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About Us: Anda


Story by Vanessa Published on May 11, 2008 in Etc	Photo by Vanessa

Etsy has had quite a growth spurt in the past year, and we have the awkward pictures to prove it. We are posting a series of About Us pieces to help you get to know the Etsy admin (and since many of us work remotely, for the admin to get to know each other!). You've seen the admin badge, and maybe you're a bit curious about the person behind it! For more on Etsy's mission and about the company, please see our About page (the link is in the little blue footer of every Etsy page).

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Anda, Anda, Anda...where to start? Anda is an old skool member of Etsy, where she began selling her wares as stopsandstarts back when she lived in Richmond, VA and attended art school in 2005. Ah, the Richmond days, when life was much more affordable than Brooklyn, where she now lives and works as an Etsy admin. Anda often waxes poetical on the various stages of thrifty living. One such period renders many an entertaining tale: freegan-ish, crashing at Shakespeare & Co. stint in Paris, when she and her friends figured out how to live on nothing in one of the most expensive cities in the world. She still loves a good thrift shop and always has her eye out for dollar-stores.

Back in the early days of Etsy Labs, Anda coordinated all of the events and goings-on. Now, she works on the Marketing Team, doing merchandising and design. Yes, Anda is our go-to person for amazing illustrations and we've even made her handwriting into a font for our Etsy video series and other design-y visual elements. Sometimes bursting into hysterical laughter and sometimes a prickly pear, Anda is truly unique Etsy admin with great taste, a talent for making just about anything, and a disarming knack for telling it like it is.

Here is early proof of her sense of style. (Check the Reebok hightop with the yellow laces in the background.)

Anda is someone who shoots for what she wants with incredible focus. When her then-soon-to-be-husband Pete was in grad school in Scotland, Anda decided she wanted to have a baby. And despite being an ocean away and working like crazy at Etsy Labs, she made it happen. And such was the beginning of the cutest baby in the world, Sidonie. Sidonie is also officially the first admin baby (except for Charles' babies, who are cute too but weren't born on our watch).

Whilst hugely pregnant, she made her own wedding dress with Burdastyle's help. She had a really fun, last minute DIY wedding.

Anda's mom Appalachia, who is also a seller, should feel very special this Mother's Day because Anda is always talking about how awesome her mom is (and her dad, too)! She passed on the crafty gene to Anda and she will surely pass on the crafty gene to little Sidonie.

Anda Fun Facts:

Anda's real name is Amanda.
Anda used to be a substitute teacher.
She can recite the entire script of Goonies, according to Matt (who is a known pathological liar).
She hated living in Scotland because it was dreary.
She has mad Scrabble skills.
Like some kind of Rainman, she can remember sequences of numbers from years past. And she loves math.
She and Pete have two kitties.
She claims to have synesthesia.
Julie notes that Anda can make dumplings out of random dregs found in the back of the kitchen cabinets (she has boasted of this multiple times).
In art school, she was the most coveted nude model because she would bust out crazy poses, plus she was skinny and had great muscle definition. One time she was so hardcore about holding a contorted pose that she fainted. And that, in a nutshell, is Anda.

She's picked some favorites below. See all posts in this About Us series.