Crafty ways to make money?

It's hard to make suggestions without knowing what you're *best* at. Think about what you can do well, and crank out quickly. What a lot of people don't consider is how much time it takes to make a thing, and then they can't sell it for a high enough price to make it worth their time. Look for items that have a wide appeal and that anyone could use. Also, how are you planning to sell your items once they're made? That might determine what kinds of things would be good choices based on whether they can be shipped easily and inexpensively.

  This is what I'm thinking.  If you have more money that time, it can work.  But really, you will never get a good return on your time for most things.

I would wander a local craft fair.  See what sells, what you could make inexpensively and resell for a good mark up.  Don't make what is selling well, find something unique to you.  But you will get ideas of what will work locally.

I've been buying a lot of custom stickers on etsy for my erin condren planner. The ones I buy are 4.50 per sheet so kind of spendy and I also just purchased a 20 dollar set(!) Anyway, if you're good at computers/graphics, take a look at the planner sticker market. Also, I couldn't sleep last night and spent and enormous amount of time browsing handmade Christmas ornaments. I know it's super early but it's something I want to buy for everyone in my family this year. You have plenty of time to make holiday items to sell in the Fall.

One last random idea... I love kits. All kinds of crafty kits. I've always wanted to design kits but it'll never happen with my schedule. You could make something then create kits with everything needed including instructions, to duplicate the item. I belong to a couple of monthly kit clubs and I love it. Kits might sell well at your craft fairs. Anyway...good luck!

my niece just started pet sitting. Doing really well too!

That's a BIG if! I would only move forward if you can afford to do it as a hobby. The likelihood that you can make a decent amount of money is slim. It is possible but not probable.

I was just daydreaming yesterday about talking to local coffee-cart operators, or very small cafes, about whether they wanted to buy home-baked things like muffins, brownies etc., to sell with their coffee. I saw one coffee-cart that had their own home-baked slice once, and it was SO popular. I could bake early in the morning and drop them off on the morning school-run.

Just a pipe-dream for me, but maybe something you could do...?

I just heard of someone who does a once a year sale for kids clothing. Basically they get stuff by buying whatever is left over from a yard sale or getting it free for hauling it away. I'm not sure how they only get kids clothes, they may have to take everything and donate what they cannot sell, but I guess they have a huge sale once a year and it does really well in their area.

I think it's very hard to make money with crafts. People don't seem to be willing to pay for someone's time. So it would have to be something you can make quickly and easily, like maybe printing out invitations or birth announcements and adding things to them like ribbons or brads or something so it becomes a customized product.

I know several people who are dog walkers and dog sitters and who make a pretty good living at it.  I know it isn't crafty, but it seems to be a good money generator.

Check your local laws and policies about selling baked goods. Around here you need to have an inspected kitchen (no kid or animal access) and a food safety permit (or something like that). There are a lot of people who don't go through those processes but I would never want to jeopardize my family's security by opening myself up to lawsuits. Especially if you are looking to make it a real business.

I take part in a few kids consignment sales like this. The lady who runs them works her butt off to organize them. She has online tagging software (which I'm sure wasn't cheap) so that the consignors can price, print and tag their items at home, drop them off at the sale site where they are sorted by size and gender (or type for toys, books or other baby gear), and put out for sale, then the lady running the sale actually sells it for the consignors. It's a pretty slick system.

If you do nothing but tag your stuff and drop it off, you get 65% of the sale price you set and she gets 35%. If you volunteer to work 1-3 three hour shifts, you get an additional 5% per shift worked so you can earn as much as 80% of your tagged price for whatever you sell. Most of the consignors volunteer so they will get more of the sale price on their items for sale, and the volunteers are who mainly staff the sale so she doesn't have to pay too many people actual wages. She is a consignor as well, so she also makes money from the items she personally sells, and she has a TON of stuff in every sale. It must be a lucrative thing for her to do or she wouldn't hold five twice annual sales in our greater metro area every year.

Here in Michigan, my dd is able to make and sell her decorated cookies from our kitchen under the Cottage Law. She can sell her cookies by word of mouth (which is where all of her orders have come from) at a farmers market and church sales just to name a few. She cannot sell them in retail stores or via the internet.

Your books are so cute! How nice to be able to make money doing something you love.

OP, good luck with your new venture. It sounds like a great idea!

ETA: I recall seeing someone offering teepees as a new business venture. I think it was on Shark Tank. You might want to look up the episode and see what kind of input they got from the experts regarding their business model.