to wonder how so many people seem to make a living out of crafty type businesses?

[Yawnarama]

Who actually buys the stuff?

On my facebook friends list I have a cakemaker, someone who buys buttons in charity shops and mounts them onto cardboard, a knitter, someone who makes dresses for little girls, someone who makes cards, and someone who makes candles out of teacups. Oh and someone else who makes fabric pinboards and sells them for an extortionate amount.

All of these women must be doing well from their sales as otherwise surely they wouldn't make and advertise the items. But as someone who isn't keen on overpriced crafty items and certainly wouldn't buy them as gifts, I find it hard to understand how they all do so well from it.

I dont know I wonder that.
Perhaps they sell one a year and have huge boxes of unsold stuff.

Many don't...they do it in addition to having a DH who works full time or are on benefits.

The people I know who do it have their crafty business as a hobby, either while their children are still little, or while they have full time jobs. Often they are partly supported by a working partner.

I don' t think that many people do make a living from these businesses although I have one friend who has built up a thriving cake business by which one where she earns a proper income rather than pin money. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly it has taken her several years, she never offers mates rates and always makes a profit, she has invested money in training, she has a proper easy to navigate website, she spends a lot of time marketing externally but most of all she is very good at what she does and has built her reputation on being professional, reliable and very good. She also works long hours, not just around her children and she is reaping the rewards.

I have a friend who has a cake making business, and she does well. She has a well paid pt job, and fits the cake business around it. She wouldn't be able to get by on the cakes alone, but it is a good second income.

However if you break it down as to the hours she puts in, not just making them, but going to markets/fairs etc, she makes very little money for every hour she works. Well below NMW.

I have met lots of folk who have crafty type businesses, and 99% of them (even those who are brilliant at what they do and quite well known in their niche area, or within the wedding industry in particular) are not making a living out of it. So YABU where U = unrealistic. The ones who are making a living income are working like fiends 24/7 and often have been forced into it by redundancy or other necessity.

I don't think that many people actually do make a living out of it.

All of these women must be doing well from their sales as otherwise surely they wouldn't make and advertise the items.

I disagree. It may be a hobby that pays just enough to pay for their materials. They may find the advertising/selling enjoyable as well as the actual making.

I wouldn't have thought many people made anything approaching a living wage out of crafts. It's a good supplementary way of making money.

I make fused glass and see it at craft fairs and the like. I don't make that much, just enough to keep me supplied in new glass, consumables and take costs. I do it because I love it and have no space in the house to store my stuff.

I have a craft business and it really only makes me pocket money. It's hard because people see stuff as over priced in comparison to the high street, it's difficult to make your prices competitive yet still make it worth your while and cover your costs!

The people I know who do make a good living work incredibly hard at it and are usually selling high priced items such as jewellery which sells at close to £100 per item - it's much harder if you are making small items such as knitted things or things you are charging less than a tenner for.

You have to spend as much time marketing and promoting your business as you do actually making things as far as I can see.

I used to make wedding cakes for a living and did quite well, it earned enough for luxury spends. I gave it up as I ended up hating it - what started off as a hobby I enjoyed got bogged down with insurance and record keeping and environmental health.

I think if you're good at it and get a good name for yourself you can do quite well

My sister makes quite a lot of stuff and sells it on facebook. She is on benefits and makes and sells this stuff while the kids are at school (as well as looking for a job). She has never earnt enough for it to affect her benefits, but the money has funded a reasonably nice Christmas in their house as she's saved it up all year.

They don't. At least, they don't make the main family income. Lots of them are vanity projects subsidised by hubbies working in investment banks. Every so often, they are required to appear in the colour supplements looking thin and wistful in a gauzy smock, while staring thoughtfully into the middle distance and wittering about how "hard" it was to set up and get going.

I make very small amounts from the stuff I sell. It's enough to cover my National insurance (I could have that waived if I did a small earnings exemption but I haven't bothered yet), insurance, etc and buy more materials. I do it because I like the crafting I do but it's not really feasible for me to dye kilos of yarn and store it at home until I get round to using it! I do make a bit more from teaching workshops but I just do the odd day at a weekend every now and again. I've tailed the craft stuff off a little lately as I'm too busy with other stuff.

I've been able to pay for a 2nd degree mostly from earnings and it's something that fits in around Dh and the kids.

I have friends who are makers. Full time, qualified, professional craftspeople who sell expensive, high quality products with locally sourced materials. Their products look hugely overpriced compared with generic imported stuff from the high street but margins are tiny. They sell through craft fairs and events, pop up shops, boutique type 'gorgeous things' shops, their own websites and mailings lists. It has taken them 10 to 20 years to become established. By any standards they are successful. One is regularly featured in magazines including Vogue. Another in Living Etc and Elle Decoration.

They just about get by. Tax incentives, tax credits, teaching crafts, waitressing, grants from the Crafts Council, partners salaries and very careful living. Fortunately they are surrounded by lovely things and tend to be very resourceful in other areas (great cooks, good at finding and doing up stuff in charity shops). They love it - like writing its a vocation, only two or three people will get rich doing it but that's not the point.

SIL makes beautiful crochet things, we do well out of her for baby hats and blankets but although she initially advertised them, I think she only sold one, which was a shame. I think she really just does it because she enjoys the actual making of things.

yes, yawn, it suprises me too.

Some people will pay a lot for crafty stuff. I linked to this site on the poncetastic christmas thread, but it's worth another link for the eyewatering prices: www.tobiasandtheangel.com/6_vert.php?nav=6e

I have a mate who loves all the handmade junk (I don't mean the angels I linked to are junk - I love them, just for a tenner maybe). Her place is crowded with all of those patchworked cushions decorated with buttons and felt applique stuffed toys and so on. So I guess there is a market for it.

I agree it must be really hard to make a living out of it or even to do quite decently.

oh my god, the prices for those angels LRD!!! I'd say they were over priced at 25 quid, but nearly 300?!?! I guess there are people around who have so much money that they actively want to pay stupid money for stuff to validate their lifestyle and choices. I wouldn't have guessed that cloth angels was the ornament of choice for such people. But good on whoever makes them for finding something that that kind of crazily wealthy market will buy. If indeed they ever sell any...

My mum used to make beautiful stained glass lamps and leaded window panels. However, inferior lampshades etc can be imported and sold on for 2/3 the price she can afford to sell them for. People just want a bargain in our neck of the woods. So she doesn't do it any more.

LOL to DadOnIce's comment!

I would love to be able to make a proper living out of making cards but it is just pocket money at the moment. I have a couple of regulars who buy all their cards from me as they love hand made and I can personalise the cards and I sell a lot at craft fairs.
I am hoping to go back to nursery nursing part time and carry on with the crafting. Just went for a job but did not get it.There seems to be so much competition now. If you have a minute please check out my facebook page it's Alikerstinacards. I would really appreciate it.

I know! I think they are lovely, personally, and would love to have one - but fuck off paying 200 quid for that!

My great-uncle's partner used to make (presumably still does make, I've lost track of him since my uncle died) chandeliers out of recycled glass and I remember there was a lot of bad blood between him and my parents because he basically spent tens of thousands on getting his business started up, borrowed money from my gran and from my parents and kept using money family had loaned to them to look after my great uncle, and still ended up struggling to keep his debts manageable. I think some people can be remarkably unrealistic about what's actually likely to sell and how to run a business. God knows, I am myself, but I wish there wasn't this idea that anyone can start up a business from scratch without any knowledge of it.

I make cakes, i make a reasonable amount of money from it in supplement to my "proper" income. If I could get my act together around marketing etc I could probably do it full time and make a reasonable living out of it. However, I've been doing it 18 years, am professionally qualified, used to be a pastry chef, I'm good at it and I work very quickly. I price & design things commercially; it's not a hobby for me, it's a business that I happen to enjoy.