Business Idea - Kids Crafts Instructor

If you’re experienced with kids, then consider offering craft classes either individually or in groups. Target ages six to twelve years and look for lots of ideas from your local library or bookstore. Or offer birthday parties designed around crafting for kids.

Business Idea - Lamp Shades

Apparently, there’s a specialty market in lampshades. One Vancouver woman was making beautiful, silk shades and selling them out of her studio for $200-500 a pop. Pretty impressive. You can create lampshades to order right in your own home. Or just recover old wire frames that you’ve salvaged from thrift shops. Wire frames can also be purchased ready-made. Offer many different coverings: linen, plastic, parchment, silk, denim and fireproof papers. Place an ad under the “services offered” column in your local newspaper or yellow pages.

Business Idea - Fly Tying

The art of deceiving fish. Like the fish story itself, elusive and colorful, I’ve heard tales of people making a living off of fly tying, but have never actually met anyone that does. If you’re an obsessive fly fishing fan, you’d have a better idea than moi on how to market flies. One idea is to make up a large inventory during the winter, attach them to large cards and then sell them in fishing tackle outlets and sports shows just before fishing season opens.

Business Idea - Decorative Screens

I read about one fellow in the backwoods of BC who paints details from Caravaggio (sp.?) onto wooden screens and gets $5,000 a piece. No guarantees on that kind of money, but if you have even minor artistic talent and beginner’s carpentry skills, you can make a decent profit from these as a specialty item. An average screen is just three decorated panels connected by metal hinges. You can hand-paint them, wallpaper them, install glass louvers in them, mosaic them, or whatever sells. Wholesale them to department, furniture, gift and interior decorating stores. Put a brochure together, using pictures of your designs and send them around to interior decorators listed in the phone book or industry news outlets.

Business Idea - Concrete Molds

Kinda like molding ceramics, but much harder on your back. Buy ready-made molds of lots of different objects, oil the mold, fill with concrete, let it set up, dismantle the mold, clean and oil mold and set aside, let concrete cure, paint the item or just leave it as is, depending on what the customer wants. Make bird baths, urns, animals, outdoor chairs and tables or pretentious and uncomfortable indoor chairs and tables, statues, flower pots and planters, stepping stones, garden elves, gnomes, gargoyles and more. Sell to mortuaries, gift stores, florists, garden supply stores, etc. See public libraries for more information and related subjects.

Business Idea - Cedar Hangers

If you’ve ever lost a favorite item of clothing to a hungry moth, you’ll understand the value of cedar coat hangers. (Cedar also ends up in hope chests and jewelry boxes.) In addition, to repelling moths, cedar makes a stuffy closet smell good. Find an angle to personalize them, maybe carved monograms or other decorative feature and these could sell as a practical handicraft.

Business Idea - Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers give voice to the voiceless everywhere and lighten up depressing traffic jams, if witty enough. They’re also a great way to advertise a small business. You can set up your own business to print and sell them to all kinds of clients. Pre-sell your orders to tourist attractions, to politicians, church groups, PTAs and gift and novelty shops. Design special stickers for tourist attractions in your area and design specialty stickers just for them, i.e. “I survived climbing Mt. Way-Too-High”, etc. Your overhead costs will be negligible compared to potential profits if you come up with a catchy marketing scheme