Today, Queen of the Night Tulip has a blog post entitled 5 Unique Ways You Can Make Money With Scrapbooking.
She has some good ideas there. I’d like to comment on one of them and add a few of my own.
Selling Your Left Over Scrapbook Supplies
Queen of the Night Tulip suggests selling your left over scrapbook supplies on eBay or elsewhere. To this, I would like to add that periodically, our local craft stores run “yard sales” or “flea markets”. Crafters can rent a table (prices vary) and sell their unwanted tools and supplies. If your local craft stores aren’t doing this, it might be worth making the suggestion to them.
Along the same lines, I believe you could sell grab bags of scraps of scrapbook paper, card stock, vellum and other specialty papers. Promote it as suitable for punched shapes, die cuts, embellishments, etc.
If you wanted, you could punch out a number of shapes and sell them instead of the scraps of paper. Perhaps throw in your leftover pieces of ribbon, fiber, unwanted stickers, etc.
I know there is a market for such a thing because my friend bought me a bag of crafting materials like this at a Silent Auction. The item was donated by the local scrapbook store.
I have a few other ideas for making money with scrapbooking and other crafting.
Sell Scrapbook Kits on eBay or through Craigslist
It appears that there is a market for kits containing supplies and pagemaps for a layout. If you’re good at designing and coordinating supplies, you could undoubtedly market kits ready for the purchaser to assemble. You would include the scrapbook pagemap or layout design, all card stock and papers and all embellishments ready for the user to put together. The purchaser supplies her own cutting tools, adhesives, photos and journaling.
Provide Crafting Workshops for Children
I’ve actually done this, and it is profitable, providing you cost your supplies carefully and perhaps hit a good sale.
No doubt there are different ways to approach this, but the workshop I did took place in a private home. The mom of the house was responsible for promoting the event and taking registrations. We charged $16 a head, which included supplies. We set our price based on the price that a local art store was charging for a two hour kids’ workshop. We did a theme around Valetine’s Day, but obviously any theme would work. You could also “rent yourself out” for birthday parties.
To do this, I suggest having business cards to hand out. You can get very nice FREE Business Cards
at VistaPrint. You pay for S&H, which cost me $8 because I live in Canada.
Selling Cards and Similar Items Through Consignment
I know people who are selling their cards this way. You approach a local gift shop, florist shop or boutique and discuss arrangements. Again, the key is to keep your costs down and be careful of time management. You cannot charge more than the customer is willing to pay — and the business owner will want a share as well.
Sell Cards to Your Local Veterinary Clinics
My veterinary clinic asked me about making “sympathy” cards for them to send to pet owners whose animals had died or been euthanized. In this particular case, we didn’t reach an agreement over price, but the idea is nevertheless a good one. Perhaps someday I will pursue it with other veterinarians.
Sell Completed Scrapbook Layouts on eBay
Would you believe you can make two to three hundred dollars US for a double page spread minus the photographs? I follow an exceptionally talented scrapbooker on eBay who does just this. Her work regularly sells for these amounts. This gal’s work is exceptionally lovely and original, and she has regular customers who follow her auctions and bid. Her eBay ID is craftingalong. If your talent is in that range, why not go for it?
Open an Etsy Store
If you haven’t heard of Etsy , its worth a look. Etsy is an online marketplace for crafters of all sorts to sell their items. It’s free to open a store. Etsy takes a small percentage of the sales you makes.
But Above All, Learn Business Skills
If you want to make money scrapbooking, you have to approach it like a business. This means you consider the cost of supplies, the cost of travel (if any), the cost of promoting or advertising and your time spent. You also have to price yourself product or service at a price that people will pay. If it’s too low, the customer will undervalue it. If its too high, they won’t spend the money. You have to know your customer and know the market.
For anyone serious about making money with scrapbooking, I recommend you visit this link.