Clark County weaver Ann Taylor started an online marketplace exclusively for artists and craftsmen who make their goods by hand.
“After watching handmade artists struggle to be seen among factory products, resale and now AI-generated work, I decided to build a marketplace where handmade actually means handmade,” Taylor said.
The marketplace launched in May of 2025 under Drifa’s Leap, then changed to Leap Handmade in 2026.
Since its initial launch, the marketplace has grown to more than 180 sellers, 680 buyers and more than 3,600 products on the platform.
“We have leather workers, lots of jewelers, we’ve got knitters,” Taylor said. “Anything that you would have seen on other handmade marketplaces, without all the other stuff covering them up and hiding it.”
Taylor’s decision to start the marketplace came as a response to seeing so many artists in her social sphere leaving the popular online marketplace Etsy.
“Etsy lost 1.4 million sellers in 2024,” Taylor said. “I attribute that to policy changes and corporations taking over and worrying more about the bottom line than about the artists.”
Etsy had initially started as an online marketplace for handmade crafts back in 2005, but after going public in 2015, Taylor says it started to trend more towards mass manufacturing.
“It’s really easy to get lost. I don’t like to bag on Etsy. They were a great company when they started,” Taylor said. “They were exactly what we needed to get people’s homemade handmade stuff out to the world. They’ve just changed significantly.”
Leap Handmade was founded with the well-being of artists at the forefront of Taylor’s mind.
“One of our taglines is ‘by artists for artists’,” Taylor said. “Our artists get between 92 to 94% back. We don’t charge commission on shipping because artists need that money to ship stuff, they don’t need a portion taken out of that.”
Another feature of Leap Handmade is that the support on the website is completely dependent on interpersonal communication.
“Everything is 100% human customer service. If they email the support, they get one of three people answering right now,” Taylor said. “If you have a maker that is just lost and they’re not technically savvy, we will get on a Zoom call with them and help them set up their entire account.”
From the introduction to the platform, to the establishment of a seller’s page, the investment Taylor and the Leap Handmade team put into the artists is immense.
She feels that part of the platform’s necessity comes from the need to get artists' work exposed to broader audiences.
“You go to your local Saturday market, you sell for one day, that’s a very limited amount of people looking at your stuff,” Taylor said. “This is a way for them to get out because they were getting lost on larger platforms.”
She continued, “artists at their core want their art to be appreciated. If you keep it all at home, nobody’s ever going to see it so having a way for them to have their art seen is better than hiding it.”
Leap Handmade exists to give artists and buyers a designated place to be free of drop shipping and mass manufactured products. Everything in this shop is made intentionally and with care.
“If you search for ‘dog’, you’re not going to get 2 million returns, you’re going to get 50 to 100 returns,” Taylor said. “All artists are vetted by us, so everything is 100% handmade. That’s a guarantee we have.”
To find out what is offered on the marketplace visit leaphandmade.com.
