Dinara Mirtalipova (& the Etsy Design Awards!)

Posted on June 24, 2015

I am a bit in love with Dinara Mirtalipova’s Etsy shop. I found her via Flow Magazine’s French Facebook page (which sounds super convoluted, but what can you do?!) and I’m really loving everything that I see. Perhaps you will like her work too?

She’s an Uzbek lady, based in the US. Tea towels, illustration and cooking are her business. Here she talks about how important cooking with kids really is:

“I once was a super busy mom who worked 40 hours at a day job and who freelanced at night. Sabrina was 2 years old and she was staying at home with the grandpa. I missed seeing her so much and I felt like I didn’t spend enough quality time with my child.

On Saturday mornings I was usually preparing breakfast, while everybody was still asleep. One morning Sabrina brought her stool and asked if she could join me and help. That was it! That was the moment I realized how happy she felt from being part of breakfast preparation, how important and valued and proud she felt of her cracking the eggs all by herself and mixing and stirring and wiping off her messes.

I instantly wanted to tell all of my close relatives how awesome that morning was for the both of us and more importantly, I was eager to hear stories of others of how they cook together with their kids and what is it that they are making.”

Dinara Mirtalipova

How great. I think a Dinara vis LunchLady mash-up would be an ace idea, in fact! Dinara has a bunch of gorgeous prints in her Etsy shop too (on paper, rather than on tea towels.) They remind me of the fairy tale books I loved so much as a kid, all swirling hair and pretty frocks and dancing horses. Super lovely.

While we are talking Etsy, I wanted to tell you about something that’s happening more locally with Etsy. It’s the 2015 Etsy Design Awards. Etsy wants to recognise and reward local makers and sellers and there are a bunch of categories you can nominate in/for including: Art & Illustration, Home & Living, Fashion & Accessories, Business As Usual, Community Choice and New Talent.

Maybe you could put some of your faves up for a nomination? I think that would be nice for them. They might also win a feature in awards sponsor Inside Out magazine and a visit to Etsy’s Brooklyn HQ! Cool. I would like to go to Brooklyn one day.

Follow along via the #etsydesignawards hashtag if you are hashtag-inclined.
Get the full story at the special, super fancy Etsy Design Awards micro-site.

Hope you are having a wonderful week!

Much love to you!