Published by Vanessa Brunner under Reuse/Recycle

With the increased popularity of upcycling, recycling, reusing, and restoring, it’s no surprise that the craft, cottage, and DIY industries have quickly risen to the top of the market.

Sites like Etsy, magazines like Craftzine, and DIY blogs are popping up everywhere. With the benefit of being cheap and (most often) being green, people are doing everything from birthday presents, to baby showers, to weddings themselves. The results are often outstanding.

A sampling of the Editor's daily picks on Etsy

Check out 100 Layer Cake for example, a blog that highlights DIY weddings with vintage and handmade touches. The weddings are beautiful–and all the more meaningful because of the time, thought, and care that went into them.

However, there is a dark side to the craft world, which over-eager crafties can quickly turn to.

A cupcake liner garland from 100layercake.com/blog

Embarrassingly enough, I am an avid Regretsy reader. Some of the posts on there are pretty unbelievable. Some are clearly jokes, some are really not that bad, but some….well. It’s always a surprise that someone would think that they could sell an army jacket with doilies and pompoms on it for $500.

My question is, are these types of items ruining the validity of the craft industry? Do sites like Regretsy encourage cynicism and doubts over handcrafted objects? Is there a point when upcycling goes too far?

While I’ve been thinking about this for a while, the thought was cemented in my mind today after reading a post on Ecouterre about a Dutch designer who is making jackets out of used blow-up dolls. His concept is pretty interesting…but seriously? Unhygenic is the first of many words that come to mind…

Image courtesy of sanderreijgers.nl