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How to make money selling crafts?

July 22, 2020

Believe it or not, the things that you find attractive when doing things with your hands can make you quite a bit of money. In fact, in the United States, arts and crafts platforms like Etsy and at a lower level eBay, make a home-based arts and crafts aficionados hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year.

The funny thing about all this is they didn’t start out trying to make money. Seriously. It’s not like they just roll up their sleeves one day and decided to jump in with both feet and say, “well, this is going to be the way. I’m going to earn my livelihood.”

It usually doesn’t start out that way. Most of the time, people have an interest in a form of art. Maybe they’re interested in certain types of sculpture.

Maybe they were visiting Japan or China, or the Middle East and they came across some object of art that they just can’t quite wrap their mind around. They’re intrigued.

So, they did a lot of research. They came up with a shortlist of different art objects that they are fascinated by. They got so inspired by this experience that they decided to craft their own. This happens quite a bit.

Crafting as a hobby

June 19, 2020

When people use the word “crafting”, all sorts of activities come to mind. This is what’s awesome about it but it’s also what’s confusing about it. Arts and crafts can easily be defined as something narrow.

We’re talking about something to do with crocheting, some sort of fancy quilting or even paper cutouts or some sort of artwork involving paper. While this is well and good, keep in mind that the term “crafts” in the phrase, “arts and crafts” is much broader than a lot of people can realize.

It covers a much more diverse range of activities than people care to imagine. You can do arts and crafts when you are repurposing junk, or when you’re working with used electronic equipment.

Similarly, if you are dealing with chemical refuse or stuff that is a product of industrial processes, that can technically still be arts and crafts. So given this amazing range, what is a good working definition of this phrase?

[Read more…] about Crafting as a hobby

Woodworking for beginners

May 15, 2020

If you want to get into the arts and crafts scene, one of the best ways to do so is through woodworking. Now a lot of people would laugh at this because they would think that woodworking is almost impossible. It’s easy for people to get this impression.

First, they would think that woodworking involves picking up and moving heavy blocks of wood. This is not necessarily through, thankfully. Some types of wood are very dense. They have tons of fiber-packed in a square inch and they weigh a lot-they are also tough to work chip away or process. Thankfully, not all hardwoods are so dense that it seems like you’re working on a piece of metal. Many types of wood are soft or moderately soft that you can come up with lots of awesome designs without having to break your back lifting logs or blocks to work on.

Second, many people think woodworking is just too intricate. They think it would take too much skill. Well, woodworking does require skill but you can scale up your skillset with practice. Using the right tools, your initial foray into this amazing hobby doesn’t have to eat up all your time and attention.

Easy Woodworking Tips – Working With Common Wood Defects

March 15, 2020

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

This quote from cinematographer Conrad Hall can apply to easy woodworking. As with anything else, you will rarely find perfection in wood. Some common wood defects that you should be aware of and know how to work around are mold-damaged wood, bows in the wood, splits or cracks, loose dark knots, and excessive sap residue.

You may find that some wood you have to work with has an unwanted bluish-gray tinge. This is commonly found in woods such as pine, sycamore, and holly. This mold damage is caused by storage in an area that is too warm or not well ventilated. You can solve this problem by using the wood on a part of the project where it will not be seen or by staining the wood darkly.