To be fed up of people trying to hawk their 'craft' wares

[Goldenhandshake]

Over the last couple of years there seems to have been phases of craft/homemade items being hawked by loads of people, en masse, particularly over facebook.

There have been cards, cupcakes, personalised converse trainers and now hair bows seems to be the latest.

AIBU to be sick of the sodding 'Please like my FB selling page' requests, stalls popping up at DD's dance class, school fetes etc and then having people I know almost guilt tripping you into buying because you know them?

I know I don't have to buy anything, and I mostly don't, but have felt obliged to a couple of times. and have mainly been left disappointed

I'm guessing one of dizzy's products were tagged as in the shit category and that's why he's so angry?

I used to make hair clips for the dd's and people were always asking where I brought them and offering to buy them from me, but it was just a hobby, I'm not sure that I could ever have old them at a level that would have made me money to cover cost of the ribbons, appliques and base clip etc let alone anything for my time, yet there are loads of ebay sellers and etsy sellers.

The most amazing thing about these baby hairclips is that there are babies who will tolerate having the stupid things in their hair. They lasted about two seconds on DD.

I even tried putting them on her when she was asleep [pfb emoticon]

lol at Dizzy's trolling attempt. Must. Try. Harder.

I did visit a craft fair the other week, it was, I was informed, NOT a craft fair but a 'Vintage Fayre'. (side note, Vintage Soiree would have sounded so much more Hyacinth Bucket). The hall was bedecked in hand made bunting, which did look lovely. All stalls had signs saying 'All hand made'. Sadly, most of the 'handmade' stuff consisted of 99p Owl Necklaces etc shipped from Hong Kong and obviously bought from eBay or Aliexpress.

I'm afraid I wasn't all that subtle in pointing them out to DD with an "Oh look! There's that necklace we paid 99p for from eBay" whilst 'hand made' crafter glowered at me.

I make and sell craft things. It's really frustrating that when I started doing what I do there very only a handful of people doing them in this country, now everyone is. I can't believe how bad the majority are, I love cellophane and use it to present something beautiful, it seems most use it to hide a multitude of sins! My stuff isn't always perfect, sometimes a design just isn't quite 'right' so I redesign and remake until perfect. It seems a lot just throw it together and hope the cellophane holds it. Due to personal circumstance I am unable to do it as a business but feel sad watching people buy really bad ones, I'm guessing they have never seen a good one before. A Facebook friend decided to start doing what i was doing and aggressively sold to all our friends which again was a bit frustrating as honest to god they were awful but she was so pushy where as I just put the pictures on my fb of the items like I do with craft items made for myself and friends and if someone asks that's great, if not then I don't push. 90% of the time I do them for cost price (and that's not including time which I do for free).

As for pampered chef/avon/ann summers, I know someone who holds these parties for her friends every few weeks, I'm glad I'm not local but at the same time good for people for trying to make some money providing they don't push or make their friends feel awkward

Another thing I don't get is blinded up baby things, rhinestone dummy, beaded dummy clips etc. Aside personal taste, why on earth is looked all blinged up more important than the child's safety.

www.notonthehighstreet.com/cabbagewhitejewellery/product/silver-button-necklace

I have been making stuff like the above button necklace like the one on notths above - it cost £25 for just the solid silver (not 925 silver but 99.9% silver) plus sterling chain just to make it - not including time spent doing it obviously

You can see why that tiny necklace above is £95 when you consider notths take 50% of it I think

I've not got myself ready for selling anything yet (too scared ) until I perfect it. My solid silver leaf necklaces are lovely but there is so much silver in them there's no way it would be cost effective to sell them.

What pisses me off most about mumpreneurs hawking homemade shabby chic is the stereotype they create. It always comes back to 1950s housewife crafts...from women with degrees and previously successful careers. I completely get the difficulty with finding work after children, but to fall back on baking, sewing and flower arranging rather than, I don't know...PC repairs and gardening services. Or even selling less feminine tat such as guitar plectrums or pen knives! Why do they have yo make frippery?

So, women should avoid things they enjoy doing and are good at because it might create a stereotype? I'm sure there are women fixing computers if it makes you feel any better and my friend has her own gardening business (she can make clothes too - does that cancel out the usefulness of the gardening?)

Actually this is pretty explainable. They register as "self employed" and that way they can claim working tax credits. No need to make a profit as even if their business is rubbish they can still access WTC. This is what Universal Credit was meant to stop - those working a few hours self employed or their business being worthless but it gets them more benefits and means they don't have to sign on for Jobseekers Allowance.

Agreed, and it gets encouraged by certain job advisors. I write, as a hobby. My job advisor told me to do exactly this. I told him I wouldn't make enought to live off, he said it wouldn't matter.

I see some bad cards being sold for a lot and then this lady (I have no involvement just a happy customer) does the most amazing ones, decorated inside too and arrive wrapped in tissue paper in a box. I have NO idea how she is even covering costs popscards.blogspot.co.uk

Someone bought these big ugly material flower things into work to sell, they were to pin on your clothes and not really my cup of tea. I was going to buy one to be kind but they were 6 pounds. 6 pounds I tell you!
I couldn't do it, I kept thinking of the lovely bottle of wine I could buy instead!
As an aside, I also don't want to pay two quid for a sickly cupcake either.

I agree, I hate those sickly cup cakes.

my dm and I like to buy jewellery from a local business. they do sell at fairs but also do open house. her dh is a silversmith and it is unusual and good quality. They are lovely people and not pushy.

the stuff is silver and precious stones and nicely crafted. not rip off expensive. the seller got fed up with some fairs which were full of the cheap shoddy jewellery.

Letitsnow
I am really surprised anyone buys those baby dummy chains. They are so dangerous. How do you know that the beads won't detach when the baby chews it?

Just googled it and there are warnings from Trading Standards about these. I suspect though, that they won't be banned until some poor child has choked on them.

Thought of this thread today when I got ambushed. Went to a social event and there was the dreaded table of jewellery, lying in wait. Apparently I can hold a 'party' and get paid in jewellery, assuming enough gets sold to my soon to be ex friends. Can't wait!

See, those so-called parties - those crappy, expensive partylight candles, Jamie at Home, shit makeup, etc - wind me up more than people selling craft tatt, especially when someone invites you and doesn't tell you it's to sell you shit.

You rock up with a nice bottle of wine or flowers and then they try to con more money out of you for shite.

Those make me dig my heels in. 'Oh, sorry, I thought this was an event to enjoy one another's company. My finances don't stretch to purchasing any of this.' And yep, I say it, because they are trying to guilt you into buying over-priced crap and playing on your being embarrassed into it in a small social setting and that gets my goat every time.

I don't mind the parties as long as the hostess is upfront about it.

I agree the stuff is always expensive.

De-lurking to thank ArtexMonkey for reminding me about Portlandia. Hilarious! Must go waste some time on YouTube watching them all again.

FWIW I'm more than happy to pay for quality, handmade stuff (whether it's crafts, curtains, pieces of furniture etc) and it saddens me a bit to see so many people on this thread say they could never charge what it actually costs to make their items and make a profit, so they don't bother. If consumers realised the true cost of things maybe some of them would think twice before buying the 'tat'.

Quality stuff lasts for years too (I don't have kids yet so I'm not specifically referring to children's items here, just in general!)

Oh and I really don't like those makeup/jewellery/dildo parties. I always politely decline now, no matter who is hosting them. Hate feeling put on the spot to place an order (even if they're not hard sell) and would rather see friends, drink wine & munch crisps without feeling pressured to buy a battery operated willy

After a creeping losing battle against the likes of Vistaprint who do everything 'free' (there's a whole other thread right there...) I have recently started another small venture to supplement my print work making solid oak items such as signs and coat hangers. And it is damned difficult especially working with natural materials that can crack or change meaning that you can lose your profit on a job instantly. I recently attended a large show and by the time I paid for the stand + vat, PL insurance, card machine and materials for stock to take it was negligible as to if it was worth it. As with my print stuff there are some people out there who appreciate the time and effort and will pay appropriately and return time and time again but it is hard when people haggle over everything saying they can get it cheaper on eBay or Vistaprint. And what I make requires specialist machinery that most people don't have access to so by the time I have paid for timber, machine cutting costs and then my time painting them it is very hard to deal with those who argue they can get something not as nice on eBay for half the price. Nobody in the world (afaik) makes what I do but it is still hard and really disheartening at times and VAT is a real killer as a small business. And I am lucky enough to know how to make my own website and print my own marketing materials at cost so I don't know how some people do it and don't get me started on people linking their products to your Facebook posts. Arghhhh!

LaurieFairyCake Its silver I work in too :o I can use stainless steel or bronze too though which is way cheaper but still not cheap. I just sell to people through word of mouth at the moment because of the reasons I mentioned earlier