Selling items associated with “women’s” hobbies is a losing proposition. People want to buy quilts/sweaters/cakes/etc. at Walmart prices.

People who don’t do arts and crafts assume that money is the ultimate goal and reason for creating.

When someone tells me "Oh you should sell that." my response is always "Cool, you wanna buy it?" It usually gets them to shut up really quick.

My favorite selling experience is when my aunt put up a display of my jewelry in her hair salon. If anything sold, she would mail me a check. I would occasionally swap stuff out for new things. No stress, no fuss.

EDIT. I don't like when people INSIST that I should sell what I make.I realize that it's a compliment, but It's like they're telling me that my hobby has no value unless I'm trying to make money from it. I crochet, I get that a lot. I enjoy making things for myself and sometimes gifting them to others. My art has value in that it makes me happy, and I don't need to make money from it for it to be valuable.

2024 has been the year of giving myself permission to have hobbies that don't make money. I'm an Artist full time (animation) so this is a big deal for me.

The worst experience I ever had with this was with my  Therapist. I told her how proud I was of a friend who was making a living off her paintings and how rare, awesome, and fulfilling that opportunity is. I am genuinely proud of her. But my Therapist kept saying I was jealous and the solution was to also pick up my paintings and cater them to the masses and sell them. I said no. I can be proud of a friend and not want to live their life. She gave me a week to come up with an outline for my painting business. I never booked another appointment.

Let people have their art. Let people enjoy creating. You don't know what it does to artists' brains when you hear everyone screaming at you to monetize all the time. Thank you for putting this message out on the internet.

"Oh, you sew?? Can you hem my pants? I'll pay you $10!" No, I hate hemming my own pants, much less someone else's 😅. Ditto curtains. I have a friend who was complaining that she had to pay $600 for 60 hours of work to sew outdoor cushions. $10 per hour. She thought it would be no more than $200. She was a little startled when I told her I thought that was too low.

I felt this. I don't want to sell my watercolors, my knitting, my jewelry. Having pressure to perform ruins every last drop of joy.

At my wedding I got so many compliments for my wedding dress, which I made myself.
"Wow, you could do this for a living!" Bitch, this took me A YEAR (I didn't actually say this but boy was I thinking it).

When people say "you should sell that!" I say "no, my hobby is X, not running a small business." It takes most folks back a step.

They think ‘Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ That’s wrong! You will work, even if you have your dream job. A hobby is a hobby because if you are having a Day (ex: you knit but all the yarn is tangled? And you have none of the supplies you need? And everything broke? And your hand cramps?) you can put it down. You can’t if it’s a job and you have a deadline

"Your job stresses you out too much, you should sew things as a business" - my mom, constantly.

People ask me all the time if I sell the quilts I make. My answer is always, " No, I give them away." In my mind, I'm thinking, " and you're not quilt worthy!" 😂

You know, it’s similar to when you help watch a kid and people tell you “you’re so good with kids! You should have one of your own!” And you’re just like “how did we jump from me babysitting to a huge personal decision I might not at all be prepared for in any way?” People just simplify things in their minds, they don’t think about all the complications or how being good at one aspect of something doesn’t make you qualified to do everything related to that thing.

I monetized my hobby. I made 6 figures monetizing my hobby at one point. I did that for 5 years. I finally hit a breaking point and quit and took a job making less than 1/5 of what I was making before because I was working myself to DEATH monetizing my craft. I might work a "boring" job now, but quite frankly, I don't care. It took years before I could start creating for fun again (and I still haven't fully gotten back to doing certain parts of my craft for pure enjoyment again). I don't think I could ever go back to that. It drained the life out of me.

My friend wanted a quilt, so I said yes, but she would have to pay for the materials and long arm quilting services. I gave her an itemized list of materials and their costs, which came to about $160, and the longarmer would be another $120. She said no way--I can get one at Cracker Barrel for $75. I said, go right ahead.

Just the yarn for an afghan starts at $80.

The best salesperson i met was at a mattress store. He told us about other stores we can check out, encouraged us to go and come back if we don't find something better elsewhere. We ended up buying from him because we felt the opposite of pressured

People say that, but they don’t want to pay for custom crafts!
I did that with jewelry, it became a job real quick. I did bead weaving very complicated patterns, no one wanted to pay, I still have them packed away, stopped completely. Lost the joy.
Thank you for the truth.

One more thing people tend to underestimate about selling crafts is just how expensive they should be. I knit, and last time I did the maths, if I wanted to make at least a minimum wage from selling my sweaters, they would all go into the thousands. It just takes that long. My friends sometimes ask me if I would sell my crafts or do comissions, and the answer is that unless someone wants to pay me a monthly wage for that, I most certainly won't

I wore my birthday dress to the salon while I was getting hair and nails done, and a salon client said to me: “That’s a beautiful dress! Do you sew for other people?”
My answer (without skipping a beat) (in no uncertain terms) (laughing): “No. No, I do not.” 😅
Don’t be afraid to say the word “no”. You won’t be struck down by lightning, you will not explode, implode, or have any other sort of horrible thing happen to you. And the person who asked you should not be insulted, as long as you are gracious in your response. You don’t need to explain yourself, either.