Online marketplace Etsy.com is a brilliant resource for one of a kind, vintage and handmade items. However, with innumerable amounts of shops offering ‘bestsellers’ and ‘must haves’, it can be daunting to know where to begin. Yes, there is pleasure to be found in the trawling, but it’s nice to take the guesswork out of things too. In light of this, we asked some of our favourite interior designers to open up their little black books of top Etsy sellers and point us in the right direction.
FAQs
What are some popular Etsy shops?
Many of the interior designers on our pages are also huge Etsy fans and no one has a better nose for a bargain or a hidden gem than a designer on a budget. As the pandemic made visiting antiques markets and real life shops much harder, many small businesses had to innovate, bringing a wealth of new Etsy stores and talented people into the world of e-commerce. These designers have haunted Etsy’s infinite selection of store fronts, bouncing from shop owner to small business to find our readers the absolute best Etsy shops. Below, you’ll find their top Etsy shops for furniture, accessories, textiles and more.
Is Etsy a good place to buy gifts?
The online shopping marketplace is a brilliant way to discover one of a kind pieces and some of the best gift ideas money can buy. There is an enormous range of high quality Etsy shops where you can buy personalised gifts, from Mother’s Day gifts and decorative items to stationery. If you’re feeling crafty, you can find everything you need for a number of projects: card making, marbling and craft kits are all on the cards here.
What are good things to buy on Etsy?
The shops on Etsy often sell a more curated edit of pieces than you find on Ebay, so it can be easier to sniff out good deals. As with any huge online marketplace, though, the key to becoming a successful Etsy buyer is to have patience and a discerning eye; knowing what you’re looking for to start with is also useful, in order to avoid getting sidetracked by the sheer amount of stuff on offer.
It’s a brilliant resource for decorative pieces, like vintage textiles or hand-turned lamps so look for those special accents. There are a huge range of art prints available, from more affordable reproductions to original and rare posters. Etsy can also be a great place to look for craft supplies for DIY interior projects, such as scraps of interesting fabric, ribbons and trims. If you’re not sure where to start, we have some wonderful guides on how to buy rugs on Etsy, as well as buying art on Etsy and how to buy lighting on Etsy.
The best Etsy shops, according to interior designers and editors
UK-based Vintique Tree is a treasure trove of vintage homeware, mainly British-made kitchen items. Head here for Cornishware, Spode and enamelware, as well as other quirky curiosities such as vintage flags. –Tilly Wheeler, Commerce Writer
I love House of Waltham’s stripy ceramic plant pots in candy colours and a gold stripe. The French Garden Pot is my favourite piece of theirs, but the spotty and stripy tumblers are fun too. – Sarah Brown Interiors, sarahbrowninteriors.com
There’s something so charming about ceramic fruit. They provide a permanent solution to empty bowls everywhere and add a pop of colour to a dim corner. El Consulado are especially good a ceramic pomegranates, which are weighty and perfectly imperfect. – Arabella Bowes, Commerce Editor
Another brilliant, customisable maker with good rugs in a variety of styles. Select from Indian dhurries, kilims and Swedish handcrafted flatweaves. Whilst we haven’t purchased anything from them, their reviews are excellent. – Tilly Wheeler
This shop’s Etsy listings contains an eclectic range of vintage homewares with something for everyone, from midcentury tables, to retro IKEA pieces. They have a particularly great range of unusual lamps, with postmodern and space-age desk lamps next to Art Deco or industrial style ceiling lights. – Tilly Wheeler
My go to, one stop shop for adding some French charm to projects is MyFrenchAntiqueShop on Etsy. They offer a huge range of items from beautiful, unique light fixtures, to antique fabrics and linens, kitchen accessories and beyond. I fell in love with one of their tole chandeliers which we hung in our old sitting room, it remains today as one of my all time favourite Etsy finds. – Catherine Olley, dauphineinteriors.com.
.png)
This London-based Etsy seller is a go-to destination for solid teak Mid-century pieces from manufacturers such as G-Plan. Visit for Danish dining tables and matching chairs, sleek sideboards or smart chests of drawers. – Tilly Wheeler
.png)
.png)
I recently decorated a 12-bedroom pub and needed a lot of lamps. I bought old ones at auction and love mixing them up with these faux bamboo ones from this Etsy seller in different colours. They are a great price and perfect size for small spaces. This red one is very smart – and I have been mixing with shades from Alice Palmer and Rosi de Ruig. – Octavia Dickinson, octaviadickinson.com
I am partial to a stripe or two and this little gem of a company sells whatever quantity batches they have and then that particular fabric and pattern is gone, so what you buy is just for you. Though ticking fabric is traditionally used to cover mattresses, the selection is wide and varied and can be used however you’d like, from tablecloths and cushions to outdoor furniture, loose covers for sofas and armchairs and even as a drape. The best bit about this kind of fabric is the way they are woven cotton, meaning the pattern will never fade as printed cottons so often do. – Stephanie Barba Mendoza, barbamendoza.com
.png)
I came across the The Foundryman when hunting for cupboard knobs in my old kitchen. They offer an affordable and wide range of beautiful, well made, brass hardware – perfect for kitting out a kitchen or adding to a tired piece of furniture for an immediate upgrade! Such a refreshing Etsy find, I always go back to them and recommend them to clients. – Catherine Olley, dauphineinteriors.com
This Etsy seller sources many of their items from summer country auctions in Halsingland in Sweden, bringing back all sorts of vintage Swedish textiles and haberdashery back to the UK to resell to new owners who will appreciate the history and craftsmanship of these pieces in their home. The products are all very reasonably priced too. –Tilly Wheeler
Etsy is packed with rug sellers, but I always go back to TheRugMakers. They have a large and varied range of inspiring carpets and suzanis in every colour and size, never failing to meet your rug requirements. – Catherine Olley, dauphineinteriors.com
.png)
Bristol-based KnicKnackNook have such a vast range of all things tassels, trims and pom-poms. One could easily lose an afternoon scrolling through the Etsy shop and daydreaming about all the projects yet to be sewn, trimmed and glue-gunned to the nines. We used some of their appliques, latkans and trims in a Christmas Style Story to put the final touches on gift wrapping. It’s a shop you will revisit time and time again. – Rémy Mishon, Decoration Editor
.png)
From illustrated 1930s travel advertisements to vintage art exhibition posters, Vintage Poster UK has an excellent range of original prints to hang as wall art in your home, which all come with a certificate of authenticity. With a huge amount of cheaper, digital reproduction retro posters available on Etsy, it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. But this seller’s poster listings all contain extensive information including from when the poster dates and its condition. They also offer free UK delivery on all orders. –Tilly Wheeler
The Brighton Bombay Company are a fair trade Etsy shop selling handmade and vintage pieces from India. They have an amazing selection of vintage Kantha quilts for around £100 each which make wonderful bedspreads. – Emily Senior, Houses Director
.png)
Moroccan Givings have some lovely pieces. I particularly like their boucherouite floor cushions like the below – they’re great for a casual living room, TV room or child’s bedroom. – Rémy Mishon
Etsy is the most brilliant resource and it is hard to pick a favourite shop. It is particularly good for my greatest interior love though, vintage textiles, and it has been a saving grace for sourcing special one offs. For reams of pretty block print fabric, (perfect for lining curtains, wardrobes and making lampshades), I love Indian Stores. – Lonika Chande, lonikachande.com
I don’t have a permanent favourite Etsy shop – I always tend to search for something new as I mostly use Etsy for something small to decorate a table or wrap a gift or fill a stocking – but my favourite shop du jour is BeelightCandleCrafts.
I bought hand dipped candles in different colours and they arrived beautifully packaged, with a tiny beeswax bear as an extra. I have been reading the third book in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s trilogy, The Broken Road, where he travelled through Bulgaria almost 100 years ago, so I like to think I knew a little about where they had come from. Even in hot weather, candles are lovely outside at night under a dark sky. – Susan Deliss, susandeliss.com
We’ve recently come across Urbanstax, who source and sell beautiful hand-dyed, printed fabrics from all across Africa. We love their vibrant, unique fabrics, which really caught our eye. We regularly design bespoke pieces for our clients and have an upcoming project in which we envisage using the Ankara fabric in teal and mustard for an ottoman, which is our current favourite design. – Howark Design, howark-design.co.uk
I’ve found some real gems at Crown Cottage Somerset in the past. They restore and revive pieces particularly well, in authentic 18th-century colours and patinas. They’ve always got a decent selection of sturdy, solid chests of drawers, tables and cabinets, which I am forever on the hunt for. For a child’s bedroom I was decorating I wanted something that was of a proper size and stature and that would stand the test of time, not dating too quickly. I found a Scandinavian style bow fronted chest of drawers on here that proved to be just the ticket. – Angelica Squire, studiosquire.co.uk
.png)
I love the heritage behind these Swedish pieces, which were typically gifted for couples on their weddings days as a status symbol. The decorative carvings add lots of character and these would look lovely in any hallway or front room. You don’t have to confine patterns and colours to soft furnishings – these add a wonderful extra dimension. – Isabelle Lomas, isabellelomas.com
This shop sells a stunning range of rare vintage lighting, furniture and design pieces. I’m always on the lookout to find unique pieces for my clients, and on Vintiques you’ll always find something that is so beautiful and completely unique – it’s a true gem! – Miminat Designs, miminat.com
20th-century Italian design is the speciality of Antik Design, but they also stock various other vintage and antique pieces, such as a selection of René Lalique glass vases from the 20s and 30s. There are some real treasures to be found here, from vintage travel trunks (great for re-use as storage) to some quirky, hard-to-find Memphis Milano pieces from the 1980s. – Tilly Wheeler
