thank you for your comment. What a great idea your sharing with me.
Im a nursing mom also and its true that baby’s would probably love to touch a nursing nice mom’s necklace while drinking up the good milk.
Thanks!

When you decide to start your hand-crafted jewelry, could you PLEASE make a product for nursing moms? When my children were little, they loved to scratch me or pull my hair while nursing. I always wanted to market “boobie beads”, colorful beads on a necklace to entertain little hands while nursing. I’m sure they would need a magnetic clasp to prevent being torn off or a choking hazard. Just a little brainstorming that I hope will motivate you to follow your dreams.

Here in Quebec, we don’t have Micheals stores, we only have a store called Omer Deserres, which is nice, but I know that Micheals is hard to beat.

When you wrote:

—-What I have observed from the craft sales I’ve participated in and attended is that success is a combination of traffic, intention, and correct pricing. Most of the time with hand-made crafts, you *sadly* cannot charge for alot for your time unless you have a truly unique product.——

It really got me thinking, oh yessss!! Pricing our crafts is a very tricky and delicate part. Too high or too low can be just as bad.

Wow! You seem to have made great sales last craft show, you sold 200 cards and other crafts.

I think I will buy a book on Starting a handmade jewelry making business on amazon and read up on the topic.

@ Pisces. I will look up the reading you’re suggesting me. Also, I love your quote: ”Don’t die with the song in your heart”

@Sunshine Great idea with the ING account. I currently make handmade cards, and hand stiched/embroidered felt ornaments, christmas wreaths. In the past I have done knitting, sewing, cross stitch, gift baskets (not so much craft but they look nice), decorated miniature trees. I go into Michaels and it’s like a I’m 5 years old in a candy store – LOL. The handmade cards are made from a variety of things, but mostly paper, rubber stamps and embossing. I have been doing church craft sales for about 15 years… but the last few years have only managed to do 1 a year as my responsibilities/stree from my full-time job have made the dedication to time very difficult.

What I have observed from the craft sales I’ve participated in and attended is that success is a combination of traffic, intention, and correct pricing. Most of the time with hand-made crafts, you *sadly* cannot charge for alot for your time unless you have a truly unique product.

The hand stitched felt ornaments cost me a $1 to make and 5 hours of time. I charge $4.95 for the ornaments. Which if you calculate is less than $1 an hour. Ummm, should I charge more? depends upon the venue — at a church/school sale, where the table is $30 – I generally keep the pricing very low. Lot of little old ladies, or moms on the go looking for a nice inexpensive gift. So I go more for volume — if I was going for a table at Cabbage Town craft festival – where the table is $110-150 (approx), I would need to charge more. But it is much more of a risk, I would recommend if just starting out, start with a smaller sale — although you may have a “bad weather day”, and people may have their wallets welded shut – you will still get a good idea for what people like.

The other reason why I do not charge alot of $ is that I do this more as “therapy” than as real business. I do it 15 mins at a time, once in the morning as I sit on the couch trying to wake up, and once in the evening (carpal tunnel makes the hand stitching problematic so I can’t do longer than that at one time).

When I’m making the handmade cards, it is usually when I have woken up early (sometimes an early riser) and I do a few versions at a time (kind of like an assembly line) – still love seeing the finished product. The cards I see for $1 (they cost 50 cents to make). Sometimes I make much more elaborate cards that are more expensive – but they also have more expensive items so I still only make like $1.

At the craft show I went to last year, I sold 200 $1 cards, 2 wreaths, 15 specialty cards, some packaged paper (cutting down on the inventory) and 4 ornaments (just started doing them).

This is probably wayyyyyyyyyy more info then you wanted, but us crazy crafters love to chat crafts

For this years crafts sale, I am hoping to make nancy drew purses as well as the usual stuff.

Happy crafting!

And you MUST find time for your dream ”Don’t die with the song in your heart” – start small. A cool site that you should check is Etsy. com

And Gail, you are my inspiration…getting ready to sit BF down and attack the ‘budget monster” Wish me luck !! )

@ Mimi: thank you for your advice on time management. Ill try it out. And good luck on your job searching.

On another note, someone mentioned on the blog feedback comments in recent days that Moneysense Magazine is an additional $1 each month if you get it through Rogers (where you already have a bill there). I just subscribed after checking it out at a local store…what a great resource for additional information.

There’s a website called Career-Lifeskills.com that specializes in career books. Here’s a few of the books I found when I did a search for you:

Start Your Own Arts and Crafts Business
Retail, Carts and Kiosks, Craft Shows, Street Fairs
http://career-lifeskills.com/career-series-126/start-your-own-132/start-your-own-arts-and-crafts-business-10-2675.html?zenid=9429cc0e1c8601b845f32dbe6f15e494

The Everything® Start Your Own Business Book
http://career-lifeskills.com/career-building-1/career-information-25/everything-start-your-own-business-book-2nd-edition-the-10-2268.html?zenid=9429cc0e1c8601b845f32dbe6f15e494

Ready To Start Your Own Business?
http://career-lifeskills.com/career-building-1/career-information-25/ready-to-start-your-own-business-10-2931.html?zenid=9429cc0e1c8601b845f32dbe6f15e494

You can look at these books and do your own searches to see if they have what you need. Research is one of the first steps before starting your own business, and some of these books are really step-by-step.

Good luck!