Start an Etsy Shop (with your mom)
Crafting is a hobby/illness for both myself an my mother. Going to a place like Hobby Lobby usually ends in cart full of yarn, canvases and scrapbooking goodies. But with great purchases come great storage needs because not everything comes to fruition. After a spring cleaning ession it became clear that either the hobbies had to stop or we had to find a something to do with all these treasures.
We came up with a challenge. Finish the projects so that we can list them on Etsy. Now we are so delusional as to imagine we make successful projects every time- so with the listing of an item we also selected a charity to which the profit would go.
To Begin:
We started simply with an inventory of all the projects that were sitting in the closet half realized. This was quite an endeavor as the collecting of hobbies had been going on for so long that we couldn’t even remember all the aspiration we had. We ended up starting with just three projects to finish.
Bird Blocks
This was a something my husband and I had seen at a local antique store. The bird blocks were hand painted on reclaimed would. We found the would pieces out in the garage and added some saw tooth hangers to the back. The birds were printed and mod podge on the block after where we painted the image again using acrylic paint.
Cafe Art
Copied from a local cafe, I put these together painting on some scape sketchbook paper. These super simple illustrations were really easy to replicate. I just took a photo of the source artwork and with a little watercolor copied them to the best of my ability. They really came together when I slipped them into the pre-made matte windows that I got at Hobby Lobby. The charity we decided to go with was Second Harvest, a regional food bank. View Listing. Learn more about Second Harvest.
Political Pins
In a moment of revolutionary fervor I purchased a pin maker. Made a grand total of two pins and then put it away for about six months. This project had me dust it out and look for some of my favorite political messages and artworks. The charity is Democracy Now which you can check out here. And you can view the shop listing
Wine Cork Keychain
We had been stockpiling wine Corks for almost ten years now. We might have over a thousand at this point and there has been a lot of experimentation with them. We have tried Christmas ornaments, cork boards, hot pads- this list goes on. Seeing as how we would want to be able to ship these with ease, keychains seemed to make the most sense. All of the elements purchased at the craft shop and assembled by hand. Check them out here. Proceeds benefit Second Harvest.