Making Money from Craft
I have always wanted to make money from craft. I have made some, but not much!
When I was at primary school, I made "pom-pom" animals for the kids at school. I charged sixpence a time. When my Mum wanted to know what I wanted all her spare balls of wool for, and I told her, she made me give all the sixpences back!
Then when I was a young mum myself, I bought myself a knitting machine. After I had mastered it and was making my family good stuff, I offered to make an acquaintance a hat and scarf set for her child, in their team footy colours. Unfortunately, I didn't follow footy at the time, and used the wrong shade of blue! She was very understanding and bought it anyway. I didn't offer anyone else this dubious opportunity.
Then when I was in the swing of patchwork and quilting, I started making quilted patchwork shopping bags for market stalls. Unfortunately - why does that word keep coming up? - people didn't want to pay a fair price for a handcrafted item, when they could buy a bag for $1 or $1 at the supermarket. I sold two, both to the same lady. She wanted to send one to her sister in America. Many months later, I realised that was all I was going to sell, as I had done the rounds of markets and people only wanted the cheapest of the cheap, and there is, after all, no point selling at a loss. At the same time I was sewing from home for people, but as nearly everyone just wanted hems taken up I decided I could die of boredom some other way, and discontinued sewing from home. It's just not viable.
Once again I am in the sewing business, but this time just offering my patterns on a website at
www.christinelinton.com.au and you can see the rest of this article at Ezine articles.com. If you click on the Ezine articles button below, and type my name in the Search box, you will find the list of my articles and can click on any you want to read.
