How To Make Money Crafting – Turn Your Hobby Into Income!

Have you ever said, ‘I wish I could just _______(fill in the blank with a craft of your choice) all day long?’ Really, I think most crafters wish the dishes, laundry and day job would just disappear, so we could do what we really want to do…craft!! Making money crafting may sound like a dream, but if you dream it, you can achieve it! Let’s get started talking about how to make money crafting.

Make Money Crafting Video

Watch along here as I share a few quick ideas for how to make money from your love of crafting!

Is It Really Possible To Make Money Crafting?

This is an excellent question. The answer is yes, it is possible. It may not be easy to get started make significant money, but if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to build your business, it is absolutely possible. I never would have thought I could earn a full time salary, while staying at home and helping my husband with our farm and other businesses, also while momming it up (aka spending time with our children) and having time to garden and preserve a lot of our food.

*I’m required to mention that less than 1% of Stampin Up demonstrators achieve these results. But I’m also going to mention that most of them aren’t trying my friends. Most of them are happy ordering their products at a discount, which is another awesome benefit of signing up with SU.

So let’s get started talking about how to make money crafting and where to start!

Identifying Your Goals

As you are exploring ideas for making money crafting, I encourage you to take a few moments to think about what your goals are.

Do you want to earn a small amount to be able to help support your hobby? Or maybe you want to pay for your hobby entirely. Would you like to earn a specific amount to be able to use for another purpose? Maybe you would love to quit your full time job and replace your income.

Or maybe you have different goal entirely, and that’s ok…but you need to identify it.

Keep in mind, goals are much more effective when they are SMART.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Here is an example of a SMART goal.

I will earn $100 at the community craft fair on August 10, by selling my handmade cards.

Next, let’s talk about the pros and cons of turning your hobby into a business, because this is something you may want to consider!

Pros & Cons Of Turning Your Hobby Into A Business

It’s good to consider the positive and negative aspects of turning your hobby into a business. Let’s look at a few of them.

Pros

Here are a few positive factors:

• When it comes to your taxes and accounting, all items related to your hobby become business expenses including your craft supplies! (make sure to seek a trained accountant for guidance)
• Your home craft area, and the utilities and expenses to maintain it will become business expenses.
• You get to do what you love…and earn money from it!

Cons

And here are two drawbacks to think about:

• Some crafters do not want to turn their hobby into a business for fear of something they love becoming ‘work’ to them. This is a personal decision to consider.
• Having to track income and expenses for the business side of things.

In a moment we will begin discussing how to make money, but before we get there let’s talk about how to save money.

saving money on your hobby

There are always ways to save money if you want to be creative, and I know you like being creative. 😉 Let’s talk about just a few ideas for pinching pennies.

Get A Discount

You can inch your way towards making money from your crafts by first exploring ways to save money on your supplies. Here are two ideas for how to do so.

Shop Wholesale

The opportunity likely exists to purchase your craft supplies through a wholesale distributor. The challenge may be to find one.

Shopping with a wholesaler may require you to purchase a certain quantity of supplies to be able to maintain the discount, and you may have to provide a business tax ID number to be able to purchase with the wholesale company.

If you’re not sure how to find a wholesale supplier, do a quick search for ‘wholesale supplier for _______’ and fill in the blank with the name of your type of craft.

Become A Distributor

Are there companies that sell products in your arena that you can sign up with, to share and sell products with others? If so, you’ll likely earn a discount on your own supplies while earning commission from any products you sell. This is how I got involved with Stampin Up! I began because I wanted to save on my products, and it turned into a money-earning endeavor.

Now let’s talk about how to make money with your particular craft!

Sell Your Crafts

Most likely you already know what craft you want to sell, but maybe you’re just exploring some possibilities. All the crafts are fair game incuding fine art, paintings, drawings, paper crafts like handmade cards or pre-made scrapbook pages, needle crafts, quilting, sewing, upcycled items, floral arrangements, and more.

Deciding what to sell may be simple, but figuring out where to sell may be a bigger challenge.

Where To Sell Your Crafts

Factors To consider

Choose your location(s) carefully! Where you sell your crafts will affect many things, including:

• The cost of your ‘location’ such as booth rental fees or website expenses
• The types of customers who find you
• The price customers are willing to pay
• The relationship you’re able to build
• The time investing in transporting and displaying your items, if any
• The time invested in processing orders
• Whether you have to ship orders, and the additional cost for this

Consider your ‘target market’ when deciding where to sell your crafts. Is it women in their 40’s, stay-at-home moms, young working men in upscale areas, or retirees?

Selling Locations

Here are some ideas for where to sell your handmade items:

Friends and Family

It’s easy to start with selling to people you know. It doesn’t require a cost of any time to set up shop, and they’ll be forgiving (usually!) if you happen to make any mistakes as you’re starting up your business.

Post On Social Media

This is a quick, simple, and inexpensive way to gain attention for your growing business. Make sure not to fill your profile with business items, because those who aren’t interested are likely to unfollow you. Mix up personal and business posts to keep your followers engaged.

Facebook Marketplace

It’s easy to post items for sale on Facebook Marketplace, and there are no fees associated with it. You can ship items after purchase or meet in person…at a public place is recommended!

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are a wonderful way to connect with others, locally or from a distance. There are specific groups for individual crafts where you are allowed to post items for sale, general sales groups for all handmade items, and groups that are local to you such as town groups or local garage sale groups.

Here are a few specific groups where handmade items can be posted and sold:

• Buy/Sell Your Handmade Crafts
• Handmade Hub Marketplace
• Arts and Crafts Handmade For Sale

When you search for the groups listed above, other similar groups will pop up as well, and you can request to join them if desired. Make sure to check each individual group’s rules for posting and selling items.

Local Shops

Local shops are often willing to make space for locally handmade items. Stop in to one or several shops with samples of your work and see if they’re interested.

Vendor Stores

Vendor stores are set up with booth space available to be rented. Think of an antique mall where each vendor has their own section to display their items. Some vendor stores are specifically for mostly handmade items, while others are for antiques, and some are anything goes!

Painted Tree Boutiques are a nationwide vendor store chain. Use this locator to find out if there is one in your area where you could sell your items.

Etsy & Similar Websites

Etsy is the most well known site where you can list handmade goods for sale. It has a huge following of shoppers looking for unique, handmade items, and customers may be willing to pay a premium for unique items.

Amazon Handmade is another example with huge potential publicity for your items. Many other sites are out there too!

Festivals, Trade Shows, Craft Fairs

Events such as festivals, trade shows, and craft fairs can be wonderful ones for selling handmade goods. They will (hopefully) bring the customers straight to you, and you just have to set up shop and be ready for them.

BE AWARE! Just because an event is accepting vendors to register, doesn’t mean it will be a good event with a lot of attendees. I’ve attended my share of awful events that had not been properly advertised to the public. I suggest that before you sign up for an event, do some research to see if the organizers of the event are doing their part to bring the customers to you.

Before Signing Up For An Event

Before you sign up and send your payment to have a booth at a vendor event, evaluate the following:

• How long has the event been happening? Is this the first year, or is it a long-standing event?
• How many vendors are attending?
• Where is the location, and is it visible to people driving by?
• How is the event being publicized?
• How many attendees does the event typically have?
• Are there other vendors selling items similar to yours?

You can contact the event organizer with these questions. If they reply, you can evaluate their answers and decide if the event sounds like a good fit for you. If they don’t reply or seem irritated by your questions, it’s a good sign they aren’t going to put the time into promoting the event properly!

Your Own Online Store

Of course, you can always set up your own online store to sell your items. In this case, you may be the only one promoting your site and goods, so keep that in mind. This may be the most professional way of selling your items online, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.

A quick internet search for ‘how to create an online store’ will give you a ton of information to browse and sites that make it easy for you to set up shop, such as Shopify.

Now that we’ve looked at a ton of options for where to sell your goods, let’s talk about another way to earn income from your craft. Teach others!

Teach Others Your Craft

Selling your actual craft may not be your calling. Maybe teaching others your craft is! Or maybe, you can bring in some income selling items and supplement it with funds from teaching others. Let’s talk about a few avenues for doing this.

In person classes

This is how I got started with my scrapbooking and card making business. I invited others into my home to teach them! I prepared the supplies, and when they arrived, I gave all the instructions and guided them to create the projects. I’ve also done these where I find a host to invite over her friends and I taught the class.

If you aren’t interested in having others into your home, consider offering a class at a local coffee shop or community center. Be creative in what you call your events. ‘Paint class’ sounds a lot less fun than ‘paint party!’

You can also check with local groups such as libraries or colleges to see if they’re looking to offer any classes that you might be qualified to teach.

Online tutorials

Creating tutorials to make available online is a great way to bring in additional income. There are so many people looking to learn new crafts online! These can be written tutorials, online classes, or videos which we will discuss more below.

Videos

Videos have taken over, haven’t they?! In exchange for creating and sharing videos, video platforms may pay you.

You may be interested in making full-length videos, or doing shorter ones like ‘Shorts’ or ‘Reels.’

Choose a video platform such as YouTube or Rumble, and start creating! Keep in mind, you may have to reach a certain number of subscribers, views, or watch time before the site begins paying you. Do your research before deciding where to share your videos.

Monetized website

You can create your own website, including paid advertisements, where you share your tutorials, either for a cost or for free. You will earn income from the advertisements on your pages.

These are the most common ways of earning income through teaching others. Can you think of others? If so comment at the bottom and tell me!

Once you’ve decided where to sell your items and if you will teach classes, determining pricing is critical for success with your business. Let’s talk about that in the section below.

A note about pricing

I will get on my crafty soapbox for a moment before we wrap up this guide on how to make money crafting.

When you price your items (and/or classes), be mindful of the cost of supplies AND the amount of time you put into making the item.

There are formulas available to help you take these two pieces of information and attach a price to your items. What I want to mention specifically is not to undervalue your work. Some crafters just sell items for fun and aren’t worried about making money, and they price their items ridiculously low – for example $1 for a handmade card that has $1 in supplies and 20 minutes of work to create it. This undervalues their work and also trains shoppers to undervalue other crafters. For example, when the shopper sees someone else selling cards for a fair price, they are likely to judge how ‘expensive’ they are compared to the $1 cards.

Let’s create an even playing field – price your items to earn money!

don’t forget branding

I would be amiss if I failed to mention branding in this article. Branding, in the world of handmade goods, is SO important. It will distinguish your handmade items from the rest, and honestly, it can dramatically increase the price you’re able to charge for your goods.

Do some additional research on ‘how to brand my handmade crafts’ or ‘how to market my handmade business’ for more information.

In conclusion

Earning money through crafting is extremely rewarding, and if this is something your heart is leading you towards, I encourage you to pursue it! I hope this article has helped you in your quest to find out how to make money crafting!