Viewing Etsy Purchases by Seller -- Why is This Not an Option?

Little side-gripe here, but I think a long overdue request of Etsy.  I think that buyers should be able to pull up purchases, by seller.  Why is this not a thing?  I can go into my purchases and do a search,  but not by seller, only by keyword in the item's listing title.  Big help.

Being a designer/artist who uses tons of imagery and illustration who has been purchasing artwork for over 15 years, the amount purchased is huge.  This means that I have indeed bought images twice, and even three times without realizing it.  To ask buyers to scroll through 150 pages of purchases is cruel.

Now when I find something I like, I have to go to my purchases tab and do a search using a keyword from the description/title of the art I am considering buying to make sure I haven't bought it before.  WHY???

Or, how about this, you add it to your cart and the software tells you you have purchased it before and when you did so.  How's that for a novel idea? 

Come on Etsy. Be a help to your buyers!

The Annoyance of AI Art

 Where to begin?  Okay, I cannot stand AI art.

It's just 'off'.

Being a jewelry designer and artist, the bulk of the items I make my pieces with use beautiful old images and illustrations from eras gone by or new beautiful artwork of living artists.  I showcase their work and give them credit in the listing or buy licenses in order to use it in items in my Etsy store (just so you know).

Then along came AI.  I cannot seem to get away from it.  Even artists that I have been buying from for years have seemingly succumbed to the attraction of letting the computer fill in the holes, or worse, let the computer do it all!  LOL

I am going to show some of the images so that you can understand what I'm talking about in case you don't already see it yourself.

At first this image looked beautiful to me.  I loved the colors, the details on the bird and of course, the flowers.  But look closer.

Look at the bird's feet, or lack thereof.  look at the leaves on the bush, take a long look at the petals on the flowers.  They are nothing more than suggestions of things.  Like they have been put into a blender and then haphazardly blotted onto the picture, just to give us the vibe of what the artist wanted to get across.  I cannot stand it, and it is everywhere.  For me, it's a deal-killer.  It's a deal-killer because I make jewelry and jewelry components highlighting the beautiful imagery.  I want people to look at the images as focal pieces because they are so pretty.  But this....no.  The more I look at the image above, the more I dislike it.

The pretty teacup stack!  Or at least I thought so initially.  And like a fool, I bought the clipart before taking a really close look at it.

I love the seemingly pretty detail on the teacups above, but again look closely.  Look at those cup handles!  Are you kidding me?  How could this be used as the focus for anything without making somebody think something is wrong.  Ugh.

And lastly in this discussion.  The headless fish...

This is a legit sample.  How did this ever pass muster with this artist?  I have bought quite a bit of her artwork to used and loved it.  I do suspect there was some AI involvement in the other stuff I purchased, but the work was very well polished and pretty.  What happened?  Sigh.

So, I guess the purpose of this post is to let people know, beware of what you are buying, look at it very closely before pushing that purchase button.   Maybe by lack of sales these folks will get the hint.

I do wish that there would have to be a disclaimer from sites like Etsy that require sellers to disclose that AI was used in the creation of the piece.  Sure would save me bunches of time and not even click on the image in the first place.

It certainly makes me appreciate the older vintage stuff that is out there.

PS I guess the clap-back response would be to say, make your own, but it's a bad defense for poorly made artwork that is put up for sale and like I said, I love showcasing nice artwork in my jewelry.  Also, in a nod to the people peddling this stuff, they are not being misleading, there are many images that show the errors.  Hence my suggestion to look very closely before buying any of it.

Hello Again!

Hold on, this a long post made up from several drafts that were never published.  There is so much to unpack!

In late 2022 I sold my house in Texas.  I had been wanting to do it for some time, but never took the plunge.  I finally got up the nerve to contact a realtor and let it go.  It sold in a week.  The market was still really hot down there thankfully and I got much more than I thought I would.  The big part is invested, the smaller has gone to some small fix-it type stuff that was put on hold.  That doesn't mean mama didn't get a goodie!  I took the big step forward and purchased......a......large 60 Watt Aeon Mira 7 CO2 laser.  OMG.  I still can't believe I did it!  It was supposed to arrive in January 2023 until I got hurt (as detailed in my next paragraph).

So, most of my self-promises regarding my new downstairs crafts room turned into not happening.  Laugh out loud!  But, I get back up on that horse and keep on going.  Shortly after the first paragraph of this post, I stepped onto my granddaughters Mermaid Barbie car (while my hands were full of boxes and I did not see it), and slammed onto my knee.  I was positive it was broken, but hey!  it wasn't.  I was out of work for 2.5 weeks recovering with a giant hematoma underneath my knee cap.  To this day, it is still there, slowly, very slowly resorbing and with luck it will be completely gone in another year or so.

So finally, in April 2023, my beautiful Aeon Mira 7 arrived.  And boy did that take some planning.  I had to hire 2 Men and a Truck for an hour to move it into the house, it weighed about 400 pounds!  She, "Jaxonista", is a beaut.

Fast-forward to today, May 2024 and I've been using my laser for over a year.  The thing is absolutely amazing and I feel as though every time I use it, I discover something else I can do with it.  Along with the  laser I bought a T-shirt press, dye sublimation printer, oodles and oodles of acrylic, leather, wood, rubber, mylar stencil material, the list goes on and on.  I have made so much and I get giddy just thinking about all of the new things I can make with it.  Obviously there are some things that cannot be cut with a CO2 laser.  Craft foam, anything PVC, including shrink plastic, and vinyl to name a few.  So the electronic die-cutter, my KNK Max Air, is used to cut those.  But, I find that I RARELY use it and the couple of times I went upstairs to cut some shrink plastic, I had to remember how I did it!  Scary!   Especially considering I had used that thing constantly since 2012.

I really cut off a lot of the detail from the original drafts I had typed because the time sequences and verb tenses were off and would have required too much editing.  

I have made tons of wood jewelry, acrylic jewelry, polymer clay jewelry (using stamps I cut from rubber), you name it.  It's so damned cool! 

I really hope I can do more to keep this blog going with more consistent updates.  Ta ta for now.