building and selling yard art???

rusty cj5

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Location
Raleigh, NC
Anyone have any experience building and selling yard art and household type stuff?

I built a couple of... lets call them "sculptures" (one for my mom and one for my grandma) out of 1/4" steel rod, and it was kind of a fun little project but I have had a few people tell me I could make a profit if I built them to sell.

I have resisted the idea for a few reasons, but I have been thinking that maybe I should give it a try.

I am by no means a great fabricator but it seems like the standards are pretty low for most so called art.
But i don't know where to start, where I could sell them (craigslist?) , how much they would be worth, or who would be dumb enough to buy them. I'm only thinking about trying to do one every month maybe.

I've also thought about building car seats into "gaming chairs" and stuff like too but I really don't know what the general public will and won't buy.

any advice is appreciated and lets see what you guys have done.
 
Local farmers markets are a good place to start and to test the waters with a larger audience.

Craigslist is a good for local sales, but then again you are going to be dealing with 1000 craigslist retards for every 1 customer that sees it for "art" and is willing to pay accordingly. Unless of course you are pricing VERY cheaply, which isn't a bad idea given that you are not an established artist. But then you've got the decision to make that if you are only making one or two of these a month, are they just a creative outlet for you to kill some time with or are you trying to actually make money with them?

The bigger problem with the above example is once you put in the time to advertise or post somewhere like Etsy is that shipping will become your biggest headache and likely kill the venture before it gets off the ground.

All that said, I crank out a few small pieces each week in my own workshop. For the most part they are gifts (to people that more often than not give me the whole :confused: look) or I put them out in the forest behind the house just for shits and grins.

Watch some of Kevin Caron's vids on the youtubes, I think he might speak to the marketing/selling of some of his pieces.
 
The only advice that I'd give is remember people like stuff that is useless, especially a lot of women if you can make some kind of cute little thing that they all need for no reason you'll be ahead of the game.
 
If you can find and build the next awesome thing that nobody has, go for it. People love one-off things to show off to the neighbors.
 
I make and sell all kinds of stuff..... mostly things people ask for, but I've done some random stuff too... right now if it looks old it's the "thing" it's amazing how much people will ask for something , and how much people will pay......
 
RobMcBee said:
I make and sell all kinds of stuff..... mostly things people ask for, but I've done some random stuff too... right now if it looks old it's the "thing" it's amazing how much people will ask for something , and how much people will pay......
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This

I was at an outlet mall the other day and a whole store was distressed leather couches and beaten furniture all of it was crazy expensive. If I knew what they were selling for I wouldnt have thrown away a old leather couch that was wore out

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Thanks for the input, I don't think i'm ever going to be a real "artist" but It is fun to do some creative stuff and if I could make $50-$100 for a few hours of labor at the start I would be pretty happy.

I guess I will have to get out there and see what is selling and where, I know one guy who was telling me, the market for this kind of thing is huge at the beach.
 
anvilrubi said:
The only advice that I'd give is remember people like stuff that is useless, especially a lot of women if you can make some kind of cute little thing that they all need for no reason you'll be ahead of the game.
Click to expand...
yeah, they keep us men around, I mean come on...
 
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