Sean Wedgwood
If you want to make money with crafts you have to develop your own style. Your items should be unique and different. If you can create interesting and unique work in a popular crafting niche then you will sell your crafts.
So, what’s that got to do with copying other peoples work? When you are starting out, or even when you are very experienced you really should copy other crafters work. Yes, you most definitely should.
Choose a piece of work you admire and just copy it. Get together the materials you need and start to make the craft piece. You can try to emulate the original work as closely as you like, or you can make your craft in the style of the original. It really doesn’t matter.
The point of this is to learn, develop and improve. There is no better way to improve you crafting skills than to appreciate someone else’s by copying them. Go through what they went through, as you make your piece work out how they made theirs, what methods they might have used, the materials, what problems they overcame.
It is a fantastic learning method. As an extreme example think about trying to paint the Mona Lisa. You’d be thinking about the composition, the lighting, the colours, the style, the brush strokes, that smile, and so on. Create your own Mona Lisa and you will have learnt so much that you can take with you into your next project.
The same is true of any craft or hobby. Copy a lovely card you received, or a flower arrangement, or make a candle in the style of a candle maker you admire. How will this help you make money with crafts? It’s simple, the better your skills the better your handmade crafts will be. It’s not rocket science to then work out that better crafts will sell better!
I really do recommend copying work you admire and then using the ideas, methods and techniques you learn to improve your own craft projects. Each time you do this you’ll become a better crafter and develop your own style further. If you want to make with crafts investing time and effort into your own skills by learning from others is time well spent.
If you want to know how to sell your crafts online and increase your income go to http://www.howtosellcrafts.com
Steve Jardine is a well known online crafting entrepreneur. He runs the popular crafting and internet marketing blog http://www.howtosellcrafts.com
