Get Crafty, Get Paid
If you have a penchant for a paintbrush or a love of making pottery, you might be able to turn your creations into money—just like the people in these stories did.
Elementary School Teacher Pans for Gold in New Zealand
Penny Portraits of Abe Lincoln Turn into $40,000
Craftsman Creates Mobster-Themed Handcrafted Wallets
Carpenter Pays His Mortgage Selling Embroidered Travel Patches
TV Producer Sells Monogrammed Scarves While Riding Subway
Handstamped Feminist Jewelry Smashes the Patriarchy
Retail Store Manager Creates Miniature Stages for Batman
SIDE HUSTLE LABS: How to Sell Your Art, Crafts, or Handiwork
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER PANS FOR GOLD IN NEW ZEALAND
NAME
LOCATION
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND
STARTUP COSTS
$4,000
INCOME
$40,000 IN YEAR ONE
WEBSITE
After changing continents, an elementary school teacher finds true love, goes panning for gold in New Zealand, and ends up making an extra $40,000 in a year, working mostly on the weekends.
For the past twelve years, Alex Moore has been an elementary school teacher. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, he taught in the area for several years before moving overseas to London to continue teaching and to play rugby.
While in London, he met his future wife, Paula. Once he visited her homeland of New Zealand to meet her family, he knew it was a match made in heaven—and not just with Paula, but with the country of New Zealand too.
On that first trip, Alex had a crazy idea. He’d heard it was possible to pan for gold in parts of the country, and his goal was to find enough gold to make his wedding ring. He spent about twenty to thirty hours pursuing this goal, but in the end he only found about two grams of gold.
You need around twenty grams to make a ring, so after all that work, he was only 10 percent there. Still, when he got home, he took the gold he’d found to a master jeweler, who melted it down into his future ring. It was that process that led him to the side hustle that would change his life.
When talking to the jeweler, Alex learned that he taught jewelry making on the side. On the spot, he signed up for lessons. He continued these lessons off and on for the next two years while he was teaching. After he’d learned enough, he was able to start making a few pieces of his own and selling them on Etsy.
This took place for a few more years until he moved to New Zealand with Paula and their young family. Their new home base was Queenstown, a huge tourist destination that’s known as the adventure sports capital of the world.
Right on the banks of the gorgeous Lake Wakatipu, the Creative Queenstown Arts and Crafts Market is held weekly, drawing in hundreds of tourists from all over the world. It was at this market that Alex began to get a lot more serious about his jewelry making.
Alex took on the moniker “Gold Pan Pete,” and now sells both online and to tourists visiting the market. Most of his sales take place at the market, but he tends to get repeat customers who order more jewelry from him once they return home.
During an average week, he makes about $800 in net income, or approximately $40,000 in a year. To be fair, he needs to be on-site selling at the market for eight hours on Saturday, and then spend another six to eight hours a week in his home workshop once his kids go to bed.
Still, for $40,000 a year, it’s worth it. He’s currently expanding his online presence and hoping to develop more relationships with shops around the globe. This will allow him to work less or make more money, or both.
“I was getting burned out on being a school teacher. Now I can afford to reduce my amount of teaching days, and still look forward to going to work.” —Alex
FUN FACT Alex uses the moniker “Gold Pan Pete”—but there is no Pete. “It just has a nice ring to it,” he says.
ACTION PLAN
1. Apprentice with a master jeweler or other craftsperson.
2. Make your first jewelry and learn as you go.
3. Specialize by crafting something unique. Some of Alex’s best sellers are rings featuring different “house seals” from Game of Thrones.
4. Find the right tourist market. Pay close attention to what sells. Chances are, that’s what you should focus on.
5. Shift to online sales. In the long run, you’ll be able to reach far more people than selling locally.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Alex sells at a big, international market that draws visitors from all over the world each weekend. Many of those visitors see his work at the market, then go home and place an online order.
PENNY PORTRAITS OF ABE LINCOLN TURN INTO $40,000
An investment broker earns an above-average return on an unusual art project.
Do you have an extra $8.46 in pennies? Maybe you could put it to use creating a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. At least that’s what Maury McCoy from Austin, Texas, would suggest. Maury works in the investment world, and spends much of his week pitching large endowments, foundations, and pensions. In industry terms, he’s what’s known as an independent third-party marketer.
But that’s his day job. When he’s not at the office, Maury sells an Abraham Lincoln portrait kit that can be filled in with 846 pennies. The idea came about when he read a story about a father and son in Florida who had created a giant, wall-size portrait of Abe Lincoln made out of pennies. He loved the concept, but looking at the final portrait, he thought their execution left a little to be desired.
He’d also been curious about the side hustle world, having previously tried different projects ranging from producing video games to helping out with his wife’s crafty creations—and even unsuccessfully launching an app that he describes as “a neat but unprofitable learning experience.”
Looking at that story about Honest Abe, he kept thinking about ways he could improve the image quality and also make it smaller. He couldn’t resist tinkering: within fifteen minutes on his computer, he had a mock-up in Photoshop that looked decent. Then in the nature of Photoshop editing, “about thirty-eight versions later,” he finally had one he was satisfied with.
At the time, he had no idea if anyone else would be interested in it. He didn’t really do any market testing. He just thought it was a fun project, and figured he’d give it a try.
To get it going, he had to put down more than just pennies—he placed a print run of two thousand units of his new Abe Lincoln template. The order size was this large because the printer set-up cost $800 whether he printed one copy or one thousand, so he figured he might as well get the cost per unit as low as possible.
He called his creation the Penny Portrait, and the pitch was simple: “Create a portrait of Abraham Lincoln—completely out of pennies!”
A buddy of his bought the very first kit, which helped him confirm that the online check-out system worked properly. To make his first real sales, he sent out a number of emails and posted on various message boards and forums. There were multiple target markets, so he dabbled a bit with them all. His early sales depended almost entirely on the effort he put into it, which was enjoyable at first but then seemed like a lot of work.
Fortunately, as time went on, sales began to happen more naturally. He also listed the Penny Portrait on Amazon, which has been a good source of consistent sales over time.
Maury makes a profit of around $10 per unit, and to date he’s sold well over four thousand Penny Portraits. In the beginning, he jokingly said to his wife that he wanted to be able to make enough to buy a Lincoln automobile from selling Lincolns made from little Lincolns. Before too long, he’d accomplished that goal.
Not bad for a penny-pinching project!
“As much as I love passion projects, you need to make sure there is a way to turn a profit for the effort you put in. Fortunately, this project has been both enjoyable and financially rewarding.” —Maury
FUN FACT Why does the United States still have the penny? A lot of people think it should be phased out. In 2007, the price of the raw materials to make a penny exceeded the face value, so there was a small risk that coins would be illegally melted down for resale. It now costs about 1.4¢ to mint a penny.
CRITICAL FACTOR
It’s a fun project that people often do with their children or grandchildren. And the penny probably won’t be around forever…
CRAFTSMAN CREATES MOBSTER-THEMED HANDCRAFTED WALLETS
NAME
LOCATION
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
STARTUP COSTS
$5,000
INCOME
MULTIPLE SIX FIGURES/YEAR
WEBSITE
After receiving custom requests from friends and family, a leather craftsman launches his own line of leather products.
By day, Phil Kalas works in development and operations at Horween Leather Company, a 114-year-old tannery in Chicago, Illinois. Working around leather all day is what inspired him to start his side hustle.
He’s constantly surrounded by hundreds of sheets of different-colored and textured leather, and he wanted to create something he could use and appreciate every day. He started by making leather wallets and bags for himself out of the most unique styles of leather he came across. Soon, his friends started admiring his handiwork and wanted items for themselves.
After a year of receiving compliments and requests, Phil and his good friend Dan Cordova—who’s also in the leather business—decided to try making and selling their handcrafted leather products online.
Since leather products require specialized tools and materials, there were some substantial startup costs involved in getting their new business off the ground. While they tried to keep costs as low as possible by working out of Dan’s garage, they still had to purchase leather, hardware, sewing machines, hand tools, and books to keep educating themselves. All of this ran them around $5,000.
One area where they were able to save money was in marketing—they put in very few paid marketing efforts, relying instead on word of mouth and their connections in the leather business.
They created a website and got a bit of organic traffic through some very basic search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. It was through those efforts that they got their biggest sale that first year. A large retailer in Asia placed a wholesale order through their website, which launched them with over $50,000 worth of wallets and accessories sold that year. In Phil’s words, “It was exciting but exhausting. I stayed up late many nights and worked weekends to fill their wholesale order.”
They started simply with just one wallet, a cardholder, and a purse that has since been discontinued. Each year or so, they add a new wallet style and a new accessory. Six years in, they now have eight wallet styles, plus belts, key cases, passport holders, and their own line of leather care products.
They caught a big break when the owner of the tannery they work for started up a specialty leather store in Chicago, and decided to stock their goods. With his expertise and authority in the leather industry, it gave Phil and Dan’s new business a boost in credibility.
As time went on, the marketing tactics for Ashland Leather have become more sophisticated. They now run their website through Shopify, publish a newsletter announcing weekly deals, and produce daily posts featuring their favorite leathers and manufacturing techniques.
Another profitable strategy has been partnering with Massdrop, a company that cultivates communities where people with common interests can learn together. They’ve sold hundreds of wallets through this partnership.
They’ve also done some collaborations a little closer to home. For example, the Chicago Comb Co. wanted a leather sheath to cover one of their products. That product quickly took off and has resulted in an ongoing partnership, with thousands of comb sheaths made and sold.
These localized and virtual efforts have paid off in a major way. It wasn’t long before they outgrew Dan’s garage and needed to find a new place to work. Luckily, a space behind the tannery was available and they moved everything there, where they still work today.
Their first year in business, they had around fifty visitors per day to their website and just over $50,000 in sales. Now they consistently have over five hundred visitors a day with a conversion rate of 1.5 percent, for about $350,000 worth of merchandise sold annually.
While that sounds like a lot, their material costs are substantial. They also brought on two more craftspeople to help create the products. Finally, Phil’s brother Matt helps with managing production and customer service.
As much as they love the extra income, Phil and Dan also love that they get to create something that people are excited to buy. They enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to overcome new business hurdles—everything from choosing the best online store to how to tell the story of the leather and convey the right color with photography.
Ultimately, the community they’ve created with their craftspeople, customers, and partners is what motivates them to keep creating products.
“If you want to do something similar, create something that you love and make it the highest quality you can. And then double the price you think that you should charge.” —Phil
FUN FACT Phil and Dan decided to name their wallets after Chicago gangsters, with names like “Bugs Moran,” “Fat Herbie,” and “Tony the Ant.”
CRITICAL FACTOR
There’s no magic shortcut to making a high-quality leather product, but the consistency that Ashland Leather displays through its daily posts and weekly newsletter helps them with continued visibility.
CARPENTER PAYS HIS MORTGAGE SELLING EMBROIDERED TRAVEL PATCHES
NAME
LOCATION
MONTREAL, CANADA
STARTUP COSTS
$1,500
INCOME
$1,000+/MONTH
WEBSITE
Tired of look-alike flag patches, this carpenter and frequent traveler creates his own designs, selling them to fellow backpackers and collectors.
By day, Mike Lecky works as a carpenter in Montreal, Quebec. His side hustle is Vagabond Heart, a company making vintage-inspired travel patches for people to sew on their luggage.
When Mike was younger, he worked as a graphic designer and book editor. After becoming a carpenter, he missed some of the aspects of a desk job where he could sit down in clean clothes and work on a computer. But he didn’t want to leave his current job…he just wanted the best of both worlds.
He started his project so he could get his hands dirty during the day and then work on the computer in the evenings. It’s essentially the opposite of people who have desk jobs and take on more DIY work as a hobby.
Mike also likes to travel. He packs light, not wanting to bring a bunch of stuff home with him. His one consumer indulgence is collecting patches for his backpack, like many other travelers do, and for years he was disappointed with how they looked. The most common patches were boring country flags or other designs that looked like they came from a cheap souvenir shop.
He wanted something that had a bit more style—patches with a hip, modern look but that included an unmistakable nod to the 1920s and ’30s era of luxury travel. Not only was Mike unable to find anything like that while traveling, he couldn’t even find it online when he got home. So he decided to make them himself.
To get things going, Mike had a designer in mind—someone he’d found on Tumblr years earlier when working on another project. Next, he needed a manufacturer. He found about twenty embroidery shops on the online business directory Alibaba and requested quotes from them all. His main consideration, other than price, was to find a company that offered a small order size. He wanted initial orders of just fifty pieces of each design.
Startup costs were low: $1,000 to have the patches designed and $500 to have them manufactured. The two months of planning and setting everything up was his least favorite part of the process, especially when he had to put money in with no idea if this would work or not. But he decided in advance that if necessary, he could afford to lose the money. He set a firm boundary to only spend the $1,500, and he found that this strategy reduced the stress.
Once he had his patches ready, he began to sell them on both Etsy and a Shopify site he’d made. Etsy sells cute, hip, and handmade items, and Mike found that he got a lot of traffic through organic searches. After he put his store up, it fell to the back of his mind, so he was pleasantly surprised when he got that first ding on his phone announcing a sale. The patches sell for $7, about the price of a pint of beer, so when he made his first sale, he went out after work and promptly “reinvested” the profits.
Mike made $75 his first month and $150 his second, and then he started marketing his patches using Etsy Promoted Listings, which are easy to turn on with the click of a button. The service lets you pay to have a particular listing show up more prominently in search results.
By the fourth or fifth month, Mike was pulling in over $1,000 a month in sales from this strategy, a minimum number that continues to this day. His side hustle pays for his mortgage!
In addition to patches, Mike started selling pin versions of his designs because people were asking for them. He also began working with a wholesaler who sold similar products. They have a network of stores that buy from them, and the patches are now found in a number of shops across the United States and Canada. Finally, he’s trying out a new way of selling by hosting a booth at a Patches and Pins expo, the largest “flare event” in the United States. This expo is attended by fans, artists, retailers, and wholesalers.
With such a big world to cover, Mike’s goal is to keep expanding the Vagabond Heart collection from his current twenty-four designs to at least fifty in the near future and eventually one hundred. And, of course, he’s planning more trips to find or create more patches.
“The best part about customer orders is trying to imagine the trips they’ve been on. Someone will order a Vancouver patch, a San Francisco one, and a Los Angeles one, and you can almost see them driving down Highway 1 along the West Coast.” —Mike
FUN FACT Mike says his stomach makes a lot of his travel plans for him, and by far the happiest it’s ever been was in Oaxaca, Mexico—a beautiful, smallish city surrounded by great produce-growing regions. It’s also the home of mole sauce and mescal.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Backpacking patches haven’t been updated for decades. Mike’s designs present a modern look that pays homage to the classic era of luxury travel.
TV PRODUCER SELLS MONOGRAMMED SCARVES WHILE RIDING SUBWAY
NAME
LOCATION
HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY
STARTUP COSTS
$250
INCOME
$120,000/YEAR
WEBSITE
In pursuit of a handmade income source, this TV producer experiments with different items until she discovers what customers like the most.
Kirsten La Greca was a television casting producer at a big production company in New York City. Her side hustle, which recently became her full-time work, is called Rosa Gold. It’s a handmade scarf brand that gives back—trying to wrap the world in a little more love, as she likes to say. She donates a percentage of profits to Pencils of Promise and DonorsChoose because she’s passionate about education, especially for young girls.
Rosa Gold blossomed out of an Etsy store she opened as a testing ground for different ideas that were swirling around her head. She’d come up with an idea, order some sample materials, and then post a listing. She’d only produce that item again if it was getting a lot of views, favorites, and orders. Etsy taught her how to listen to her customers, and she’d pay attention to requests for custom orders, especially if two or more people asked for something.
While in college, Kirsten had spent her nights and weekends working as a merchandiser, so she knew that putting items that weren’t selling on a mannequin or even just moving them around could lead to them flying off the shelves. Since Etsy is entirely online, she decided to use the same concept by updating product images for items that weren’t selling well.
Monogrammed blanket scarves were the product that stuck. After a few years of occasional selling, she decided she wanted to go bigger than Etsy. She still lists products there, but she also migrated everything to its own site, added additional items (including bandanas and T-shirts), and started to build it into a brand.
Startup costs were low. She spent just $250 at first, and then grew the project as organically as possible. Her inventory increased as her sales did, so growth was gradual for the first few years. As it grew into a real business, she began to upgrade to better machines and make other investments.
When she first started, Kirsten bought wholesale products to resell, but she wanted to design her own, so she tested out manufacturers she found online. She started with a lot of cold emailing to scarf factories all over the world, and eventually found suppliers she preferred.
Because scarf sales are seasonal, Kirsten can sell as little as $1,500 of product a month and as much as $10,000 to $20,000. She’s trying to incorporate more nonseasonal products, and recently launched summer blanket scarves to increase sales in the warmer months. She was able to negotiate low minimums with the factory for those, so it wasn’t a huge risk, and she’s waiting to see what happens—because after all, trying new things is how she built this business.
One day, Kirsten was on a train heading to work in Manhattan and received a flurry of notifications indicating that she’d sold $1,000 in scarves in a very short period of time. By the time she exited the train and walked ten minutes to her office, she’d sold another $1,000. While silently freaking out at her desk, she checked her website analytics and saw that the deluge of orders was coming from a radio mention on a popular morning show.
That day was crazy. She was sitting at work watching her phone explode, all while getting bombarded with customer messages and phone calls. By 9 a.m., she was completely out of inventory. She crafted an email to buyers saying there’d be a two-week wait to receive the order—but only one person canceled.
Kirsten’s goal was to turn her side hustle into a full-time job, so she invested her profits into the business, upgrading and enhancing each element. One big lesson: Kirsten understood from the beginning that good photos were important, but she made a mistake in not having them done with a white background. This meant that she couldn’t be included in a lot of product gift guides, which can make a big impact on sales.
After making enough improvements and increasing sales to a sustainable level, Kirsten left her job to go all in. She continues to experiment, keeping an eye on what works best.
“My biggest mistake by far was not starting sooner. I let this idea of ‘trying something’ swirl around in my head for far too long! I was scared of ALL the things: failing, putting myself out there, losing money, etc. I took baby steps…and little by little, doing the best I could with what I had, a business was built.” —Kirsten
FUN FACT Kirsten recently funded a special-needs teacher’s supply list that would help the teacher’s students monogram items and sell them to other students and parents. It was a perfect fit.
ACTION PLAN
1. If you’re a crafty person but aren’t sure what kind of crafts to sell, follow Kirsten’s model: try a few different things and see what works.
2. Browse Etsy to see what’s selling, and make a list of possibilities.
3. Start with at least two different ideas so that you can compare each part of the process: the making and the selling.
4. Over time, see both what you enjoy most and what people respond to most.
5. Eliminate the less interesting and less profitable ideas. Do more of what works, and begin to specialize in that.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Kirsten didn’t know from the beginning that she was going to focus on scarves. Instead, she tested out different ideas, offered them for sale, and noticed what customers responded to the most. Over time, she began to specialize.
HANDSTAMPED FEMINIST JEWELRY SMASHES THE PATRIARCHY
NAME
LOCATION
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
STARTUP COSTS
LESS THAN $500
INCOME
$40,000/YEAR
WEBSITE
An Arkansas feminist finds a way to give voice to her beliefs, one handstamped bracelet at a time.
Stacey Bowers works as a communications coordinator for an arts education nonprofit in Little Rock, Arkansas. On the side, she sells “handstamped feminist jewelry,” as well as some tote bags, shirts, and enamel pins. Stacey started her shop, Bang-Up Betty, as a hobby, but it’s grown into a solid brand that brings in at least $3,000 a month in net income.
Bang-Up Betty isn’t Stacey’s first side hustle. In first grade, she resold magazines from school to her neighbors. She’s also done freelance graphic design, marketing, and writing gigs while working other jobs. When she worked for a magazine and wasn’t allowed to write for other publications, she sold funny greeting cards she made by hand.
The new project began when Stacey made jewelry for holiday gifts in the form of copper bracelets with four-letter acronyms such as OMFG and STFU. When her gift recipients were enthusiastic, she listed the bracelets for sale. Design ideas kept coming to her, and she got better and better at bringing them to life. As a next step, she decided to build her own website.
At first, the website was merely informational, with all her sales coming through Etsy. She designed it herself, which involved staying up long nights chatting with the Squarespace customer service team so she could figure things out without having to hire a web designer. A friend took portraits and initial product photos for the site, and Stacey borrowed a camera to take more.
Eventually, she converted the site to an online shop. She wanted people who wore her designs to say they got them from Bang-Up Betty, not from another site or platform.
Among others, her designs have included these favorites:
• A “Smash the Patriarchy” shopping bag
• A George Michael heart pin
• A necklace that simply reads “Hot Mess”
Stacey’s materials range from chains and charms to rings and brass, and she gets them from more than a dozen suppliers. She stays on top of logistics by keeping her supplies in clear containers so she’s never surprised by being out of something. In fact, her workspace is cleaner than the rest of her home. “It has to be for me to maintain order and peace while surrounded by a million little things that I have complete responsibility for,” she says.
Finding the best suppliers was a process of trial and error. Stacey says she ordered a lot of bad chains before she found suitable ones, and stocked the wrong size metal before she figured out what she really needed. When she decided she wanted to branch out into apparel, the process was much smoother because she relied on a local printing business run by a couple of friends.
The jewelry making itself is an organized process, consisting of stamping, polishing, drilling, assembling, and packing. Stacey makes a lot of items per week, but she breaks down the steps over several days so she doesn’t feel completely overwhelmed.
As long as it’s not the Christmas season, Stacey can maintain a healthy balance of work, side hustle, and play. In December, she’s in full panic mode, waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. That light arrives in January, when sales return to normal and she can take a big payoff for all of her hard work.
In a recent year, Stacey made more than $40,000 from Bang-Up Betty. She also purchased her first house, thanks in part to the extra money she makes.
Last but not least, she’s taken advantage of opportunities to give back. She recently donated 100 percent of the proceeds from a “Strong as Hell” bracelet to the Arkansas Women’s Outreach. She also came up with a line of enamel pins for a website called The Outrage. Sales of the pins benefit the ACLU and other progressive causes.
She’s taking a stand for her beliefs and building something for herself at the same time.
“Be original. Don’t take someone else’s dream and make it your own. And be flexible. Your hustle will evolve in mysterious ways!” —Stacey
FUN FACT Everyone thinks Stacey’s name is Betty, but Betty is actually her cat’s name. Also, he’s a boy. “It’s a long story,” she says.
CRITICAL FACTOR
These pins and earrings with a mission have a clear target market that is both a demographic and a psychographic. Bang-Up Betty’s buyers tend to be millennial women who identify with progressive causes. By marketing specifically to them, Stacey stands apart from many other sellers making similar items.
RETAIL STORE MANAGER CREATES MINIATURE STAGES FOR BATMAN
NAME
LOCATION
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
STARTUP COSTS
MINIMAL
INCOME
AT LEAST $500/MONTH
WEBSITE
A man’s accidental side hustle fulfills a long-held dream to make movie sets—just not in the way he first expected.
During business hours, Jason Huot manages a large retail store. His climb in the retail sector took him from Kansas City to Chicago to the Mall of America for companies like Fossil and Eddie Bauer. After eight years, he returned home to settle down.
Jason had grown up using his hands and imagination to fix cars and houses alongside his dad. He was also a huge movie fan, fascinated in particular by anything miniature. He’d imagined himself making miniature sets for the movie industry, but set the dream aside to become a star in retail.
He didn’t set aside his love of movies or miniatures, however. He discovered the world of one-sixth-scale miniature figures from movies and television, where collectors purchase mini-replicas of popular superheroes and action stars. Batman was his favorite.
The process of creating the figures requires a long back-and-forth between the studios and the companies who create them. The figures have to be as exact as possible, especially in Asia, where this is a billion-dollar business. The manufacturers typically post preproduction photos of the characters online, and then take preorders from fans. It’s common to wait six to nine months for delivery, with limited runs.
Collecting sixth-scale figures isn’t a cheap hobby. The figures range from about $150 to well over $1,000. With such an investment at stake, Jason thought that collectors could do a better job in displaying their prized figures. Most of the time, the figures are placed on stands, as if in a museum.
Jason felt that the figures deserved more—after all, many of them were based on superheroes. He wanted to place them in a scene from their movie. Working in his off-hours, he started building sixth-scale miniature movie sets.
His Kansas City basement became his studio. He loved building things again, just as he’d done as a kid. He also enjoyed the process of sourcing objects to replicate different movie scenes. The plumbing and electrical aisles at home improvement stores became an adventure in reimagining how one thing could be used for another, and the wires inside thrift store radios added a nice touch.
By coincidence, one of the country’s top distributors of sixth-scale figures, Timewalker Toys, was only three blocks from Jason’s home. The staff there encouraged Jason’s interest in designing dioramas, and featured one of his scenes at a comic convention.
Jason’s excitement over his dioramas inspired him to post photos of them on Instagram. This caught the eye of other collectors, who asked him to create scenes for them. His first commission was for the “Holding Cell” scene from The Dark Knight, which prompted four more of the same order within five days from other customers who saw the photos. His basement became an assembly line.
Because all figures are twelve inches tall, Jason knows the exact proportions for each scene. It usually takes him two weeks to a few months to complete a diorama, and he often has a waiting list that stretches to four months or longer. Collectors are used to preorders and long wait times for the figures themselves, so they don’t balk at waiting for their scenes.
Jason collects a deposit to secure a customer’s place in line. Once he begins building a diorama, he sends photos to the customer as the scene is created. While he invites input from buyers, he makes it clear that he has final creative license. He demonstrated this when a customer wanted to increase the length of an item by two centimeters. Not possible!
Once a scene is completed, Jason sends it to the customer. He asks them to place the figure in the scene, take a photo, and post it on Facebook. This is the official “reveal,” and once he sees the figure in the set he designed, the scene is a wrap.
Jason’s dioramas cost an average of $300, and he admits he could probably charge more without upsetting customers. He doesn’t want his side hustle to take over all of his personal time, so he’s content to let customers find him through referral. In fact, until recently he didn’t even have a website, taking all of his orders as a response to requests on Instagram.
After making more than one hundred miniature stages, he finally decided to set up an online store. He’s got something to plan for: Jason and his wife are expecting their first child, and his side hustle profits are going toward a much-needed savings fund.
His big dream of making miniature movie sets ended up coming true, just in a different way than he expected. He now has that basement assembly line, something to look forward to after work, and a moneymaking side hustle.
“It feels so good to be using my hands and creativity to make things. It balances out my life perfectly.” —Jason
FUN FACT A tiny amount of lead is traditionally used to make miniatures. When the New York State Legislature enacted a bill outlawing its use, the community protested. After months of back-and-forth, the governor signed a bill that exempted miniatures from the law.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Going where the money is can be a wise strategy. And you can’t be a collector of most items without spending money! Jason’s miniature movie sets meet a clear need for collectors hoping to show off their valuable figures.
If you like to get crafty, there are lots of places online where you can sell your creations. The key is to go where the buyers are, not just where a lot of other artists and makers hang out.
If you’re not sure where your buyers might be, start with Etsy, the world’s largest marketplace of handcrafts. And keep these tips in mind:
• Great photos go a long way: Not a photographer? Ask a friend with a good camera to help. Include multiple shots from different angles. And if you’re selling clothing or jewelry, include images of how it looks on someone.
• Tell a story: Whenever you have the chance to sell something, you also have the chance to write a description. Make it a good one! Go into lots of detail and tell people why you made whatever you’re selling.
• Respond quickly to inquiries: If possible, a one-hour response time is best. It builds trust and confidence…and it also encourages buyers to make a purchase. Don’t give them too much time to wander off and find something else they like better.
• Ask for reviews: Follow up with customers and ask them to review you on the site they purchased from. This makes a big difference, especially in the beginning. “Social proof” matters a lot—we want to know that other people like us were happy with their order.
For more, visit SideHustleSchool.com/crafty.
* and another $8.46 in pennies for a model…