Years ago, Theis started felting vests from bits and pieces of recycled sweaters to wear herself, and has since sold a few hundred of the one-of-a-kind wearable-art garments.

“Her creations are anything but boring,” DeSmith writes. “One has the fragments of a fluorescent ’80s pullover inset at the hips. Another has a sassy line of pewter buttons — plucked from an Icelandic cardigan — running down the spine.

“Many of the vests are colorful, teetering on the edge of gaudy. So far, the top sellers have been simple, solid black. But even these have a playful edge, as they’re made from contrasting textures such as cable and ribbed knits.”

Theis has been sewing since she was 15, but didn’t try selling her fashions until she retired from teaching in 2005. She took them to to various stores in the Twin Cities, but the response was disappointing.

Then, about a year ago, she went to a sewing expo where her vests caught the attention of Marcy Tilton, a popular designer for Vogue Patterns. Tilton suggested she send her vests to a San Francisco boutique called Kati Koos, where the vests were quickly accepted and sold.

The vests have since spread to upscale boutiques in California and Wisconsin, selling at prices upward of $270.

• Sweater Renewal
• How To Felt
• Sweaters, Vests and Other Outerwear

• How to Felt
• Family Fun Magazine

In her book Sweater Renewal, fiber artist Sharon Franco Rothschild outlines two methods of felting at home. Visit our Here’s How to… page for Felt.

• Sweater Renewal

First, consider what kind of wreath will express your feelings, interests, or ideas. Select foliage branches (fresh or artificial) and decorations with a common theme. Then, proceed with the instructions on our Home Made Guides page for Door Wreaths
To get started, you will need:

* hot glue gun and glue sticks
* wire cutters and wire
* a large table for a workspace
* a plastic tablecloth
* branches or foliage (fresh or artificial)
* decorative items
* grapevine wreath frame

• Handmade Crafts: Wreaths
• Home Made: Door Wreaths

Whether it is for your own use, or as an activity to enjoy with the kids, this is a rather simple but rewarding craft project for a summer’s afternoon.

“With an adult drilling the holes, wind chimes are a good project for children old enough to use a ruler to measure. Let them pick out their own embellishments at local bead shops or dollar stores. The kids can make Christmas or other holiday gifts for the adults in their life, using ornaments that typify that adult’s interests or home color scheme,” Schoen writes.

• Wind Chimes

The man who may have created the craft, Zhuge Liang, was military strategist of the state of Shu in the Three Kingdoms era (220-280). According to a local legend, he once tried to organize a crossing of the Han River but the waves were so high that passage was impossible. Advisors recommended a sacrifice of 49 human heads to calm the waters. Not wanting to see any loss of life, Zhuge Liang ordered 49 dough heads made, stuffed with beef and horsemeat. The ploy successfully fooled the spirits responsible for the choppy waters and ever since then, Zhuge has been known as the father of dough-figurine making.

“Dough figurines have been present in Chinese culinary culture for a long time, appearing in Tang dynasty (618-907) tombs as sacrificial offerings,” reports the Taiwan Journal. “In addition to serving food for human consumption, traditional Chinese banquets included a table of offerings to the gods, composed of flowers and figurines. After the feast, the decorations became toys for children or were thrown away.”

In a 2008 article, the Taiwan Journal profiles 74-year-old Wu Chen Su, a contemporary dough figurine artist along with her son and husband. Their modest home is decorated with more than 150 collections of the figurines.

“The Wus got their first taste of dough-figurine making while operating the family bakery business. Whenever there were festivals, people would order cakes baked in various shapes, including pigs, fish or ducks, and leave them on the altars as sacrificial offerings to ancestors or deities. Wu Chun-te said that one year, his mother met a master dough-figurine maker who visited Changhua and made an offering with a dough pig he had sculpted. Fascinated by the realistic appearance of the porker, she convinced the master to teach her the secrets of the craft during his stay in their home. The man not only taught her how to take a ball of dough, squeeze it into shapes and then assemble them to create a figure, but he shared the recipe for making dough in the traditional manner using uncooked glutinous rice, flour, water and a pinch of salt as an antiseptic.”

Wu Chun-te leads classes in dough figurines for students aged from 5 to 96 in high schools, community centers and reform schools. He’s received invitations  to demonstrate his skills in Japan, Poland, Paraguay, Russia and the United States flooding in. “We have received far more interest in dough-figurine making from abroad than I ever expected,” he told the Taiwan Journal. “I genuinely believe that through traditional art, we can help more countries learn about Taiwan and build up social diplomacy.”

1. Choose and develop your own line of unique homemade products that will appeal to consumers. Peruse the Buy Direct Directory for the wide range of possibilities, from baked goods to specialty foods, from bath salts and soaps to barbecue sauce and fruit syrups and pickles. Your unique angle may be a special recipe, organic ingredients, a unique color scheme, or an unusual or topical shape.

2. Develop your “pitch” — an advertising slogan or description that highlights the special features and benefits of your products. For an example, The Soap Factory in Bedford, Massachusetts offers “Old Fashioned Castile Soap” using “traditional recipes and low energy techniques” that bring “the best of the soap makers’ craft to you at economical prices.”

3. Display and sell direct to the consumer. If you lease a Booth space at Farmer’s Market Online, your products will be seen by hundreds of shoppers in a matter of days. All you need is a good product photo, your pitch, and your pricing. Farmer’s Market Online will construct your Booth — a dedicated web page — from information you provide. You can even set up PayPal payment links, allowing shoppers to purchase with credit or debit cards, and have the earnings deposited directly in your checking account. Best of all, you don’t need to produce large volumes of your product in advance, as you would in preparation for a craft fair or selling through retail stores. With many products, you can produce “on demand” as orders arrive.

4. Respond quickly and maintain quality. Repeat customers are the key to your success. Treat every inquiry and every order as if it were from your best friend.

Today there are a myriad of other options available to those able to think and plan “outside the box.”

A Booth space at Farmer’s Market Online is an alternative form of marketing that combines direct sales with the kind of marketing assistance a retail shop or gallery might provide. Much like a stall or space at an open-air farmers market, a Booth provides an opportunity for displaying handmade crafts and artwork before a steady crowd (more than 2,500 per day) of folks eager to buy unique works direct from the artisan. The big difference is that the artisan or crafter doesn’t have to pack, load and travel to the market and sit in the booth all day waiting for customers. Interested shoppers contact the artist directly and the artist sells directly, by whatever method he or she chooses.

Unlike most galleries or gift shops, and many markets, Farmer’s Market Online charges no commissions and requires no sales reports. Aside from the Booth lease fee, which covers the setup of the Booth and any changes made during the term of the lease, there are no other costs. The Booth can serve as the “web presence” for the crafter’s product, or it can be linked to the crafter’s own website.

Setting up and maintaining a website can be time-consuming or costly, or both, but it is one of the new marketing alternatives open to crafters along with eBay and setting up a brick-and-mortar retail shop.

Other options include cooperative agreements with other crafters (”you sell and promote mine and I’ll sell and promote yours”), tie-ins with local organizations, promotional displays at retail stores, and barters for goods or advertising.

At Farmer’s Market Online, as with other markets worldwide, there are almost always more buyers for handmade crafts and other goods than there are artisans available to produce and sell such work. Much more common are the importers, wholesalers, and resellers who buy in quantity and pitch to shoppers looking for bargains rather than uniqueness or artistic geniius.

In his book How to Start a Home-Based Craft Business, Kenn Oberrecht explains how to unlock your own crafting genius and, if you like, earn a decent income selling your creations to appreciative buyers. Consider the following list of popular American that Oberrecht compiled (follow the links to real-life examples by professional artists). Do you see a passion of yours listed? What can you make?

Baskets
Beadwork
Blacksmithing
Blockprinting
Calligraphy

Candles
Ceramics
Clocks
Decoupage
Decoys
Dolls
Fishing Tackle
Folk Art
Games
Garden Crafts
Glasswork
Gunsmithing
Holiday Crafts
Jewelry
Kitchen Crafts
Knives

Lamps
Leathercraft
Macrame
Marquetry
Metalwork
Models
Needlecraft
Picture Frames
Pottery
Puzzles
Quilts

Rugs
Signs
Silk-screening
Silversmithing
Stained Glass
Textiles
Tiles
Tincrafting
Tolepainting
Toys
Woodcarving
Woodworking
Yard Art

•      Open a craft shop and sell other people’s crafts. Depending on whether you buy crafts wholesale or take items on consignment, you will get from 20 to 50 percent of the retail price.
•      Manage a craft shop or work as a salesperson in a shop. If you don’t want to invest your own money in opening a shop, try working for someone who owns a shop.
•      Become an agent who handles other people’s crafts. Usually an agent will represent several craftsmen within a given target market. An agent will receive 15 to 50 percent of the wholesale price of the item. (If it is a production type item, 15 percent is normal. For one-of a-kind high-priced items, 50% is normal.  An agent calls on shops, galleries, and other outlets to sell the craftsmen’s work. The advantage is that the agent is doing what he/she does best (selling) and the craftsman is doing what he/she does best (creating).
•      Sell supplies. Craftsmen, both amateurs and professionals, need supplies to produce their products and supplies are often hard to find in rural areas.
•      Teach classes. You can teach classes either through your home or through a craft shop. The amount you make will be based on where you teach and how many students you have.
•      Write magazine articles or books. If you have the ability to communicate through the written word, writing magazine articles and books may be for you. “How-To” books on making craft items are popular as well as books that focus on specific crafts and craftsmen.
•      Start a newsletter. Often, craftsmen feel isolated if working by themselves all the time. A newsletter containing information about other craftsmen in the state might be welcomed.
•      Start a mail order pattern company. If you have been making items that others have liked, you may want to share the patterns with them. Patterns for crafts that are currently popular will sell best.
•      Develop patterns for publication in magazines and books.
•      Produce samples for supply shops and/or pattern companies. Many shops have a need for samples to use in their shops. Often they will give you the materials necessary to make the item, then give you the item after it’s been displayed for a designated period of time. Pattern companies need people to test their patterns before publishing them and need finished items to photograph for promotional literature.
•      Develop kits. Many people do not want to take the time or do not have the talent to select materials to use in their crafts. These people will pay extra to have someone select and package these supplies for them.
•      Organize craft fairs. Usually organizers of craft fairs are volunteers of the sponsoring organization with the profits going to the organization. Craft fairs can be sponsored by individuals with the profits going to them. If you enjoy details and organizing, this may be for you.
•      Demonstrate crafts.  Many museums and publicly owned facilities have craft exhibits, which are enhanced by demonstrations. Also, many retail stores that carry craft supplies have people demonstrating at the facility.

There are many opportunities for working in the crafts industry in addition to producing items to sell. The list can go on as long as your imagination and ingenuity last.

Source: Sharon Heidingsfelder, Crafts Specialist
Cooperative Extension Service - University of Arkansas