Israeli Paper Ketubah Designer Nabs Etsy International Design Award

A Tel Aviv-based designer of beautiful, intricate paper ketubahs (Jewish wedding contracts) was one of several winners of the very first international design awards this week by Etsy, the e-commerce site for handmade or vintage items and goods

Naomi Shiek of Woodland Papercuts won a prize for her intricate papercut techniques to create custom ketubahs which run between $350 to over $600. According to the Associated Press, customers of many faiths commission designs to “showcase their own wedding vows, meaningful texts or wedding contracts.”

The competition drew thousands of contenders, according to AP. Winners were chosen by a panel of judges.

“We’re a global platform and I think sometimes people forget that,” Etsy trend expert and judge Dayna Isom Johnson told AP. “The Etsy Design Awards are really about the celebration of our incredible community of over 2.3 million sellers that we have around the globe.”

According to the Etsy page, Woodland Papercuts has been a seller on the site since 2011.

The grand prize of the competition went to London-based designer Sian Zeng for her magnetic dinosaur wallpaper.

Finalists for the awards included Hadas Katz, the Israeli designer behind shoe brand Katz and Birds and a NY-based designer of Morse Code jewelry.