Inge Leonora-den Ouden

To add to my post before.
I hope you understand what I mean. English is not my own language ...

Probably in this thread it is about doing a craft or making art in your 'spare time', while you live on your 'permaculture homestead'. And then making more than you need for yourself and sell those products.

How do you do that? You could sell from home, or have a booth at a fair/market, or bring it to a shop/gallery that sells it for you.

Selling from home is okay. But then you need to advertise. So the money you make from selling your product needs to include advertising costs too.

Arts or crafts fairs I know in two seasons: during the Summer holiday in regions where people spend their holidays (that's the region I live in), and in November/December, aimed at christmas presents, more in towns. Mostly the fair is 1 day, sometimes 2 (a weekend). Costs: rent a booth (rent varies a lot), drive a car with your products there and then stay there all day long (while demonstrating your craft?), preferably with at least two persons.

Shops where you can bring your home-made craft products to sell those are only in large towns/cities. In other places shops selling craft products may exist, but they work with volunteers and the income is for some charity, not for the makers.
Most art galleries only exhibit the art of their choice, you can't just 'bring in' your work, they invite artists (so you need to be known as an artist). Sometimes you even need to pay them to have an exhibition of your artwork there. Okay, your art will be sold for much higher prices than at an art fair. And you only need to bring it there, and be there at the 'opening of the exhibition' (not a whole day).

I don't know about taxes in the USA, but here every little bit of income has to be administrated and you need to pay a percentage over it as tax. Your selling price of course is not the 'income', costs can be subtracted. For me my costs always were higher then what I received, so I did not have any income from selling art.

I did post here a few years ago. Nothing has changed since then, for me.
I think opportunities to sell home-made craft / art products in the USA are better than in the Netherlands.

Even for professional artists (and crafters) it's hard to make a living from their work (instead of 'odd jobs'). They need to do many efforts to become 'known' in the world of art-buyers. Costs of advertising (in expensive magazines) and being at art-fairs come before there's a real income.

r ransom wrote:

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:I always do 'creative stuff'. I'm a creative busy bee, my hobbies are too much to mention.
Even my gardening is creative.

What captures your fancy this year?

Most things, like knitting, crochet, hand-sewing (slowstitching), drawing, creative cooking and gardening remain, I do them all year every year.
For 2026 I decided to (re)start Nature Journaling. I did a little bit of it in the past, and Urban Sketching too, but now I bought a new multimedia sketchbook to fill with nature observations (in drawing and watercolour painting, with added text) during this year. 'Nature' includes my gardens.

I always do 'creative stuff'. I'm a creative busy bee, my hobbies are too much to mention.
Even my gardening is creative.

Megan Palmer wrote:It has been a wet and cold start to summer this year with rainfall 120-149% above normal in our region for November.

Have harvested several baskets full of elderflowers for cordial and tubs of blackcurrants.

The globe artichokes have produced well and I try to strip the outer leaves before taking them home if I intend to preserve them.

There's asparagus and the hens are laying again.

Good to see this thread come up again. And very interesting to see how things are going at the other side of the planet!

jaime merritt wrote:I have a plant that I have been growing for several years. I started it from aerial tubers I bought online. It grows really well, but it has only ever produced a handful of pea sized aerial tubers over the entire time I’ve been growing it. I’m curious why that is. I don’t water it very much, and I’m a mile from the ocean on the California central coast. Maybe water is the issue? It never appears water stressed no matter how dry it gets.

Anyone else have plants that refuse to make aerial tubers?

Maybe my Yam is not the kind that makes aerial tubers. It only makes a vine with leaves.

Nina Surya wrote:Ulla, from a tired woman to another, I hope you're feeling better.
Reading your post, I suddenly remember advice I got at the very beginning of motherhood (the advice is applicable to every field in life):
"You can see __________ (insert challenge) as a football field with snow. If you try to clear it all in one, broad stroke, it's impossible. But in smaller passes, you get the job done. Just concentrate on the task at hand."
Good luck!

I totally agree. Maybe I didn't know yet when my children were young (I'm a grandmother now). I do remember it was a busy time. But probably it was back then when I learned not to try to do everything at once, but use 'small steps'. Anyway I know now and even though I have more time for myself now I still do it.

f.e. when a closet becomes a mess inside (I have many hobbies, with materials, you know ...) I don't try to tidy it up all at once. I take one drawer, or the space behind one little door. Everything in there goes out (on the spare bed), gets sorted, only things I need get back, but in a more orderly way.

BTW the question of this thread is 'are you okay?' I can tell you all I am feeling very okay at the moment. I decided not to stay in the house when I start having 'dark feelings'. When I'm outdoors everything feels lighter!

Kit Collins wrote:First, thanks to Permies people...
One disadvantage of soap-less living is that I don't exfoliate as much. I guess soap might soften the skin so that the outer layer rubs off more easily. Just rinsing and light rubbing with water doesn't seem to accomplish this unless I do a long warm soak. So when my skin starts seeming too "thick", or looks a bit grayish, then--the next time I take a warm bath or a hot shower--I will rub my arms, legs, and face with, say, a towel that is a bit rough. That'll get the excess skin off, so I feel "baby-fresh". Might help to have a little strainer in the tub drain in order to catch and discard the skin bits.

As part of my soap-less journey, I discovered the effectiveness of using pumice stones instead of soap. I read that ancient Romans used pumice stones and skin-scrapers instead of soap. I tried pumice stones, and found that they work great at getting tough stains (like dried paint or oil or ink stains) off of fingers. Dried paint on fingers seems to just dissolve when rubbed with a chunk of pumice. Just avoid rubbing the more delicate areas of skin too hard, like the inside of the wrist, because you might break the skin there. Pumice "sticks" are available in a lot of hardware stores in the cleaning section, and natural pumice stones are available very cheaply at Mexican stores where I live. Pumice is sold for the use of cleaning scaling off of toilets or other hard surfaces, but now I mostly use it for hand-washing.

I definitely encourage others now to go soapless. No soap, no problem!

Thank you for the reminder. There's such a stone somewhere in my bathroom, but I forgot to use it.
I think using it will help me with 'exfoliation'. Now in the cold season, being covered in clothes all the time, no problem, but when it's warmer especially my legs can look more 'presentable' if I exfoliate them more often.

I am looking forward to when the days become longer again!
One positive thing here: it's dark and cloudy, but it isn't very cold (around 10 degrees Celsius).
So it isn't hard to go outdoors, getting a little more direct daylight.