Fazzles Creative Living Newsletter Archive
 

Creative Living - Home, Business and Family...

Welcome to the Eleventh Edition of "Creative Living."

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

In this issue we have:

 1.) Article: 
 2.) Hot Craft Tip:
 3.) Recipe:
 4.) On Parenting: -
 5.) Home Tool Tips:
 6.) Car Tool Tips
 7.) Tasteful Joke
 8.) Reader's Questions:
 9.) Editor's Word Pick
10.) Last Minute Reminders
11.) Inspirational Quote

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Big Profits in Creating and Selling Kids Craft Kits

Mike Morgan
mike@homebusinesshelper.com

The Home Business Helper
http://homebusinesshelper.com


Here's a twist on the old "sell your crafts" theme. How
about creating and marketing a craft kit for your craft?
Instead of selling a completed project, you sell an
materials-included, ready-to-do craft project. It doesn't
necessarily HAVE to be geared toward kids, but those seem to
sell well.

For example, since our Cub Scout Den recently built some
birdhouses from kits, let's say you like to build birdhouses.
To build one, let's say you need to cut some 1/4" wood into
a variety of shapes, glue some pieces together, and nail some
others together.

You would cut the wood into the all of necessary shapes and
sand them. Your kit would consist of the pre-cut wood, all the
nails (plus extras), and instructions. All of this could go
into a Zip-Loc baggie and be sold for a few dollars.

Just about any small and relatively easy craft can be sold as
a kit "baggie". Crafts using wooden thread spools seem to be
popular lately -- those would be perfect candidates for kits.

Remember that the more difficult or involved the craft, the
better you will have to write the assembly instructions.

PRICING
Set your price at about four times the cost of materials.
However, if you are going to sell crafts for kids, try to keep
the price below $10.

For kids crafts, create "bundle packs" of 6-8 of the same
project at a little bit of a discount. This will make it very
attractive to Scout leaders and parents shopping for birthday
party activities.

MARKETING
Write a press release -- or have one written, if you don't
know how -- and make sure the local newspapers (free and paid)
and radio stations (especially AM stations) get it. This is
the kind of story they love, and a feature story will get you
a lot of exposure.

Create flyers for your local community bulletin boards.

Call you local Scouting (Boy- and Girl-) council office and
find out when they have their leaders' meeting, called a
"Roundtable" in Boy Scouts. Arrange to speak for five
minutes at one of these meetings. Bring a kit or two for
demonstration and plenty for sale, since you might make some
immediate sales.

Talk to your local craft shop. Many are surprising open to the
idea of selling local craft works -- but most crafters assume
they won't be, and never ask!

If you do a craft that can be packaged as a kit, and aren't
doing that, you are bypassing what could be a very lucrative
avenue for revenue!

----------------
Mike Morgan runs several businesses from his home in Las
Cruces, New Mexico. He also publishes the Home Business
Helper newsletter - a high content, low-ad ezine with a single
focus: your home business success. To subscribe, simply
e-mail
mailto:hbhsubscribe@GetResponse.com

Copyright 2003, Michael Morgan. Reprinted with permission.

================================
********************************************************
Teresa King's fun and enjoyable book to read is
"What Did Mama Forget to Teach You?"
http://www.tipsfortop.com/whatdid.html
********************
Craft Tip:

Vinegar - When you use embroidery thread,
you are taking a chance of the colors running on
your fabric when you wash the final product.
Soak the thread in vinegar, air dry first. This will
set the color.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Recipe:
~~~~~~~~
Download a free pdf cookbook
http://www.hostswan.com/books/ecookbook.zip
~~~~~~~~~~~
Weight Loss Tip:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't know if this works, but sure can't hurt to
try. Drink one glass of water before each meal.
In the water, put one teaspoon apple cidar vinegar
and some honey, or fake sweetner.

It is said to help you lose weight. It is said that it
helps with arthritis pain. I have been told the vinegar
in a soothing herbal tea with honey can help with
ulcers too.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Safety Tip:

Colds are spread the fastest by shaking
hands. Wash hands after coming in contact with
a possible sick person.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Parent Tip:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Give your kids chores. It builds character
and it makes them feel part of the family.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Household Tip:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gosh, am I ever back to vinegar again :)
Laundry stain remover
In a spray bottle put one half white vinegar
and one half water.... spray as you would with any stain
remover. *(Way Cheaper)

************************
Car Tip -
Mirrors tend to make things look farther away
then the naked eye, so be careful when using
a mirror as your guideline for changing lanes.
And, remember, to keep a check out for that
blind spot. 

~~~~~~~~~~~
Tasteful Joke
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lipstick at School

According to a news report, a certain private school
in Washington recently was faced with a unique problem.
A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use
lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine,
but after they put on their lipstick they would press their
lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every
night, the maintenance man would remove them and the
next day, the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be
done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met
them there with the maintenance man. She explained
that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for
the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the
mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the
girls how much effort was required. He took out a
long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and
cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have
been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers, and then there are educators.

********************
Editor's Word Tip on Commonly Misspelled Words
~~~~~~~~~~~~
epitome
surprise
separate and desperate

*************

If you have a question that pertains to this
newsletter, please hit reply and send it in.
If you have some advice in any category to offer,
please hit reply and send it in. If you have any hot
craft tips or an article, we are interested
in those too!  And recipes, and anything else you
would like to share.

Inspirational Quote:

"Reality is the leading cause of stress for those
in touch with it."
    
Jane Wagner

~~~~~~~~~~~~
For those of you curious about the new candywrapper
software, Ryan is having problems with the dpi (basically
it is not coming out as sharp as he would like) and so he
is having the coders work harder on that area.  We will
let you know when you can upgrade from your previous
purchased software. 
   
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for being my reader!

Teresa King

Creative Home Living
is sponsored by
http://www.tipsfortop.com
eBooks and Marketing
and by
http://www.candykit.com
Personalize Candy Bar Wrappers
for Fun or profit with Ryan Sawyer

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please do so. The best way is to write them and tell them
where they can sign up. http://www.fazzles.com

 

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