When you sharpen your tools for woodturning you shape the tool to cut wood in a specific way. You may have two bowl gouges with slightly different grinds for two different purposes. How you respond to your customers may require you to sharpen your responses to maintain your competitive edge. I’ve had people come into …
5 Healthy Snacks for Shows and Events
When doing a Christmas Craft fair, event, or other type of show, the last thing you are likely thinking about is healthy snacks and food. You worry about products, price points, and booth set up. But, why would you think about food? While many shows and events offer a basic concession stand, the food …
Shawl Pins: A Turning Project
Wooden shawl pins are a beautiful accessory to handmade shawls. You use the ring and the pin to interlock the overlapping section of the shawl. This keeps the shawl in place and the wearer is not only warm but can show off your turning work as well. Two sizes of shawl pins are turned in …
Cash Box – 5 Tips on Handling Cash
How to play it safe with cash. Handling a cash box at a trade show, farmers’ market, or craft fair is a fairly straight forward idea. You have cash so that you can make change with people buying your products. Follow these 5 tips and keeping your cash and making change will be easy. 1. …
How to Build Your Inventory
When moving from hobby to business one of the hurdles is having enough inventory. Each of us has projects that we find pleasure in turning. However, these products may not be the ones that our customers like. That is the challenge of the artisan; how to express the artistry and beauty of your work and …
Trade Show Checklist
Trade Show – Checklist I just got back from a trade show in Vancouver. I wasn’t selling my turnings nor was I in charge of the booth. I was helping out. I realized that there are so many things to bring when you are at an event, trying to sell your products, or just give …
Garden Ornaments: A Mushroom Box
Mushroom Box – A Turned Garden Ornament Turned mushrooms make great garden ornaments. You can turn them in a variety of shapes and sizes. These mushrooms are perfect compliments to a garden gnome or a water feature. Made out of wood they are not harmful to the environment and no one is likely to eat …
Gardening Row Markers
Gardening Tools: Row Markers – A Turned Garden Implement Turned gardening tools combines two great hobbies: turning and gardening. Row markers can be turned and they will make laying out your garden a breeze. It seems so simple. Mark a row in your garden to plant the seeds in. If the row is longer than …
What you need to know about Craft Shows
How to Decide if a Craft Show is for You For 10 years I earned about a third of my annual income doing the craft show circuit. In that time I learned from a lot of mistakes. Some of my mistakes were dumb, others were costly. After a few years I’d made enough mistakes that …