formula” — https://priceprofittools. com/guides/how-to-price-handmade-jewelry/ The post [Gold Doubled, and Silver Surged 300%: How the 2026 Precious Metals Spike Is Reshaping the Bench Jeweler’s Bench](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/gold-doubled-and-silver-surged-300-how-the-2026-precious-metals-spike-is-reshaping-the-bench-jewelers-bench/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## The Holiday Market Season Is So Strong, Towns Are Adding Dates - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/the-holiday-market-season-is-so-strong-towns-are-adding-dates/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:20:28-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Holiday craft markets across the United States are expanding in 2026, with towns adding extra dates and venues to meet shopper demand. Examples include Denville, New Jersey’s second Makers’ Market date, Herkimer College’s 100-vendor juried fair, large multi-floor events in Rochester and Minneapolis, and Marshall, North Carolina’s reopening of its hurricane-damaged arts council building. The piece argues these markets serve as the direct, unmediated starting point of the handmade economy, where buyers connect personally with makers through storytelling and demonstration. It offers practical advice for first-time vendors—juried quality, live demonstrations, storytelling, and follow-up contact—and tips for shoppers, framing markets as essential, irreplaceable spaces for discovering handmade goods. One market day used to be enough. This year, in town after town, it isn’t. Denville, New Jersey, planned its Makers’ Market for the first Sunday of November. Then the Denville Arts Council added a second one — Sunday, November 15 — and billed both mornings as a head start on holiday shopping. When a town doubles a market instead of just holding it, that is not scheduling. That is demand, measured in people showing up with lists in their hands. Denville is not an exception this season. It is the pattern. From juried fairs filling college halls to a North Carolina arts council reopening its doors after a hurricane, the 2026 holiday market season is running big — and it is worth paying attention to why, because these markets are where the handmade economy actually starts. ![A holiday makers' market at dusk, stalls lit with string lights](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a3-market-dusk.jpg) ## Added Dates and Juried Halls In Herkimer, New York, the Herkimer Arts and Crafts Fair takes over Herkimer College on Saturday, November 7, with more than 100 vendors — pottery, woodworking, textiles, weaving, paintings, soaps, jewelry. It is a juried show, which means someone looked at the work before it got a table, and the proceeds benefit the college foundation and its scholarships. A hundred makers in one hall is not a church-basement craft sale. It is a regional draw. Rochester’s newspaper needed a roundup of 20 holiday markets and art shows just to keep track of the season, including the Holiday Bazaar at the Rochester Museum& Science Center — five floors, more than 150 juried exhibitors, November 20 through 22. In Minneapolis, Dayton’s Holiday Market brings more than 70 independent vendors to Nicollet Mall from November 12 through December 24, and the Northrup King Building’s Art Attack opens four floors of working studios November 13 through 15. Read those numbers plainly: hundreds of makers, thousands of shoppers, and organizers adding dates and floors because one weekend does not hold them all. ![Shoppers walking a busy outdoor holiday market aisle at golden hour, under evergreen garlands and string lights, past stalls of quilts, jars and pottery](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a3-market-aisle.jpg) ## The Comeback in Marshall The strongest story of the season might be in Marshall, North Carolina. The Madison County Arts Council’s Holiday Market runs November 27 through December 23 — its first season in the council’s newly renovated building since Hurricane Helene. About 50 artists set up individual booths, with demonstrations and pop-up events running through the season. Ceramic artist Katie Graham, who will bring raku-fired wall pieces and ornaments, put the whole case for markets in one sentence: “When you buy something locally handmade, you are not only buying an object but a sense of place and time.” Joe Bruneau has been weaving baskets for nearly four decades and learned the craft at a weekend workshop. That is what a market floor holds: forty years of one man’s hands, and a potter explaining what a kiln did to a glaze — in person, while you hold the piece. A town that lost its arts building to a storm rebuilt it and filled it with makers for Christmas. That tells you what these markets are worth to the places that host them. ## The Front Door of the Handmade Economy Here is what the numbers do not show. A market is the one place in this business where nothing is mediated. No algorithm decides whether a maker gets seen. The shopper picks up the work, feels the weight of it, and asks the only question that matters: who made this? The answer starts a relationship that outlasts the afternoon. The shopper takes a card, follows the maker online, and buys again in March — a birthday, a wedding, a new house. Makers across the country build their year on exactly that arc, and it is the same arc independent-artist marketplaces like Crafty Corner in Halstead, Kansas, are built on: the maker and the buyer, connected directly, with the story attached to the work. Markets are where that connection starts face to face, and the same pattern plays out at holiday markets across the country, Kansas included. ## If You’re Selling at a Market for the First Time The big fairs get four things right, and none of them cost much money. **They jury the work.** Quality control is why shoppers trust the room. If your market does not jury, jury yourself: bring your best, not your most. **They demonstrate.** Herkimer and Marshall both build demonstrations into the day. A maker working at the table — weaving, throwing, carving — stops traffic better than any sign. **They tell the story at the table.** Where the wood came from, what the glaze did, why this pattern. Graham’s line about place and time is not poetry; it is what the shopper repeats when they give the gift. **They make the next sale possible.** A card, a list sign-up, a way to find you in March. The market day ends; the relationship is the inventory you carry home. ![A potter wrapping a speckled mug in kraft paper at a market stall stacked with handmade mugs and bowls](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2026/11/a3-potters-stall.jpg) ## If You’re Shopping One Go early — the one-of-one pieces do not wait. Ask who made it, and how; the answer is half the gift. Take the maker’s card and keep it with the piece. And when a town adds a second date, use it — but do not count on a third. ## The Takeaway The handmade economy does not start with a website or a warehouse. It starts at a folding table, in a college hall, in a rebuilt arts council building, with a maker standing behind their own work. This season, there are more tables, more floors, and more dates than the calendar used to hold — because shoppers keep showing up for the one thing that cannot be mass-produced: meeting the person who made it. Go meet one. --- ## Sources * Denville Makers’ Market adds a second holiday date — Denville Now: [https://denvillenow.com/news/community/denville-makers-market-november-15/](https://denvillenow.com/news/community/denville-makers-market-november-15/) * Herkimer Arts and Crafts Fair, November 7, 2026 — Utica Phoenix: [https://uticaphoenix.net/herkimer-arts-and-crafts-fair/](https://uticaphoenix.net/herkimer-arts-and-crafts-fair/) * Madison County Arts Council Holiday Market returns — The Laurel of Asheville: [https://thelaurelofasheville.com/arts/mcac-holiday-market-brings-handmade-gifts-back-to-renovated-arts-council-building/](https://thelaurelofasheville.com/arts/mcac-holiday-market-brings-handmade-gifts-back-to-renovated-arts-council-building/) * 20 holiday markets near Rochester worth checking out in 2026 — Democrat and Chronicle: [https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/lifestyle/2026/11/02/holiday-markets-and-art-shows-near-rochester-ny-in-2026/92133874007/](https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/lifestyle/2026/11/02/holiday-markets-and-art-shows-near-rochester-ny-in-2026/92133874007/) * November sales and events roundup — Midwest Design Magazine: [https://www.midwestdesignmag.com/featured/sales-events-november-presents-ample-holiday-shopping-seasonal-cheer/](https://www.midwestdesignmag.com/featured/sales-events-november-presents-ample-holiday-shopping-seasonal-cheer/) The post [The Holiday Market Season Is So Strong, Towns Are Adding Dates](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/the-holiday-market-season-is-so-strong-towns-are-adding-dates/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## Knitting Needles Over Notifications: Gen Z Picks Up the Old Crafts - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/knitting-needles-over-notifications-gen-z-picks-up-the-old-crafts/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:20:23-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Young adults, particularly those under thirty-five, are increasingly taking up traditional crafts such as knitting, crochet, embroidery, and puzzles, often jokingly labeled“ grandma hobbies.” Data from retailers and surveys show significant growth: Michaels reported a 136% rise in related searches and a 40% increase in yarn sales, while surveys found most crocheters are young adults and a large majority of Gen Z identify as “makers.” This resurgence is attributed to a desire to disconnect from screens, find tangible proof of accomplishment, and build community through shared learning, similar to how older generations passed down these skills. The trend benefits both younger beginners and experienced older crafters, who are gaining renewed recognition as teachers and experts. The piece also outlines practical implications for sellers and teachers, emphasizing accessible entry points, transparent materials, authentic video content, and community engagement. Somewhere tonight, a twenty-four-year-old is sitting on a couch with a half-finished scarf in her lap, a tangle of yarn at her feet, and a phone lying face-down on the armrest — on purpose. Online, the pastimes she and her friends have taken up have earned a nickname: “grandma hobbies.” Knitting. Crochet. Embroidery. Sewing. Jigsaw puzzles. The name is a joke, but the numbers behind it are not. The people picking up the oldest crafts in the house are the youngest adults in it, and they are showing up in numbers big enough to move an industry. This is not a fad story about a few viral videos. This is a measured shift, reported in the data of the companies that sell the yarn. ![Hands crocheting a mustard-yellow square with yarn and a cup of tea nearby](https:// craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a2-crochet-hands.jpg) ## The Numbers, Plainly Start with the biggest craft retailer in the country. According to the 2026 Michaels Creativity Trend Report, online searches for embroidery, knitting, and crochet jumped 136% in six months, and yarn-related sales rose 40%. Those are reported figures from Michaels’ own trend reporting, and they describe demand, not sentiment — people were not just watching videos about yarn. They were buying it. YPulse, which surveys young consumers, found that 73% of crocheters are between 18 and 34. The same research found that 18-to-34-year-olds are the group most likely to sit down with a jigsaw puzzle every month — ahead of the generations the puzzle table supposedly belongs to. And in a 2025 survey cited by The Wall Street Journal, 86% of Gen Z respondents identified themselves as a “maker.” Not a consumer. Not a follower. A maker. The money agrees. One industry estimate put the global knitting and crochet market at $10.15 billion in 2025, projected to reach $17.93 billion by 2034. However the trend lines settle, a craft that written-off observers once treated as a nursing- home pastime is now a growth market carried largely by people under thirty-five. ## Why the Youngest Hands Reach for the Oldest Tools Ask around, and the same reason keeps surfacing: the screen. Fortune has reported on a sewing revival among young people who are, in plain terms, desperate to get off their phones. One industry analysis found that 31% of respondents turn to hands- on hobbies specifically when they need a break from the online world. A crochet hook has no notifications. A seam does not refresh. A puzzle piece fits, or it doesn’t, and nobody’s opinion about it arrives in a comment thread. There is also the matter of proof. A finished object is a fact. In a feed full of claims, a hat you made with your own hands just sits there being real. Making things has become a form of identity for a generation that grew up performing identity online — except this version is tactile, private when you want it to be, and impossible to fake with a filter. And it is social in the older sense of the word. Stitch nights, craft circles, friends teaching friends over a table: the revival travels person to person, the way these crafts always traveled. Your grandmother learned from someone sitting next to her. So, it turns out, does a college sophomore. The tutorial video may start the lesson, but the community is what keeps the project — and the crafter — going. ![Three pairs of hands knitting and crocheting around a table with a basket of yarn]( https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a2-craft-circle.jpg) ## Two Generations, One Table It is worth saying plainly: nobody is being mocked here, in either direction. The“ grandma” in the nickname carries more respect than it first appears to. Young crafters are not ironically borrowing these skills; they are discovering, sometimes with surprise, that the older generation was holding something valuable all along — patience, thrift, the discipline of fixing and mending instead of replacing, and the deep calm of work that takes exactly as long as it takes. Meanwhile, the older makers who never put their needles down are watching a market that once ignored them reprice their knowledge as expertise. Longtime knitters and quilters are becoming teachers, pattern writers, and shop owners to an audience that actually wants what they know. The table got bigger. Both sides brought something. ![An embroidery hoop with half-finished red and gold flowers, needle and brass scissors]( https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a2-embroidery-hoop. jpg) ## What This Means If You Make Things If you sell handmade work, teach a craft, or run a small shop, this revival is not just a nice story — it is your next customer arriving early. A few plain implications: * **Stock the doorway, not just the destination.** Beginners need entry-level kits, honest starter materials, and small first projects that finish in days, not months. The first completed scarf sells the second skein. * **Sell honest materials and say what they are.** A generation raised on fine print checks labels. Fiber content, sourcing, and care — stated plainly — build the trust that advertising cannot. * **Short video is the new shop window.** A ninety-second clip of hands doing real work teaches more, and sells more honestly, than a polished ad. Show the process, mistakes and all. * **Community beats advertising.** Host the stitch night. Answer the beginner’s question like it matters — because to them, it does. Crafty Corner, an art marketplace in Halstead, Kansas where independent artists sell original work, sees the same truth from the art side: people return to places where makers are treated as people. * **Respect both ends of the table.** Market to the twenty-five-year-old beginner without winking at her, and to the seventy-year-old master without patting her on the head. Both can tell. ## Sources Figures in this article are reported figures from the primary sources named below, as covered by The World Reviews. * The World Reviews, “Why Gen Z Is Bringing Traditional Hobbies Back Into American Culture in 2026” — [https://theworldreviews.com/gen-z-traditional-hobbies-return-2026/](https://theworldreviews.com/gen-z-traditional-hobbies-return-2026/) * Michaels Creativity Trend Report 2026 (search growth and yarn sales figures), as cited in the coverage above * YPulse (crocheter age distribution and puzzle participation research), as cited in the coverage above * The Wall Street Journal (2025 survey of Gen Z “maker” identity), as cited in the coverage above * Fortune (reporting on the youth sewing revival), as cited in the coverage above The post [Knitting Needles Over Notifications: Gen Z Picks Up the Old Crafts](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/knitting-needles-over-notifications-gen-z-picks-up-the-old-crafts/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## Etsy Just Made ‘Prove a Human Made It’ the Law of the Handmade World - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/etsy-just-made-prove-a-human-made-it-the-law-of-the-handmade-world/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:20:15-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Etsy announced new policies effective October 22, 2026, requiring sellers to prove human authorship of their products. The rules ban AI-written functional guides like knitting patterns and recipes, require at least one unedited photograph of the actual item per listing, and prohibit fully bot-generated listings without human creative involvement. Etsy states buyer confusion over AI-generated content is a major barrier to purchasing, prompting these changes along with expanded detection tools and seller accountability for misleading images. The shift extends beyond Etsy, reflecting a broader trend across marketplaces toward requiring proof of authorship, benefiting genuine makers who can demonstrate their process and creative work. A knitting pattern used to be a simple thing to sell. You wrote down how you made the sweater, someone bought the instructions, and they made the sweater. As of October 22, 2026, Etsy wants proof the pattern ever touched a real pair of hands — and that demand is about to reshape far more than one marketplace. In an Etsy News post titled “Creativity and Trust in the Age of AI,” James Ossman, Etsy’s vice president of customer operations, laid out the most direct answer any major platform has given to a question buyers have been asking for two years now: did a person actually make this? ![A potter holding a handmade mug up to a phone camera on a workbench](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a1-mug-camera.jpg) ## What Etsy Actually Changed Three rules carry the weight of the announcement, and each one is aimed at a different kind of doubt. First, AI-written functional guides are banned outright. Patterns for knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, quilting, and beading, along with recipes and woodworking plans, must now be the seller’s own work. Sellers also have to show an actual result made from those instructions — not a simulated one. The logic is plain: a guide is something a buyer follows with their own time and materials, and a wrong step costs both. Second, every listing for a physical item must include at least one completely unedited photograph of the actual item against a real background. No cropping, no lighting fixes, no swapped backdrop on that one photo. The rest of a listing’s photos can still be edited — AI tools included — as long as they show the item accurately. Digital downloads, print-on-demand goods, and made-to-order pieces are excepted, since some of those items don’t exist in finished form until they’re bought. Third, listings generated by bots with no human involvement are out. AI-made art can still be sold, but only when a person played a clear creative role in it, only with disclosure, and never described as handmade. ## The Reason Is the Story Marketplaces change rules for plenty of reasons, but Etsy stated this one openly: many of its active buyers say they can’t tell which items involve AI-generated content, and Etsy calls that confusion a top-three barrier to shopping more often on the platform. Read that again, because it’s the heart of the matter. The problem isn’t a policy department’s opinion about technology. The problem is a buyer standing at the digital equivalent of a craft fair table, looking at something beautiful, and no longer being sure there’s a maker behind it. When that doubt shows up often enough, people buy less — from everyone, honest sellers included. Etsy is also putting money behind the words. If a buyer opens a case because what arrived differs materially from AI-staged listing photos, the seller may be on the hook for the refund. And the company says it’s expanding its detection tools and giving shoppers an easier way to report misleading imagery. Whether you sell there or not, the enforcement direction is clear: proof is becoming part of the product. ![A hand-thrown vase photographed plainly on a wooden table](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a1-vase.jpg) ## Why This Reaches Well Past Etsy It would be a mistake to file this under “Etsy news” and move on. Etsy is simply the largest room in the handmade economy, and when the largest room changes its house rules, the whole neighborhood hears it. The same buyer doubt exists at craft fairs, on social media, and on every independent shop site. Shoppers have been shown too many polished images of things that didn’t exist, or that arrived looking nothing like the picture. The platforms are converging on the same answer from different directions: proof of authorship. Show the real item. Show the real result. Show the work. For makers, that’s not actually bad news. It’s a sorting mechanism, and it sorts in favor of the people who really make things. A production line of automated listings can imitate a photograph. It has a much harder time imitating a process — the half- finished piece on the bench, the hands in the frame, the imperfect photo taken in ordinary light. The things that used to look unpolished next to staged imagery are becoming the evidence buyers trust most. ## What It Means If You Buy Handmade For buyers, the shift is simpler: you now have better grounds to ask questions, wherever you shop. Where was this made, and by whom? Is there a photo of the actual piece, or only renderings? Does the seller show their process anywhere? A real maker can answer all of that without breaking stride. The answers are the work itself. Asking isn’t rude, either. Makers who do this for a living are used to it — at a fair, you’d watch them work and ask about the piece in the same breath. Online buying deserves the same ordinary confidence. ## The Ground Rule Going Forward Strip away the policy language and one sentence remains: **show your work.** That was always the quiet promise of handmade — that a person stood behind the thing. The promise didn’t change. What’s changing is that the market now asks to see it kept. Here at Crafty Corner — an art marketplace in Halstead, Kansas where independent artists sell original work — we watch moves like this the way farmers watch weather in the next county. It isn’t ours, but it’s coming our way, and it tells everyone in this trade which way the wind blows: toward the makers who can prove it. ![A quilter's worktable with a half-finished quilt block, fabric, pattern pieces, and notes](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/a1-quilt- table.jpg) ## The “Show Your Work” Checklist for Sellers Keep this next to your camera, wherever you sell: * **One honest photo, every listing.** Shoot the actual item against a real background and leave that photo untouched — no crop, no filter, no backdrop swap. * **Process proof.** Keep and post photos of work in progress: early stages, your bench, your hands, the finished piece beside the tools that made it. * **Guides must be yours, with receipts.** If you sell patterns, plans, or recipes, write them yourself and photograph a real result made from your own instructions. * **Disclose machine help plainly.** If software played a creative role in a piece, say so where buyers will see it — and never call something handmade that isn’t. * **Keep your originals.** Save unedited photo files, drafts, and design files. If a platform ever asks who made it, that’s your answer, dated and ready. * **Let the accurate photo win.** Stage the extra shots all you like, but if a prettier image and a truer image disagree, publish the truer one. Refunds are more expensive than honesty. The makers who treat proof as part of the craft won’t just survive this shift. They’re the reason it happened. ## Sources * [Etsy forces sellers to show one unaltered photo in every listing — PPC Land](https://ppc.land/etsy-forces-sellers-to-show-one-unaltered-photo-in-every-listing/) * [Etsy bans AI-written patterns and recipes — Yuphora](https://yuphora.com/news/etsy-ai-listing-rules-unedited-photo-ai-guides-ban) * [Etsy Mandates Unedited Photos and Bans AI-Generated Functional Guides — Asume Tech](https://asumetech.com/2026/10/23/etsy-mandates-unedited-photos-and-bans-ai-generated-functional-guides/) * [Etsy’s New AI Rules (Oct 2026): AI-Assisted Kits — Kit & File](https://kitandfile.com/guides/sell-ai-assisted-kits-buyers-trust) The post [Etsy Just Made ‘Prove a Human Made It’ the Law of the Handmade World](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/etsy-just-made-prove-a-human-made-it-the-law-of-the-handmade-world/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## Duty-Free Is Over: What the End of “De Minimis” Means When You Order Craft Supplies From Overseas - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/de-minimis-craft-supplies-overseas/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:10:55-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott The de minimis exemption, which allowed low-value imports under $800 into the US duty-free, has been phased out through 2025 and 2026 via executive orders and CBP rules, and is permanently terminated by law effective July 1, 2027. This affects crafters who order beads, yarn, fabric, and other supplies from overseas sellers. Mail shipments now require formal customs processes, including tariff classifications, customs bonds, and broker-filed paperwork, with duties paid monthly rather than collected at delivery. Crafters can expect higher supply costs, changed shipping options, and potential delivery delays, while gifts under $100 remain exempt. The piece advises makers to ask shops about pricing, shipping changes, and delivery times, and to consider domestic sourcing when cost-effective. If you buy beads, yarn, findings, fabric, or tools from shops in other countries, the rules behind those little packages have changed a lot over the past year. Orders that once came in duty-free now owe duties, and the paperwork behind each package has grown. A big reason is a customs rule most makers never had to think about: the “de minimis” exemption. For years it let most small packages into the US duty-free. That door has now been closed in stages, and it closes for good by law on July 1, 2027. Here is what changed, when, and what it means for your supply orders. ![A small padded mailer with international postage stamps and a customs label, opened on a craft table to show spools of thread and a strip of glass beads.](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/de-minimis-craft-supplies-1.jpg) ## What “de minimis” was Under Section 321 of the Tariff Act, the government could let low-value imports in without collecting duty, because collecting tiny amounts cost more than it brought in. The limit rose over the years, from $1 in 1938 to $5 in 1978, $200 in 1993, and $800 in 2016. That $800 threshold is how many crafters bought supplies from abroad without ever seeing a customs bill. And it got used a lot. According to CBP, more than 1.36 billion de minimis shipments came through in fiscal year 2024, almost ten times the 139 million in 2015. ## How it ended, step by step **August 29, 2025: suspended for most imports.** An executive order signed July 30, 2025 (E.O. 14324) suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for most imports, effective August 29, 2025. Mail shipments moved to an interim process with duties collected. **July 4, 2025: a permanent end written into law.** The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, terminates the de minimis exemption effective July 1, 2027. So even if the current suspensions changed, the exemption is scheduled to end by statute. **February 20, 2026: the suspension continued.** That day, the Supreme Court held that the emergency-powers law the earlier tariffs relied on (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. The decision did not address the de minimis suspension. A new executive order the same day (E.O. 14388) continued the suspension, including for mail. **June 24, 2026: CBP made it indefinite in its own rules.** U.S. Customs and Border Protection published two interim final rules: * One for shipments arriving **any way other than the international mail**, such as express couriers. It took effect June 24, 2026. All entries of goods valued at $800 or less coming in that way must now use formal or informal entry procedures. * One for shipments arriving **through the international postal network**. It indefinitely suspends de minimis for mail and creates a new postal informal entry process. It took effect July 24, 2026, with part of it effective June 24. CBP says it would keep these suspensions in place under its own authority even without the executive orders, and that any change will be announced in the Federal Register. ![A clean timeline graphic: "Aug 29, 2025: suspended for most imports," "Jun 24, 2026: CBP rules published," "Oct 22, 2026: mail compliance date," "Jul 1, 2027: ends by law."](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/de- minimis-craft-supplies-2.jpg) ## What changed for mail on October 22, 2026 This is the part that most affects small orders sent through ordinary post. Under CBP’s new postal process, mailed shipments valued at $2,500 or less can be entered informally, but with much more paperwork behind them than before: * **The filer has to be the owner or purchaser of the goods, or a licensed customs broker** they designate. * **The filer needs a customs bond.** * **Each shipment needs a 10-digit tariff classification** (HTSUS code), plus a description, country of origin, value, duty rate, and duty owed. * **The filer sends CBP a monthly spreadsheet and pays duties through Pay.gov**, due by the 7th of the month after the package arrives. * **CBP officers will no longer prepare mail entries by hand, and duties will not be collected when the package is delivered** to the addressee under this process. October 22, 2026, was the compliance date for one more piece. Since then, mail shipments that are subject to other federal agencies’ import requirements, to certain additional duties, or that claim duty-free treatment under a trade agreement, can no longer use the new informal mail process. They need formal entry, or the optional “Entry Type 13” test CBP opened for shipments of $2,500 or less. CBP’s own analysis is candid about the bumps. It says that as foreign posts and filers adjust, “there could be temporary hiatuses or reductions of mail from certain countries,” and that importers might need to ship another way or wait. ## What this means at your craft table You probably won’t file anything yourself. For mail, CBP expects that most, if not all, of the monthly filings will be submitted by licensed customs brokers. But the costs and delays can still reach you. A few things to expect and plan for: **Supplies may cost more.** Duties now apply where they didn’t before. CBP’s analysis also notes brokers could pass some of their added costs on through higher fees. A $15 bead order is no longer automatically duty-free. **Shipping options may change.** Post and courier shipments now go through different customs processes, so a shop’s shipping choices and prices for US orders may not be what they were last year. Check before you assume. **Delivery may take longer.** CBP itself flags possible temporary pauses of mail from some countries during the transition. If you need materials for a show or a commission, order earlier than you used to. **Gifts are different.** The rules leave the separate exemption for bona fide gifts( up to $100 sent from someone abroad to someone in the US) unchanged. A purchase from a shop isn’t a gift. ## Questions to ask before you order * **Does the listed price include duties and fees, or will I owe anything?** Ask before you pay, so the total doesn’t surprise you. * **How will it ship, and has that changed?** Post and courier now go through different customs processes. * **What’s the current delivery estimate to the US?** Ask the shop directly rather than trusting an old listing. * **Could I source this domestically?** For some staples, a US supplier may now come out closer in total cost and arrive faster. Compare the landed price, not just the sticker price. ![A notepad checklist next to a laptop on a studio desk, with handwritten lines " Duties included?", "Ships by post or courier?", "Delivery estimate?" and "Domestic option?"](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/de-minimis- craft-supplies-3.jpg) ## The bottom line Duty-free shopping for small overseas packages is gone now, and it is scheduled to stay gone: the law ends the exemption permanently on July 1, 2027. If your supply costs or delivery times jumped this year, this is likely part of the reason. The fix isn’t to stop buying from the makers and suppliers you love abroad. It’s to ask a few more questions up front, order a little earlier, and price your own work with the real cost of your materials in mind. ## Sources * U.S. Customs and Border Protection, [“Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Mail Shipments and New Postal Informal Entry Process”](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/24/2026-12669/indefinite-suspension-of-the-de-minimis-exemption-for-mail-shipments-and-new-postal-informal-entry), interim final rule, Federal Register, June 24, 2026. * U.S. Customs and Border Protection, [“Indefinite Suspension of the De Minimis Exemption for Merchandise Arriving Through All Modes Other Than the International Postal Network”](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/24/2026-12670/indefinite-suspension-of-the-de-minimis-exemption-for-merchandise-arriving-through-all-modes-other), interim final rule, Federal Register, June 24, 2026. * U.S. Customs and Border Protection, [“E-Commerce” and De Minimis Statistics](https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/e-commerce). The post [Duty-Free Is Over: What the End of “De Minimis” Means When You Order Craft Supplies From Overseas](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/de-minimis-craft-supplies-overseas/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## USPS Base Rates Roll Back Jan. 17, Then a Weekly Fuel Surcharge Arrives: A Maker’s Guide to Pricing Shipping Into 2027 - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/usps-rates-2027-fuel-surcharge/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:10:53-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott USPS has applied two stacked temporary price increases to four domestic package products (Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select): an 8% transportation-related increase since April 26, 2026, and a peak-season increase since October 4, 2026. Both are scheduled to roll back on January 17, 2027. Afterward, USPS will introduce a weekly fuel surcharge based on diesel and jet fuel prices, though the starting percentage and exact start date remain unconfirmed. For small sellers who build shipping costs into pricing, these changes mean moving from rates that adjust a few times yearly to ones that can shift weekly. The piece recommends tracking typical package costs, re-pricing after the January rollback, building in a flexible cushion for the fuel surcharge, and checking shipping platforms for how the new fee will be applied. If your shipping costs have felt slippery this year, you are not imagining it. Every package you mail with USPS this holiday season carries two separate temporary increases stacked on top of each other. Both are scheduled to end on January 17, 2027. Then, in January, USPS starts something it has avoided until now: a fuel surcharge that can change every week. For small makers who build shipping into their prices, that is three shifts in a few months. Here is what is happening, what is still unknown, and how to price through it without guessing. ![A simple timeline graphic: "Apr 26: +8% transportation increase," "Oct 4: peak- season prices added," "Jan 17, 2027: both roll back," "January 2027: weekly fuel surcharge begins."](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/ 11/usps-rates-2027-fuel-surcharge-1.jpg) ## Increase one: the 8% transportation change (since April 26) On March 25, 2026, USPS announced a time-limited 8 percent increase to base postage on four domestic package products: Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select. It applies to both retail and commercial prices. USPS said no other products were affected, including First-Class stamps. The increase took effect April 26 and, in USPS’s words, “would remain in place until midnight Central Time on Jan. 17, 2027.” USPS tied it to rising transportation costs and called it “a necessary bridge to a permanent mechanism” for pricing its competitive products. ## Increase two: peak-season prices (since October 4) On August 25, 2026, USPS filed a second notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission. This one is the familiar holiday bump. New prices for the same four products (Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select) took effect October 4, 2026, and roll back on January 17, 2027. The filing is explicit that this is not a replacement for the spring increase. Its footnote says the peak-season changes are “distinct from the transportation-related time-limited changes” that took effect April 26, and are “being made in addition thereto.” So for holiday orders, you are paying base postage that includes both. ## The rollback: January 17, 2027 Both increases are set to end on the same date. The peak-season filing says prices“ will roll back to current levels on January 17, 2027,” and the April increase was set to run until midnight Central Time that same day. USPS’s March announcement added that at that point the Postal Service “can determine if a different long-term approach is needed.” That last line matters, because a different approach is already on the way. ## Then: a fuel surcharge that changes every week On October 26, Supply Chain Dive reported that USPS will begin charging a fuel surcharge on package shipping starting in January 2027. What the reporting describes: * It applies to USPS Ground Advantage, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express and Parcel Select. * It covers domestic shipments only. * It is calculated as a **percentage of base postage**. * It updates **weekly**, based on diesel and jet fuel prices published by the U. S. Energy Information Administration. * The percentage will be published three to five days before it takes effect for diesel-based shipments, and three to four days before for jet-fuel-based shipments. * Negotiated contracts “may have customized language” about whether it applies. USPS told shippers they will receive updates electronically, “through API or other means,” and that historical data will be posted publicly. **What we could not confirm:** the starting percentage and the exact first day of the surcharge. The reporting says “January 2027” and that the percentage is set weekly. None of the sources we reviewed gives a starting rate or a first effective date. We are not going to guess. Watch for the first published percentage a few days before it takes effect. ![A kraft-paper package on a postal scale beside a small chalkboard sign reading" Base postage + weekly fuel %," with a pencil and a price tag on the table.](https:// craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/usps-rates-2027-fuel-surcharge- 2.jpg) ## Why it matters for makers Shipping is one of the places small sellers quietly lose money. A flat “shipping included” price works when postage holds still. It gets harder when the base rate drops on one date and a percentage that moves weekly lands on top of it soon after. Two points from the sources help frame it. First, the surcharge is a percentage of base postage, so heavier and longer-distance packages, which already cost more, will carry a bigger fuel charge in dollars. Second, the base rates you see after January 17 may look lower than December’s, but they will not be the whole cost once the fuel percentage applies. ## Practical steps for re-pricing shipping You don’t need a spreadsheet degree for this. You need a few habits. **1. Know your three or four “typical” packages.** Weigh and measure the boxes you actually ship most: a small print mailer, a medium box, your heaviest item. Write down the weight, dimensions, and the zones you ship to most often. **2. Price those packages at today’s rates.** Use the USPS Postal Explorer price files, which list the time-limited prices running from October 4, 2026 through January 17, 2027. That is your holiday baseline. **3. Re-check right after January 17.** When the rollback happens, price the same packages again. That number is your new base. **4. Add a cushion for fuel, then adjust when the real number posts.** Because the starting percentage isn’t published yet, don’t lock in a fixed shipping price for months. Set a review date for late January, once the first weekly percentage is out, and check it every few weeks after that. **5. If you charge flat or free shipping, revisit what’s baked in.** If shipping is folded into your item price, compare your cushion against what you actually paid on recent labels. Small gaps add up across a season. **6. Check your label platform.** If you buy postage through a marketplace or shipping app, watch for notices about how the fuel surcharge will show up on labels. If you have a negotiated rate, ask whether the surcharge applies to you, since the reporting notes contracts may differ. **7. Keep holiday promises simple.** For the rest of this season, prices are known. Nothing in the January changes affects what you pay for a label you buy in December. ![A maker's notebook page with three sketched package sizes and handwritten columns labeled "Holiday rate," "After Jan 17," and "+ fuel %," with a few check marks.]( https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/usps-rates-2027-fuel- surcharge-3.jpg) ## The bigger picture USPS has said it held off on surcharges for a long time. In March, it said its 8% change was “less than one-third of what our competitors charge for fuel alone.” The weekly fuel fee is, as Supply Chain Dive put it, another step in aligning USPS pricing with how FedEx and UPS already charge. For makers, the takeaway is not that shipping is about to get wildly more expensive. We don’t know that yet. It’s that shipping is moving from a price that changes a few times a year to one that can change every week. Build a little flexibility into how you charge for it, and check it on a schedule instead of finding out from your margins. ## Sources * U.S. Postal Service Newsroom, [“U.S. Postal Service Announces Transportation-Related, Time-Limited Price Change”](https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2026/0325-usps-announces-transportation-related-time-limited-price-change.htm), March 25, 2026. * U.S. Postal Service, [“USPS Notice of Time-Limited Changes in Rates of General Applicability for Competitive Products,” Docket No. CP2026-10](https://prc.arkcase.com/api/prc-dockets/filing/downloadFile?fileId=256305&inline=true), filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission August 25, 2026. * Max Garland, Supply Chain Dive, [“USPS to debut weekly fuel fee in 2027, matching FedEx, UPS practices”](https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/usps-to-debut-weekly-fuel-fee-in-2027-matching-fedex-ups-practices/872778/), October 26, 2026. * USPS Postal Explorer, [“Price Change: Time-Limited 2026 Price Change, October 4, 2026 through January 17, 2027”](https://pe.usps.com/PriceChange/Index). The post [USPS Base Rates Roll Back Jan. 17, Then a Weekly Fuel Surcharge Arrives: A Maker’s Guide to Pricing Shipping Into 2027](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/usps-rates-2027-fuel-surcharge/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com). ## Your Etsy Photos Can Train AI Starting Dec. 16: What the New Terms Say, and What They Don’t - Link: https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/etsy-terms-ai-training-dec-16/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/ - Published: 2026-11-02T21:10:52-06:00 - Author: Shay Elliott Etsy published updated Terms of Use on October 26, effective December 16, 2026, adding language that permits Etsy and its third-party partners to use seller-uploaded content, such as photos, descriptions, and reviews, to develop and train artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. This is separate from Etsy’s October 22 announcement restricting AI-generated listings, which addressed what sellers can sell rather than how their content can be used. The updated Terms do not provide a clear general opt-out for US sellers, and because the content license is perpetual and irrevocable, deleting listings may not stop prior use. Unanswered questions include which third parties qualify as “partners,” what they may build, and whether AI training was already occurring under earlier terms. The same update also restricts outside companies from using Etsy’s data for AI training without permission. If you sell on Etsy, you have probably scrolled past a notice about updated Terms of Use. This one is worth stopping for. Etsy published new Terms on October 26, and they take effect on December 16, 2026. Buried in the section about your content is one new sentence that gives Etsy and its partners permission to use what you upload to build and train artificial intelligence. Here is what that sentence says, what it changes, what it leaves unanswered, and why it is not the same thing as the AI rules Etsy announced a few days earlier. ![A maker's workbench with a phone on a small tripod photographing a finished piece for a listing, with a calendar page marked "Dec 16" pinned on the wall behind it.]( https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/etsy-terms-ai-training- dec-16-1.jpg) ## First, this is not the Oct. 22 announcement. It is easy to blur the two, because they landed four days apart and both involve AI. On October 22, Etsy announced stricter rules for AI-generated products and listing images. According to Value Added Resource, those rules ban AI-created craft patterns and other functional instructions, prohibit fully automated AI listings, and require unedited photographs of the actual product in more situations. Those rules are about what you are allowed to sell and how you must show it. The October 26 Terms update is a different matter. It is not about what you list. It is about what Etsy can do with the photos, descriptions, and other material you have already uploaded, and will upload. ## What the new Terms actually say Etsy’s Terms have long said that you keep ownership of “Your Content,” which includes things like listing photos, descriptions, videos, reviews, and community posts. In exchange for hosting it, you grant Etsy a license to use it. That license was already broad. Section 5 of the Terms describes it as “non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual,” and it covers using, editing, modifying, reproducing, distributing and preparing derivative works from your content. Value Added Resource notes that the earlier version mostly explained those rights in terms of running and promoting the marketplace: translating descriptions, enhancing photos, or featuring products in ads. The new version keeps all of that and adds this sentence: > “This also includes the right for us and our third party partners and vendors > to use Your Content to develop, train, test and improve artificial intelligence > and machine learning technologies, including to improve the Services and/or help > keep them safe, subject to any applicable opt-out rights described in our Privacy > Policy.” A quick note on how we checked this. Etsy’s own Terms page blocked our direct download with an access error. We confirmed the wording two other ways: through a search engine’s indexed copy of Etsy’s live Terms page (Section 5, labeled effective December 16, 2026), and against the same sentence quoted in Value Added Resource’s reporting. The two match word for word. Etsy’s updated Privacy Policy, according to Value Added Resource, also names listing information, product reviews, and community posts as examples of content that may be used to train and develop AI and machine-learning models, including for features like AI-powered listing tools and review summaries. Etsy lists that processing among its “legitimate business interests.” ![A simple two-column graphic: "What you keep" (ownership of your photos, descriptions and videos) and "What Etsy's license now covers" (use, edit, reproduce, and develop, train, test and improve AI), with the effective date Dec. 16, 2026 across the bottom.]( https://craftycornermarketplace.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/etsy-terms-ai-training- dec-16-2.jpg) ## What Etsy says it wants it for An Etsy spokesperson gave Value Added Resource this explanation: > “The recent update to our Terms and Privacy Policy regarding AI Models is intended > to enable Etsy to use user-generated content to improve LLMs that strengthen our > marketplace in service of our community, like AI-powered tools that make running > a shop easier for sellers, surfacing the most relevant items for buyers, and technology > that helps detect fraud.” That is the company’s stated purpose. The Terms themselves are wider than that one statement: the sentence covers Etsy and its “third party partners and vendors.” ## What the Terms don’t say This is where sellers have the most questions, and where the honest answer is often“ we don’t know yet.” **There is no clear, general opt-out for US sellers.** The new sentence mentions“ applicable opt-out rights described in our Privacy Policy.” But Value Added Resource reports that neither the Terms nor the Privacy Policy identifies a general way for US sellers to keep their photos, descriptions, or other uploads out of AI training while continuing to sell on Etsy. Sellers in the European Union and United Kingdom may have additional rights to object to processing of personal information, though the same reporting notes those protections do not necessarily cover every type of creative content. **Deleting may not undo it.** Because the license is perpetual and irrevocable, Value Added Resource notes that removing a listing or closing a shop may not end Etsy’s contractual permission to use content you already uploaded. Etsy has not said how it handles that material in AI training data or models. **Who the “partners and vendors” are, and what they may build.** Etsy’s response did not clarify whether authorized third parties can use seller content to develop AI products unrelated to the marketplace. **Whether this is new.** The old license was already broad enough to give Etsy wide rights, so the new language does not necessarily mean training on seller content is starting for the first time. Etsy did not say whether it has already been using content for model training under the existing Terms. ## The rule runs one way. There is one more piece worth knowing. The same update tightens what outsiders can do. Under the new Terms, third parties may not use content or data taken from Etsy to develop, train, fine-tune, evaluate, or benchmark AI systems without Etsy’s permission, whether they collect it by hand or with automated tools. In plain terms: Etsy and the partners it authorizes can train on your work, and other companies can’t unless Etsy says so. Etsy also gave itself detailed control over automated “agents” (bots, scripts, browser extensions and AI tools acting for someone) that browse, collect data or buy on the site. ![A one-way arrow diagram: seller uploads flowing to "Etsy and authorized partners," with a closed gate labeled "other AI companies: permission required."](https://craftycornermarketplace. com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/etsy-terms-ai-training-dec-16-3.jpg) ## What you can do before Dec. 16 None of this requires panic, but it does reward a little attention. * **Read Section 5 yourself.** The new Terms are posted now, and Etsy links the version in effect through December 15 so you can compare. * **Check the Privacy Policy for any opt-out that applies to you.** If you are in the EU or UK, look closely at your rights to object to processing. * **Think about what you upload going forward.** You can’t pull back the license on what is already posted, but you choose what new photos, process shots, and descriptions you add. * **Keep your own originals and records.** Your full-resolution files, sketches, and dated work-in-progress photos are yours. They are also your best evidence of authorship. * **Ask Etsy directly.** The open questions above are fair ones. Sellers asking them in writing is how answers tend to get published. Your work is still yours. The question Etsy’s new Terms raise is how much of it you want to hand over as training material, and that decision deserves to be made on purpose. ## Sources * Etsy, [Terms of Use](https://www.etsy.com/legal/terms/), Section 5, version effective December 16, 2026. Direct fetch was blocked (HTTP 403); the clause was confirmed through a search engine’s indexed copy of the live page and against Value Added Resource’s quotation. * Liz Morton, Value Added Resource, [“Etsy Expands AI Training Rights Over Seller Content, Tightens Rules For Third-Party AI Use”](https://www.valueaddedresource.net/etsy-expands-ai-training-rights/), published October 29, 2026, updated October 31, 2026. Includes Etsy spokesperson statement. The post [Your Etsy Photos Can Train AI Starting Dec. 16: What the New Terms Say, and What They Don’t](https://craftycornermarketplace.com/blog/etsy-terms-ai-training-dec-16/cc_feb31d6a7e4ca7bcaf35a5fc/) appeared first on [Crafty Corner Marketplace](https://craftycornermarketplace.com).