Home Based Income Opportunities - Making Money with Handmade Items

Today's struggling economy has forced many people to the unemployment lines. Those lucky enough to have kept their jobs are facing the reality of reduced hours at work, which leads to reduced take home pay. In a time when households have been struggling to pay their bills, bringing home less money has people scrambling for alternative ways to make extra money.

For most folks, sending a stay at home mom (SAHM) back into the job market is not the answer. When one factors in the cost of childcare, it's quite obvious that even if Mom could find a quality job in this economy, it wouldn't make sense financially or benefit the child/chidren in any way. So what's a family to do?

There are many people earning money with their computers. These multiple streams of income can be earned countless ways and this article will examine one of the hottest new trends on the internet... selling handmade items.

The people who create quality handmade items have been using the internet to market their creations for several years. Creating a personal website is fairly inexpensive and little computer experience is needed to create a basic, professional looking site. In addition, there are many very good tutorials available on the interent to help you create an eye-catching site.... from creating a shop banner to taking and editing eye-popping images that will attract customers and hopefully, keep them browsing your site.

There are many handmade sites on the interent that offer crafters the opportunity to inexpensively open their own shop on the site and market their creations to the public. Sites such as the well known Etsy.com have over 1,000,000 members and most of them are considered buyers-only. Other sites include Dawanda, Art Fire, Trunkt, 1000 Markets, to name only a few.

Etsy offers members the ability to create a shop (within their guidelines of course) that can be customized with a shop banner, profile, shop policies and an avatar. Listings cost a mere 20 cents and the crafter can list up to 5 images of each item. Listings stay in the shop until it sells or for 4 months, whichever comes first. Etsy.com charges a flat 4.5% fee when you sell an item and you must have a Paypal account to open a shop on the etsy site (you can accept money orders, checks or credit cards if you choose)

Etsy also offers forums to all of it's members. These forums include a site help forum, a business forum and a forum where you are permitted to promote your items, just to name a few. Etsy also offers live tutorials or sessions to new members on how to increase their opportunities on Etsy.

Promoting your shop is not only limited to on-site promoting. There are many social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, that you can use to let your friends and family members know about your new venture. Linking your handmade shop to networking sites increases the exposure of your items to large groups of people at one time and driving traffic to your online site will increase the potential for sales.

Blogging has become a very popular way of sharing your creations with the public. There are many free blogs available on the internet. Sites like Blogspot and Wordpress, offer free templates to personalize your blog to your style.

Blogging is a great way to show off your skills, offer your opinion on crafts, the world, or just about anything you'd like to chat about. It's also a great way to promote your newest items and show images of what you've created. Simply put, blogging is another wonderful opportunity to promote and express yourself and who you are with your potential customers.

Selling handmade items isn't limited to just offering them online. A great way to promote your online shop is by vending at craft shows and fairs. Craft shows have become extremely popular over the last couple of years and it's a great way to show off your creations and see the public's reaction, all while you hand out your online shop's business cards. (there are several very good articles on Associated Content about what you'll need to do a craft show and what type of show to do). Doing a home show by yourself or with other crafters is another great way to earn a little extra income, while you promote your items and your online shop.

With today's internet opportunities, a SAHM can run her business from her computer desk. Everything from payment processors (to collect the money from your sales for you) to printing shipping labels and even calling for a postal pick-up are available. Fifteen minutes of listing and promoting a new item before the baby wakes up, twenty minutes of blogging before the little ones come home from school, can turn a crafting hobby into an extra stream of income for your household and all without Mom needing to leave the house.