Etsy Poland Team: FEATURED SELLER: MadeBySunflower

Kornelia is the owner of Made by Sunflower, an Etsy shop featuring gorgeous and intricate wire wrapped jewelry as well as tutorial on how to make your own.

What do you create?

I make jewelry out of silver using a time consuming technique - wire-wrapping. It gives me a lot of flexibility though, I'm pretty much only limited by my own imagination. So far, I myself, don't know where those limits are. Wire-wrapping requires a lot of precision and patience. You can't rush it because beautiful things happens slowly.

What else do you do besides creating?

I create some more. Making jewelry is my full time job. Every so often I take some time off to travel across Poland to visit my parents and the rest of my family. I have 3 godchildren (2 girls 4 and 11 months old and a 2 year old boy). But even when I'm gone, I try to work a little just so that I don't loose the skill and when I get home, I have that a lot of new ideas and fresh energy to continue creating.

How did you adventure with jewelry start?

It started with glass beads and silver plated findings. In the last 5 years a lot has changed in the way people view handmade jewelry and the way I myself look at what I do. I gave up glass beads a while back for precious and semiprecious stones and they look a lot better wrapped in silver.

Describe your creative process

The process differs from day to day. Sometimes, I get to make something exactly the way I planned and sometimes I just sit there starting at the wire and stones. Sometimes one project becomes something completely different once in the middle of the process. Unfortunately not all of my ideas end up the way I had envisioned them. Pieces become parts of something bigger and all of a sudden they don't look as good anymore.

But when I put my mind to a concept because I really want to finish a piece, I work on it for hours at a time, only taking brakes to check out what's going on on Etsy and in my inbox.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I don't get inspired by any specific object. I get my inspiration from everything that surrounds us - nature, design on a curtain, music, movies ... Everybody receives their surrounding differently.

What are your favorite Etsy stores?

There are lot of them. I find stores with fantastic items everyday, that's why I love making and browsing thru treasuries. EuroWeek on Etsy helped me discover lots of great stores from Europe. Also Polish artist have a lot show to for themselves. I feel that we create items of high quality. In Poland people pay a lot of attention to details and quality of product. Even though, the items are handmade, they look for machinelike precision.

And if you somebody is curious as to what I admire on Etsy, please feel free to browse thru my favorites.

What are you currently working on?

I'm always trying to acquire new skills. Even though I'm a self taught artist, I'm fascinated by traditional jewelry making. Lately, I've been trying to combine wire-wrapping with traditional stone setting.

I'm also in the process of getting ready for a photo shoot with my jewelry featured on models. For me it's real fun and also an opportunity to meet interesting people and also a good way to promote yourself on Etsy. Pictures with models are more frequently chosen for treasuries which means that those items have higher changes of ending up in newsletters and on the front page.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I'm not sure where I'll be in a year or two, even more so in 10 years, although I feel like coming up on 30, I should probably start thinking about stuff like that. I know from experience, that plans not always work out. I can't imagine giving up jewelry in the next 10 years, but I also don't know how large my business will get in that time. Maybe, I'll have my own store, or maybe a studio where I'll be teaching others how to do, or maybe I'll be just making jewelry once in a while for myself or my friend...

To find out more about Kornelia, please check out her blog, her website or friend her on facebook.