Craft for Profit: Choosing Products that Will Earn Money

When we craft with gift-giving in mind, the cost of our materials and the time involved in the craft itself is a moot point. We don't care, because it's about the gifting. There's love behind that item, which makes it worth much more than anything you could buy.

When we craft with sales in mind, the cost of materials and the time involved in the craft is all-important. Unless you don't care about paying your bills, you're going to want to earn a profit off of your work. And most of us really value our craft as an art - which means that a "profit" isn't enough. It needs to be a good profit, or everything starts becoming more work than pleasure.

Choosing craft products that will earn you money doesn't take a lot of work, but it does take some time and thought as well as a little bit of experimentation. You'll need to consider a few key points that really determine whether you will make money from your craft, or just spend it.

Labor of Love

In the end, most of us continue to craft - to sell or give - simply because we love the process of creation. The amount of money we earn isn't anything compared to that overriding desire to create, that monkey on our back that whispers taunts in our ears and often tugs at our hair if we aren't making something.

But let's face it; everyone is in business to earn a living. Most of us are in business to earn a comfortable living.

This, then, is the first thing to consider when choosing a craft to sell. How long will it take you to create? This is also where the little bit of experimentation comes in. Here's what to do in this step:

1. Gather at least 5 patterns or recipes for the craft(s) you're most interested in selling.
2. Keep a small piece of paper and pencil handy, and a clock nearby.
3. Jot down the exact time when you begin your first project. If you take a break, mark down when you stopped and when you start again. Continue doing this until you're done with the project. (Ex: Started 6:30 - 9:30, Re-started 2:15 - 5:30)
4. Add up how much time the project took in total, based on the times you wrote down. (In the example, total time would be 6 hrs, 15 mins)
5. Figure the cost of your project based solely on the amount of time you spent. Be realistic, but aim to make it where you are earning as much "per hour" as you'd be comfortable with if you went and applied for a 9-5 job tomorrow. (In the example, we'll say I wanted to earn $6/hour. The total cost would be 37.50)

Based on your experiment, you may have already decided that your first project just isn't feasible. If you're spending 7 hours on a product that you can't possibly consider charging at least $40 for, you're already looking at a serious loss of profit. On the other hand, if you spent 30 minutes on a project that you can easily charge $15 for, you've got a possible money-maker.

Repeat the experiment until you have a list of at least three things you can easily see earning money on based on the amount of time you spend crafting them.

Materials are Everything

After you've carefully gone through your ideas and chosen a few key crafts that seem likely candidates for earning a profit, it's time to dig in and do a little bit of research.

The cost of materials must be figured in to your overall price, or you're never going to get anywhere. So, if you're spending even half as much as the amount you came up with in the experiment on materials, you've cut your profit in half. Things don't look so good anymore. There's two things that you can do.

First, look around to find some really good bargains. Sometimes, these bargains come in the form of a surprise find that you'll probably never find again. This is great - but you can't really rely on it. At best, you can hope that this great find will mean a slight increase in profit for a few of your projects. In general, the best bargains are going to be found by purchasing your materials wholesale or in bulk.

Next, look and see if you can offset some of the materials cost by the price you'll charge for the crafted item. This isn't always feasible, but it is a last resort when you're desperate.

While we're on the topic of materials, let me offer this bit of advice as well: never fall for the idea that more expensive materials result in more profitable crafts. It's not always true - in fact, it's often completely false. Instead, choose your materials because they please you; instead of going for that solid color silk, why not choose the pretty floral cotton? It's less expensive, and in pictures or at a booth it's much more attractive - which means you're that much more likely to make a sale.

By the time you're done with this step, you may have whittled your product ideas down. Don't stress out, just do some more experimentation and do the steps with the new ideas before proceeding.

Aim for Range

The last step you'll need to take in choosing profitable crafts is to look at having a good range of final prices. Basically, this means that you should totally go for the high-price one-of-a-kind cardigan if that your pleasure - in fact, make a couple of them in different colors - but also have products on the other end of the scale, which don't cost much at all.

There are a lot of options which will fill out your selection very quickly, as long as you keep to the basic steps we've covered. What you'll end up with is a selection of crafts that you've made and which will make you money.