Craft Business Answers

Finding a Crafting Partner or Job

Is there anybody you might know of who has a business already going that needs help making their crafts?

Can you describe to me in more detail what your business is?

Thanks.

Sue

Finding someone to partner up with is best done face to face. Is there an artists’ or crafters’ co-op in your area? You need to get out and network with other crafters. Another source of contacts would be crafting classes or teachers of these classes.

I think it will be difficult to find a home-based crafter who can afford to pay someone - but not impossible.

Beware of work-at-home crafting kits. Many of these are scams. Read Barbara Brabec’s article No Market Exists for Handmade Products Made from Kits.

You might find some of Barbara’s books helpful as you decide how you can turn your love of crafting into a profitable craft business.

For over thirty years, she has been helping other crafters realize their dreams of building successful home-based craft businesses. Read Barbara Brabec’s story.

More Detail on The Artful Crafter’s Business

As for more detail on my craft business, I assume you’ve already read About Us. My husband and I run the website together. I continue to make and sell handcrafted items and I have a little shop called Eileen’s Gifts.

It really helps to have a retail presence for your crafts, where you can sell items you’ve made on spec as well as solicit custom orders.

About half of my sales are commissioned work, which is really nice. I get paid shortly after buying the supplies and doing the work. Spec items can sit on the shelf gathering dust for a long time. That’s very disappointing for a crafter.

You may be wondering how one makes money with a website. I sell some of my original patterns on The Artful Crafter.

Other than that, I think of the website like a magazine. We have some advertisers who pay in advance, just like a magazine.

Some of our pages carry pay for click and/or pay per impression ads. For pay for click ads, we only get paid if someone clicks on the ads. For pay for impression ads, we get paid per 10,000 impressions (or page views).

Finally, we are affiliated with craft material suppliers and other vendors. If someone makes a purchase through one of our merchants, we receive a small commission - although the price to the buyer does not go up. We look for affiliate vendors who have the best selection, prices and service to increase the likelihood that readers will use them. For more information read Affiliate Marketing.

No single income stream is large but they add up and, hopefully, if one stream is down another will be up. This is called the benefit of diversification in business. I use diversification in my craft business as well.

My main crafts are computer graphics (business and greeting cards, calendars, brochures, etc.), sewing and jewelry.

I also dabble in polymer clay, wet and dry embossing, decoupage and candle making.

Customers return again and again because they know they will always find something new and different.

Since I had - and still have - very little knowledge about setting up and running a website, I used the Site Build It Program which I think is an excellent choice for someone new to internet marketing. For more information, read Build Your Own Website?

Another For-Profit Craft Idea

If you are more of a specialist by nature and want to become expert in one type of craft for profit, I encourage you to look into wire sculpture jewelry. This is a high mark-up craft because the pieces are quite unique and beautiful, made of gold or silver wire and genuine gemstones.

I followed the step-by-step instructions to make this pendant for myself and would really like to buy more materials and lessons so I can learn more. If I ever get some spare time!