We’ve already seen a steampunk cellphone and an entire steampunk apartment, so it seems like only a matter of time until all of our modern day luxuries have been dragged back into an alternate 1890. Will Rockwell is doing his best to help with that process. In addition to creating more far out things like a Spirit Harvester, Rockwell has effectively steampunked up an MP3 player and a variety of USB drives.

All of his intricate creations are up for sale at his Etsy shop, but beware, they don’t come cheap; the cheapest steampunk USB drive you’ll be able to get goes for $70 and most of the others are upwards of $100. Looking at them and drooling a little bit, however, is free.

For those chilly fall days on which you wish to communicate only through beeps and whistles, there’s this cozy-looking R2-D2 sweater from Etsy user EricaKnit. Hand-made from marino wool this snug sweater is sure to impress anyone you might encounter. If you’ve got $450 burning a hole in your pocket, this might be the best Star Wars-related sweater purchase you ever make.

Seeing this, you might be thinking, “EricaKnit, I wish I had some excellent R2-D2-themed knit headware to go with this.” Don’t worry, she’s got you covered.

Read on below for more pictures.

Japanese artist Akinobu makes architectural models for a living, but also makes adorable little models and shoves them in adorable little bottles, and also allows me to make sentences that rhyme. Like any good artist living in the modern age, Akinobu makes his little bottles available for purchase via Etsy. Head on past the jump to check out his other bottles, including ones filled with tiny dogs and halibuts.

Ever play so much Minecraft that you begin to see the world around you in terms of square, mineable blocks? It’s probably not a good idea to start mining your dog or bedroom wall, but luckily, Etsy user Laketide has created some pretty 2.5″ Minecraft grass blocks that you can buy for $10 per and it all that mining out of your system. They’re quite pretty, and if you have enough of them, you could build an entire landscape that you can subsequently mine and collect. You could also bring them to MinecraftCon 2011, if that’s a thing that ends up happening. Head on past the break to see some more pictures of Laketide’s Zen garden-esque desktop Minecraft blocks.

Kiva Ford makes his living in the centuries-old art of glassblowing, but with a modern twist, working with the American Scientific Glassblowers Society. As a member of the ASGS, Ford creates the custom glassware that scientists need for their experiments. Unusual shapes, and yards of glass piping are no stranger to Ford who masterfully manipulates them with super-hot blue flames.

Though he clearly cares a lot about his work, Ford is under no illusions and freely acknowledges the decline of the ASGS in the face of new plastics and the changing ways of modern science. And because the above documentary is made for Etsy, its a perfect segue into his artistic work, much of which echoes his interest in science. In his Etsy store, you can find a tiny anatomically correct model of a heart in a jar, or a chemistry set the size of pocket change. He also claims to have the world’s smallest Klein Bottle, a curious creation that has no clearly defined inside or outside.

Look on below for some pictures of from this amazing and dedicated craftsman.

Well this is ill-advised: In one of those efforts to make something more “social” that does not really need to be more “social” at all, whimsical stuff-buying site Etsy has rolled out something called People Search, which a) allows people to search for other Etsy users by real name rather than purchase name, b) links these identifiers to purchase history, and c) automatically opted all users in without much warning. Considering that most Etsy customers (and presumably customers of most e-commerce sites) do not want their order histories shared, this is not a good thing.

A Penny Arcade forumer illustrates just how not good a thing it can be for Etsy customers:

Oh god. I was looking for an example to give to a reporter that asked me for one, and I just found a woman who’s Etsy profile comes up on Google as the 5th link. I was expecting 6 or 7 pages down, but it’s on the very first page, right after her online resumes (four of ‘em – so I guess she’s looking for work and this cannot be helping). She signed up a year ago, under the old privacy policy, and hasn’t logged in since 2010.

And now I know what dildo she uses. Right down to the curvature and coloring.

Update: Etsy has fortunately rolled back some of the changes, making purchase details private.

We take privacy very seriously. We work with TRUSTe and audit our privacy policies regularly, notifying all members via email any time a substantive change is made.

In the future, we may provide an option to share individual purchases publicly at the time of purchase. This will be completely opt-in and on a purchase-by-purchase basis.

We are deeply sorry for any confusion and will work hard to regain your trust.

This sounds like one of the most disastrous, privacy-destroying changes a site has implemented in a long while; the much-criticized Facebook privacy changes last spring were not nearly this bad.

Luckily, our sister site The Mary Sue has a guide to changing Etsy privacy settings.

You can try to be too cool for Valentine’s Day all you like, but it’s going to happen anyway, and you can’t avoid it. You don’t have to like it, because it’s nearly impossible to like a 99% commercial holiday. But don’t try to escape it, because there is no escape. It is a zombie out to get you, and it’s here. (You were probably one of those “Was there some kind of game happening today?” people on Super Bowl Sunday. Guess what? Everyone knew that you knew there was a game that day.)

But in case there is still a tiny, microscopic neutron inside of you that feels an urge to do something, even something weird, snarky, or slightly mean, then here are some (mostly) printable Valentine’s Day cards just for you, lovingly scraped from a few corners of the Web.

This adorable planter necklace by jeweler Colleen Jordan has been popping up on the Internet today, probably because people are just desperate to see some hint of something reminding them of burgeoning life, warmth, and sunlight in the midst of a bleak, endless winter. We can dream, can’t we? (Should be noted, this adorable little planter does not come with a plant.)

(Etsy via The Hairpin)

If you don’t just like Stephen Colbert, but really like him, and if you’ve got $5000 to spare, then has Etsy vendor mattcharlan got the couch for you.

The couch creates a forced perspective, with the appropriate subject matter of Stephen Colbert… I must say, look at all the pictures, the face changes as you move about the room.

People will gravitate to the percise place in the room looking for where the face is most accurate. While you round them up make sure your finger is ready on the dead switch to the trap door to you basement where you keep all Colbert Couch huff puff nay sayers.

As several Regretsy commenters note, Colbert has some serious guyliner going on there.

(Stephen Colbert Couch via Regretsy)

Got a decent singing voice?  Good at pronouncing glottal stops?  Not adverse to viral internet phenomena?

If so, Regretsy is doing a thing that may be relevant to your interests.  It all started with an Alchemy request on Etsy.

Etsy, the popular online storefront for hand-crafters, has a feature called Alchemy, where potential buyers can post descriptions of hand-made items that they’d like to purchase from anyone who would want to make them.  Crafters bid to win permission to get paid to make the item.  A few days ago, April Winchell of Regretsy, “the fail blog of hand crafts,” noticed a particularly unique request: