Arts and crafts for fun and profit

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m a computer programmer, which means that I put hours of work into creating things that are intangible. I’ve always been somewhat envious of people that have a knack for creating real-world things, be they woodworkers, painters, tailors, or what have you.

At the same time, I’m working toward getting out of debt, and would like to learn a new skill in order to increase my income. It seems as though the people who are really making money off eBay are those that can take raw materials and do something to them that makes them more valuable than the sum of their parts.

With these goals in mind, what would you recommend as a skill I might pursue? Some other things to consider:

  • I tend to be detail oriented, and somewhat of a perfectionist.
  • I find geometric designs very appealing (celtic knotwork, for instance).
  • I have a good sense of aesthetics.

I’m looking forward to your suggestions!

2

Are you “good with your hands”? For instance, I’m bad at keeping stitches all the same size, so knitting and crocheting don’t work for me – but I do gorgeous needlepoint (since the canvas controls the stitch size).

How patient are you? Some kinds of craftwork involve repetitive motion (like knitting or needlepoint) – some find this soothing, others find it tedious. Can you take the time to measure and remeasure something before cutting it, or recut it a dozen times if you need to to make it fit, or would that drive you batshit?

3

Bullet point clarification: when I say “I tend to be detail oriented, and somewhat of a perfectionist,” I really mean “I’m probably just this side of the line beyond which my obsessive-compulsiveness would be considered be socially awkward.” It would drive me crazy NOT to measure and remeasure something before cutting it.

4

Fair enough – but we all have different areas of perfectionism and different ways of being picky. In my job (editing), I’m anal retentive – in cooking, I’ll throw stuff together any old way.

Plus there’s big-scale pickiness and small-scale pickiness – not everyone is cut out to do beadwork, for instance, or paint miniatures – but someone who doesn’t want to futz around with tiny pieces might be fine with mosaics or stained glass – equally exacting, in some ways, but involving bigger physical objects.

5

I think you have to narrow it down a bit more. What kind of crafts interest you? Wood? Leather? Cloth?

If you like Celtic knotwork, you might enjoy working in leather or woodburning.

Lathework can appeal to your sense of detail and geometric designs, as could scrollsaw work.

I'd caution you to be careful if you're main motivation is to make money.   Making money off crafts is hard work.    Unless your work is particularly innovative, there's a lot of competition out there.   And you have to be mighty efficient and focused to produce stuff in a cost-effective way.    (Remember, no matter what you're making, there's someone in a factory in China churning out a similar product for less than you can imagine.)     I do a bit of woodturning, but it takes me a long time to finish even simple pieces, so I'd have to charge quite a bit per bowl even to clear minimum wage.
6

I find that very interesting. I build stained glass windows, and I have always been somewhat envious of people like you who have a knack for coding. I’m great with my hands, and have found a measure of success in my craft, but I am hopeless at programming (not from lack of trying, mind you, I just do not have the cranial architecture it takes.)

I hesitate to recommend stained glass work to you, however, because it can be kind of frustrating for detail-oriented folks who tend toward perfectionism. However, there is a certain satisfaction in fitting together bits of glass which have been cut and ground to shape correctly - after all, if your measurements or cutting is off, it ain’t gonna work.

Before you sign up for classes or pay a lot of money for the tools and supplies, though, find a studio near you and ask if they’d mind if you sat in on a class or two to make sure you’re making the right decision. I doubt they’d mind - if you don’t like it, it’s not in their best interest to rope you into some classes you’re just going to hate; if you do like it, you’ll be taking classes and buying supplies from them for a long time.

Now, you may not be able to sell much stained glass work on eBay, but if you’re good at it and willing to give up an occasional Saturday to set up at the local craft shows, you’ll be able to turn some decent cash, especially around the holidays.

Just don’t think you’re going to “get rich quick.” Craft work is just as hard as coding, just in a different way.

7

I just thought of something. It’s not craft-related, but if you’re looking to make some bucks…

I have a Nintendo DS hand-held game system. It’s got dual screens, one of them is a touch screen, and it comes with a stylus. It also has built-in 802.11 wireless communications.

No one is currently developing a small browser / email client for it right now. If you know how to go about getting the specs from Nintendo, and were to develop that software, I guarantee you’d be sitting on a goldmine, and you wouldn’t have to get your hands dirty with lead oxide and flux. (I’d buy one. Hell, I’d even volunteer for the beta team.)

8

You might think about giving woodworking/woodcarving a try. Projects that use fitted joints instead of fasteners demand near-perfection in measuring and cutting due to the close tolerances needed. Celtic knot-work looks great as a detail on just about any kind of wood. If you’re looking to make money, carving small objects might be a better bet than furniture or cabinet making. Quality raw materials can be prohibitively expensive. I’m in the process of making some hair sticks for my girlfriend. Adornments and accessories like that might sell well.

Jewelry making might be something to consider. I have little personal experience with this, however, so if someone else could pop in with some details, I’d be learning along with the OP. It’s something I’ve been interested in trying.

9

Well, I took a walk around my local Joann’s, just to see what leapt out at me. Basketry seemed interesting, probably because everything’s a grid; same goes for ceramic tile. Wirework has always appealed to me, as has quilting. Crochet holds some interest, as does candlemaking.

I also realized while in the mall this evening that I’ve always had an interest in clocks and board games, both of which might lend themselves to a craft.

Yeah, I’d thought about that. But as I mentioned, I’ve had a motivation to learn how to create something tangible for awhile now. Your advice is taken, however.

Heh. Grass is always greener…

10

I am also a computer programmer, and I’ve just recently started oil and acrylic painting. I find it relaxing and fun. There’s enough to learn to make it cognitively interesting, but it’s simple enough that you’re not going to ruin a whole bunch of pieces learning to do it.

I’m told that 18x24 oils sell well in the $200-$400 range, even for “unknown” artists, and acrylics a little less than that. I lack the required artistic talent to actually create salable artwork this way, but it seems like a fairly high return on time invested if you do. My experience is that a painting can take anywhere from a half hour for something impressionistic, to a few days for something detailed.

(Important note: oil paintings sell for more, but they take MONTHS to dry. 6-12 months, depending on the thickness of the paint. Acrylics dry in an hour or two.)

Startup costs are pretty high for a hobby; you’ll run yourself up to a few hundred dollars in easel, paint, brushes, cleaners, and canvases, but most of those are reusable. Paint is expensive, but after your first few you’ll figure out what you need and waste a lot less.

All that having been said, they don’t call 'em “starving artists” for nothing. For my income-producing hobby, I write shareware. It brings in considerably more money than my painting would, even if I were good at it (the painting).

11

As others have suggested, learning the craft for the sake of learning it is the way to go. If you make some money? Great. But don’t count on it.

I’ve found that loving what you do—and being enthusiastic about it—are a good path to success. Some people start making money sooner than others, some never make much while always being quite good. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out the sense of it. But for the most part, if you have a true love and passion for it, that shows through somehow (unless you are deluding yourself and absolutely suck) and you’ll probably sell some of your work.

One thing I will say, based on my own experiences—do what you enjoy, truly enjoy, no matter how much profit potential you believe (or have been told) is out there. (I have a feeling you already plan to do that.)

Another thing—don’t be afraid to stick your neck out and put your work up for sale, even if you are worried that it’s not as good as other people’s. Sure, you might lose out to more experienced competition, but oftentimes, just having your stuff out there, and having a positive attitude about it, can yield good results. Some people are too timid about hawking their work and tell themselves, “I’m not good enough yet. I’m not ready yet.” While sometimes that’s true, sometimes it’s just too much modesty.

As other have said, it’s not uncommon to make less than minimum wage on works you sell. One of my sisters sells her craft work on eBay, and she reports less than minimum wage. Sure, each item she sells might go for a nice little sum, but it took her a long time to complete it. And I’ll add here that she’s very good at what she does, and it’s taken her over a decade to perfect her craft. Sometimes people luck out and make good money on something they didn’t take very long to learn, but usually, that’s not how it works.

12

See, I thought about that, too. Then I thought, “Hmm, what’s the last piece of shareware I ever registered?” Have you had much success with this? What kinds of shareware have you written?

13

Craftster

Cannot recommend it enough to get ideas or be amazed by other peoples ideas.

14

I am a potter, which can be difficult to make money on because the process can take a while and things go in and out of fashion.

The people I know making the most quick cash in crafts make jewelry. You can do simple beadwork, soldering (much harder but very precise thing), or carve from wax for many items.

The important thing is marketing. Different things will sell well in different places like a high-end craft fair, a concert or at a tourist attraction. For instance, if you make something that will glow in the dark go to a rave.

15

mentioning jewelry is an excellent lead-in regarding beading.

i’m a computer programmer too. (do we see a trend here, or what?) i’ve done crochet work and a little needlepoint as a hobby in the past, but my current hobby is beading/making jewelry.

beading can go in several different directions. you can do simple stringing, and produce necklaces, bracelets, ID hangers and the like. combine it with wire-working, and you can do more complex items – earrings, stone mountings for pendants, bracelets, rings and such, or go completely into sculpted-wire beads and ornaments.

then there’s bead-weaving. (think those little looms). you can make necklaces, bracelets, hatbands – anything flat and ribbon-like – using a loom and those tiny glass beads.

(i skipped over knotted silk, like stringing pearls and other light-weight semi-precious stones. that tends toward the lower end, like simple stringing. but you can get darn creative in the combinations of stones/pearls/metal beads.)

then there’s the more free-form bead weaving techniques – sculpture, medicine/amulet bags, amorphous art objects.

plus the beaded objects, like coating base items such as bowls, candlesticks or whatever with a bead design that is embedded into a glue/wax/sticky-something coating spread over the base form.

traits that may be appealed to: love of grid forms – weaving designs, symmetric color layouts in simple stringing; detail work – probably weaving again, or bead-inlay work (actually, any good jewelry project demands consistent detail work: knots all same size, clean finishing details, symmetry in layout (particularly for multiple-strand necklaces or bracelets and the like)); color planning – all of the above; design layout – ditto.

you can cruise some craft magazines like Bead & Button, BeadStyle or Bead magazine to see what people are doing out there. they usually have project ideas and directions in each issue, and a simple “here’s how to tie knots” section, so you can see what kind of effort is entailed in some of these applications.

16

Quilting really is a precise science. My “attention to detail” kicks in and I minutely measure each piece. You need to in piecing because if one piece of fabric is an inch short, or more of a parallelogram than a rectangle, the entire top of the quilt becomes oddly shaped. I haven’t made many mistakes along those lines yet.

I hate wasting a whole lot of time, so I quilt using the sewing machine. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it makes the whole process go very smoothly.

What’s best about quilting is that it makes wonderful gifts. I’ve made one for my niece and my mother, and they love it. But it’s also a flexible craft – you can make one very detailed square and hang it as decoration, or you can quilt your own jacket or bag, or you can make pillows – anything, really. There are also amazing varieties of cloth colors and patterns, and that’s where the creative stuff comes in.

I recommend the Singer Quilt Book. It can sometimes be frustrating because they assume you know a term, but you can easily look stuff up on the internet when you come to a stopping place. But the book holds a few easy patterns and complete instructions to start. I also get patterns from the internet and library books.

Two problems with quilting:

Unless you are an older woman, don’t count on making any friends. A very high percentage of quilters are in their 60s to 80s. I have gone to a few quilt shows, and it’s always a surprise when I see someone near my age. It’s like meeting a fellow American in Brazil – you tend to stop and talk with them a little, because it’s so rare.

Start-up costs can also be prohibitive. You not only need to invest in a pretty good sewing machine ($200 or so), you also need to buy a cutting board, a cutter, nice scissors, tons of safety pins, a good iron and ironing board, different triangles and squares for odd cuts, a walking foot and an embroidery foot for your sewing machine, and so on. And then there’s the fabric and batting – you can spend as much as you want on that. That’s just to get started, so unless you have a friend who will let you use her equipment, you’ll spend a good deal before even deciding that you like it!

But it’s fun, it’s comparatively fast (you can do a whole quilt in a week or weekend), it’s pretty and decorative, and it makes good gifts. I suppose you could make a mess of them and sell them at a craft fair and make a bit of profit, if you wanted, although the outlay in cost before you see any profit may be prohibitive.

I am thinking about getting into beading now. You can combine that with quilting and make some stunning stuff.

17

Do you think of yourself as mechanical (you mentioned precision and forming things) or artistic? To me it’s the difference between geometric designs in quilting (which I understand and stick to) and “fabric arts” which I think of more as painting using fabric (and wouldn’t attempt).

I’ve taken basket classes and they do appeal to my organized and geometric self. I also quilt (which can be done with little more than fabric, a pencil and a pair of scissors, OK a needle helps too :slight_smile: ) and do needlepoint and cross-stitch. The last two are quite organized (as mentioned, the canvas guides what you’re doing, but in the flip side you don’t get to color outside the lines, as it were).

Just to reiterate that it might be fun to make a few bucks on the side but you won’t get rich. I handpiece and handquilt as a rule (although that fusible applique business is fun too) and basically work on a quilt all of my spare time for a couple of months. The price won’t cover all that time even at minimum wage. But if you stick to smaller projects it could be more gratifying and lucrative. You just end up compromising what you might want to make for what will sell.

18

My sister has taken to sewing caftans lately in her spare time. It took several hours to make one when she started out but now she can make one in about an hour and a half. She uses around two yards of material and spends about $3 to $5 a yard. She sells them for between $38 and $55 if she sells them herself and around $25 wholesale to shops.

The thing is though, she has a serger…hence the quick and easy aspect. However, sergers are expensive and relatively complex to operate and you’d need all the other materials described by Elysian.

Caftans (so I hear) are extremely comfortable and people really seem to like them. I’ve suggested to my sister – although she hasn’t as yet followed up on it – that maternity shops and big girl shops might be good customers. I would think they would sell especially well there but sis wants to wait until she can have labels made for them and start a company.

Anyway, provided you have the necessary machine and materials and get to the point you can make one in an hour and a half (and you don’t mind selling them yourself or approaching merchants) you might make considerably more than minimum wage by sewing and selling caftans.

19

I’ve dabbled in basketry. If the “grid-iness” appeals to you, knitting and crochet also have the column and row thing going. So do certain forms of needlework (counted cross stitch, needlepoint, Bargello).

Just give something a try. If it doesn’t work out, at least you’ll know for sure. A small beginning basket kit is reasonably cheap - and if you have standard tools at home, you may not even need to buy the specialized tools that are called for. (If you keep it up, you’ll want the good tools. But to start, you may be able to make do with other stuff. Ask the salespeople.

And as many others have said, it may not be a money making bonanza. I couldn’t make money on my work, it would be way less than minimum wage, I’d have to mass produce (and I have problems making a second sock), and I would stop liking it if I were on commission. OTOH, when I was younger my mother sold several of her crafts to a local store. But worry more about finding something you like than finding something that will pay.

20

I’ll be brief since this is a bit of a hijack - I write Mac/Windows cross-platform file transfer software. Very niche market–people who have both kinds of computer and need to move stuff back and forth.

Success? It wouldn’t replace my day job. But it changes my tax bracket a bit. Moreover, I’ve probably seen at least as much reflected in day job salary increases directly attributable to skills I’ve learned with it.

The secret, unfortunately, is to cripple the software enough to encourage registrations, while not limiting the program so much you can’t use it at all. I’ve seen a few studies showing that the “pure” honor-system shareware stuff doesn’t do well at all compared to mild crippling.

The other secret is to make paying very, very painless – none of this “send me a cashier’s check in Ugandan currency drawn on a Canadian bank” stuff. Take the hit and let one of the services handle your transactions for you: I can take credit cards, checks, money orders, and who knows what else – in 45+ currencies. Costs me 5-10%, depending on monthly volume, unit price, etc., but takes none of my time at all for the “transaction” side.

If you want to know more, let’s start another thread. I’ll be lucky if a moderator doesn’t bonk me for the hijack as it is.