My Money Making Schemes

For a while I have wanted to make a shop on Etsy, where I could sell handmade items such as cushions, hairclips and various jewellery pieces. 

 

^ The second cushion I made. It has a plain pink back and a zip fastening.
<- The first cushion I made (back and front)
Obviously these were my first couple of attempts. If I started up an etsy shop, I would make them look a bit more fanciful, with buttons and ribbons for example. 



However, time being such a constraint with my A levels and cost also being a worry. The thing with etsy is that for every item you list to sell, you have to pay 20 cents (it's in US dollars) and then you have to pay them 3.5% of the whole sale price. It's all a lot of hassle, especially if your products don't sell. Then you have shipping charges etc and have to have a credit card to sign up, and then have to make a paypal account...
However, if things did go well, I would end up making money and it's always worth bearing in mind that practically everything is done via paypal now so that would be useful.
As I say, I've been quite unsure about it because I've been a bit worried spending money to buy up materials for the products. Time is the main problem so I may wait until I have finished college and am in the summer holidays (3 and a bit months until about 13 weeks off!!!).


Anyway, today I was somewhat reassured when I went on a cute little website which makes cushions by hand. They use so called "vintage" fabrics (we can take that to mean reusing old blankets, curtains and bedding) to create pretty little pieces. The best thing about this is that it puts into perspective how much you can make without even needing to buy new material, and how effective recycled fabrics can look with so much opportunity for creativity. Their cushions are selling for as much as £62.50! Obviously it reflects the quality of the materials - linen, lace etc - but still I'm sure that a few substitutions could work to look just as beautiful.

 <- Thelittleredbuttoncompany

I am sure to do a blog post if I do decide to go ahead with this mini-business, so hopefully someone will read this and decide that they would want to purchase one of my if I made them. If you read this and would be seriously interested, leave a comment because it will spur me on to sign up and make the site. I enjoy making things like this anyway, but selling my products would be fantastic.

xx