Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

The Complete Idiot’s Guide “Selling Your Crafts” Giveaway

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The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Selling Your Crafts walks readers through the process of preparing goods for sale, pricing and bookkeeping, finding venues, marketing and promoting products, and working with customers both online and off, all without quitting their day job. Clear, concise instructions explain everything readers need to know to sell crafts effectively in their spare time, and help them decide whether to take selling to the next level. This guide shows how to:

•             Find out whether the crafters, and their craft, are ready to start

selling

•             Set prices to cover costs and make a profit

•             Establish a bookkeeping system

•             Manage dual inventories of parts and finished goods

•             Discover the best places to sell crafts in person or on the Internet

•             Identify the right people to market to

•             Accept credit cards and process other forms of payment

•             Start selling wholesale

•             Stay out of tax and legal trouble

About the Author:

Chris Franchetti Michaels (Davis, Calif.) is the author of Teach Yourself Visually Jewelry Making & Beading, Beading Quick Tips, Wire Work Quick Tips, and Teach Yourself Visually Beadwork. She has sold her handmade jewelry as well as commercial beading supplies online for nearly a decade, and she maintains a blog at www.beadjewelry.net. Contact her through this book’s companion site, www.craftychannels.com.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Selling Your Crafts

ISBN: 9781592579914, July 2010, $14.95

Author: Chris Franchetti Michaels (Davis, Calif.)

WIN WIN WIN

We are giving you the chance to win 1 of 3 copies of this book. For your chance to win, please click here.

Competition Open – Worldwide

Competition Closes – August 15th

Comments

  7. I have been trying to market my items. So far I have been ripped off to the point of pulling my hair out. Two stores that I have had items in have taken everything from me…I need help in major way…Thank you for this chance to win and help myself out.

Have you read?

Book Review: The Festival of Lights

As if Diwali weren’t colorful and fun enough, The Festival of Lights: A Lift-the-flap Diwali Celebration by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Darshika Varm, makes it even more fun to read about with flaps and things to lift and pull to see more information or details in the illustrations. 

The book is a story about a family getting ready for Diwali and what happens on the different days of the five-day celebration. There’s cleaning, shopping, crafting, food preparation and getting the home altar ready for the big day. 

It covers decorating the outside of the house with rangoli, diyas and lanterns, buying sweets to share with family and friends, the sights and scents of the mandir (home temple), getting dressed up in new fancy clothes, the story of Diwali and celebrations with relatives.  

Flaps (there are more than 140 in all) give you vocabulary words for different foods and definitions, as well as fun things like what’s inside the shopping basket or where the cat is hanging out. They also help illuminate the story of Diwali, which is the triumph of good over evil as Lord Ram defeated the demon Ravana to save his wife, Sita. 

This pretty and colorful book helps kids understand what Diwali is and how it is celebrated, regardless of whether they practice it at home. This would be a nice book to keep in a classroom (it’s rated for kids ages 3-7) or to have at home to teach kids about Diwali even if it’s not something you celebrate. Where I live there are a lot of people from India so we are probably exposed to Diwali more than some other regions of America, but it’s a nice holiday to know about wherever you live. 

Combine with the book Diwali and check out some fun lantern crafts and printables for kids to round out your experience. 

About the book: 24 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail prices $22.99.