We have been looking at Etsy at home recently: "your place to buy and sell all things handmade". It is just nice to use. I especially like the useful search by color ;-)

They have an alchemy section:

Turn your ideas into reality with Alchemy!

Buyers can post requests for custom handmade items, and then sellers bid on the opportunity to make the goods. Please check out the Alchemy overview help guide and the rules for Alchemy before getting started. Have fun! [Etsy :: Alchemy - Public Listings]

They have a range of interesting looking community sections, including virtual labs (billed as "live workshops and online classes"), but I have not tried them out so don't have a sense of how active they are. They look nice though!

I was interested to see that Etsy had made the WebWare top 100 Web apps for 2008 list.

Just slightly more than half of all the votes cast in the Webware 100 went to the top 10 vote-getters. Six of these top 10 are no surprise at all: Facebook, Firefox, Google, iTunes, MySpace, and YouTube. But the other four may not be as familiar to most Webware readers:

• DeviantArt. A strong online arts community.

• Friendster. A social network that was big, became small, and may be making a resurgence.

• Gaia Online. A graphical social networking site for teenagers. As I said, a big winner in last year's Webware 100.

• Maxthon. It's a browser that's huge in China, not so much here in the US.

[And the Webware 100 Winners are... | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone]

Webware top 100 via John Naughton.