Mission Statement

In the past, I maintained a shop on Etsy and had a decent go with it. I brought in a couple thousand dollars before I decided to call it quits. After having a baby, I just didn't have the time and energy to maintain my shop any more, so I sold most of my creations off for cost of materials and shipping and called it a day. I tried to sell my supplies, too, but no one wanted to give me a fair price for them, so I just kept it all and figured I could get back to it someday.

See, I left my job to be a stay-at-home mother to my baby girl. I don't regret it, but it definitely cut our budget, so craft supplies were one of the first things I had to pare back on. Not a big deal, since I have a huge craft room already fully-stocked from when I used to work at a craft supply store. But it meant cutting back on other things, too, such as how much money goes into savings each month for our big dream: A slightly bigger house in a nicer part of town.

Enter the Crafts to Riches project.
Okay, so the name is a little ambitious. I don't expect to be rolling in cash and living in a mansion by the time the project is done. But it's a personal challenge, and when you're starting with nothing but a room full of raw materials, any profit can make you feel like a huge success!

The idea is simple: Using items already stored in my craft room and my already-established (but currently empty) Etsy shop, I start making things and selling them, until I reach the goal.

The goal is to make and sell enough crafts to earn $1,000.

Each week, I'll update a set of running tallies. The tallies will represent a few things: The total value of what I've created, what the income from selling has been, and costs incurred by running the shop.
I'm also setting a rule for myself, which is that if I purchase more supplies, they must be items absolutely required to keep the project going, and the cost will be counted as part of the cost of shop operation.

So why blog about it?
Well, I think it's an experiment people can learn something from. Running a crafts-based business is hard, and I know a lot of people who have expressed interest in doing it and just don't know how to start or what to expect after they do. This can help them get a real idea of what the whole thing entails.

There's other things I can share, too! Aside from offering inspiration, my job as a craft store employee means I know a little about a lot of different crafts, which might help you get started on a new hobby you never knew you loved. And since I'm a bit of a Jill-of-all-trades, I can teach a few tricks too, in the form of tutorials and guides to help you get your craftiness going.