Regretsy

Regretsy: Where DIY Meets WTF

April Winchell
Villard Books, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group, 2010

I started out reading this book thinking it was a typical DIY book about crafting. Boy, was I wrong!! It is about one woman’s journey through the weird and downright ugly things for sale on the site, ETSY (kind of like Ebay except for the sell only handmade items and vintage premade goods). What started as a joke between friends – buying and sending ugly things off Etsy to Ms Winchell, turned into a website and this book, both named Regretsy. Before you get your hopes up about the website, the author took it down after a few years stating that it was just too hard to keep up with it. I was very disappointed!

In this review, I will attempt to describe a few of the really weird items if I can. Ms Winchell’s writing style is very friendly and sarcastic laced with quite a few curse words so readers be cautioned! There is also a liberal discussion of female genitalia craft which I won’t be discussing here (again, caution for our delicate readers is the watchword here!). Where appropriate, I include the author’s comments in quotation marks.

Categories:
• Jewlery & Accessories – for only $54 you, too, can purchase a barrette made of broken jewelry and an 11 inch mermaid doll! The author puts it this way regarding the dour model in the product picture: “But for God’s sake, at least try to smile. This like a hostage photo at the Mattel plant.”
• Pet Humiliation – for $9 you can purchase your cat a felt diaper complete with felt poo, stuffed with catnip. “Stoned out of your mind with a dirty diaper.”
• Toys and Dolls – how about a sock monkey giving birth to a baby sock monkey – complete with placenta? It’s only $105 to teach your children about childbirth!! “Someone is ‘out’ of their ‘*&%$*#^’ mind.”
• V-craft – we’ll skip this one – definitely not G-, or even PG-Rated!
• Décor – an old cheese grater, complete with old cheese, made into a clock for only $28! The photo shows a rather unhappy woman holding the cheese grater-clock in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Oh, sure, it’s not perfect, but you try cleaning a cheese grater with a cigarette.”
• Art – Oh – I want this one – NOT– a “huge oil and acrylic painting” of roadkill! It’s only $750 for a gory mess of what looks like a deer. And worse, it’s number 6 of a series! “I’m collecting all six roadkill pals! All I need now are Pancake Possum and Stiffy the Squirrel!”
• WTF – The only one I’m really able to describe is a taxidermied squirrel with a fish head. Grossness for only $350.00. “I rest my case.”
• Christmas – a hand-beaten & had painted copper image of Mary and the Baby Jesus who is wearing a New York Yankees shirt. God’s blessings for the Yankees for $150.00. “For God so loved the world, He gave up a bases-loaded walk.”

My conclusion: The book is great – it shows just how weird and wacky and wonderfully off the beam you humans really are!! And, not just that, but how much you humans charge other humans for the price of your weirdness! Once was enough so we won’t be reading this book ever again. If I want that kind of weirdness, I’ll go directly to Etsy! We read this as a part of the Summer Reading Challenge, 2015, under Bingo category of Read a DIY, How-To, or Cook Book. We’re counting it as a DIY because that’s what we thought it was in the beginning!

Rating 3 out of 5 paws because someone sells shawls for goats! Who knew goats needed clothes? I guess if dogs and (God forbid) cats can wear clothes, I guess goats can, too!

Reviewer: Jack

April Winchell

Meerkat Holy Family looking at Meerkat Nativity in the book

$350 for a squirrel-fish?

  A pin that was featured on the (now defunct) Regretsy website. Can you guess what this is made from (other than felt, googly eyes and a ribbon??

Here are some items I found on Etsy that may belong in the book!

Pregnant crocheted “Art Doll”

                  Melissa, The Creepy Cute Pin Up Doll

            Sweet Tooth Rings (real teeth, dirty fingernails not included)

                                Outsider Art Face