Upcycled Crafts Book Review

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woman and teens holding a book teen's guide to making and selling upcycled arts and crafts book review neededinthehome

Because I myself am a crafter, as well as a mom of a creative teen, I was so excited to review this book: Teen’s Guide to Making and Selling Upcycled Arts and Crafts: How to Start a Creative Reduce-Reuse-Recycle Side Gig by James Dillehay.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I was given a free product(s) and compensated for my time writing this article. All opinions are my own.

Book Review

Book Cover

In the Teen’s Guide to Making and Selling Upcycled Arts and Crafts, I noticed that the cover of this book is artwork itself – a collage of various sized images of no longer needed items into the shape of a heart. Turning trash into art and crafts is the perfect side hustle. The book contains many stories, art ideas and examples.

Chapters

The chapters are very well organized. It is very simple from the table of contents to find what you are looking for. In my opinion, it is best to read the book from cover to cover and make some notes as you go. When you are ready to apply the ideas, go back to the table of contents and find the section you were thinking about working on first to get to that part of the book.

second and third contents pages of book by james dillehay

Marketing

Since I have an Associates Degree in Marketing, I was delighted to see that James Dillehay dedicated so much writing about marketing your products and ways to sell them. It's also great that he talks about selling in person as well as selling online.

James has a whole chapter dedicated to “Your Marketing Plan,” where he gives 101 Marketing-Related Actions. I did go through these very carefully, with a fine-tooth comb, as I don't want to miss a thing for my business. Some, like adding a plug in to my blog – I decided not to do. Many, I have already done. I did end up adding over twenty items to my to do list. Some of them are: adding ten images to each Etsy listing and check into listing on Amazon Handmade.

opened pages of book by james dillehay to show section on what does it cost to make an item

Lots of Ideas for Creators

Throughout the book, you will find little boxes that have interesting facts, tips and ideas of things you could make as upcycled craft items to sell.

teen girl reading book teen's guide to making and selling upcycled arts and crafts

Great Business Idea For Teens

I am a mom of eight kids and even though I didn't open my Etsy shop until later in life, I have always sold at craft shows – at least one a year, even in busy times of pregnancy and moving house. My children have always been encouraged to make and sell items with me. Most of them have done that. Three of my adult children have their own Etsy shops. My daughter, Miranda, is currently thirteen and enjoys making things to bring to craft shows. I personally don't want my kids to have an Etsy account until they are old enough to have a cell phone, so they can best manage their shop. We don't give our kids cell phones until they are almost 16. Yes, we homeschool our kids and live differently than most, but we are happy!

One of my favorite takeaways from the Teen’s Guide to Making and Selling Upcycled Arts and Crafts as far as having teenagers running their own business is the chapter called, “The Family Side Hustle.” In this section, James gives an example of how it could work for a family to work together to market and sell a teen's products. He talks about where they can get free materials, the tax implications, opening a bank account, setting up an app to receive payments. The family helping the teen at the craft show. Setting up an Etsy shop. It's a whole story of how this could go, the good and bad emotions, with a happy ending of putting money away for college.

Miranda enjoyed looking through this book and found great ideas of products to make for our next craft show. She wants me to get lighting for our next show based on James' suggestion in the book. So I will need to get electricity for my next booth. I am curious to see if it will help sales, so we will try it.

amy at neededinthehome reading book teen's guide to making and selling upcycled arts and crafts for book review

New Ideas I Found In This Book For My Etsy Shop & Craft Shows

I am a very creative person and started my own Etsy shop back in 2016. There have been some good years with sales and some that are not so good. I can tell you how to set up an Etsy shop, and get some sales with marketing. But my biggest problem has been not knowing what would sell.

Finally, James Dillehay has answered this popular question right away in Chapter One! He gets right down to the important information and gives practical advice, including helpful online tools to help you find what products people are searching for.

If you have never made that popular item people are searching for, it's no problem! James has a solution for that as well! He gives you websites that tell you how to make upcycled and recycled crafts. James compares one-of-a-kind items vs. reproducible products. He mentions ways to make your product stand out from others, which is so important on Etsy with thousands of the same item being sold as yours.

James gives a checklist of what to take to shows. I have done several craft shows and it would have been so nice to have this list from the start instead of figuring it out the hard way. He did mention a few items about outdoor events that were interesting, like having weights to hold your tent down at a windy show.

The photography section of the book is something I really need to work on. He gives so many tips and ways to outsource it. I really hate the job – so I might try this. For now, that is on my backburner – as I am more excited about what I am going to mention in the next section.

My Biggest Takeaway – It's A Time Saver

But here is why you should buy the Teen’s Guide to Making and Selling Upcycled Arts and Crafts, even if it is for you and not your teen – to save time! Time is money, my friends. If you can save time getting this side hustle going, that will be worth everything. But not only the startup, the time you save in trying to figure out what people want to buy. I have literally done it the hard way with start up. So much time and money was wasted creating an item and putting it out there to see if anyone would want it. All to end up going at a loss in my garage sale or end up being donated. If only I would have had this book from the beginning. It would have been like having an experienced mentor guiding me along the shortest, safest path.

Speed Up Production

Another huge time saver that I never actually even thought about before in my crafting business is production tips to save you time in creating your product. I am always looking for hacks in folding my clothes, doing housework, and things around the house because it is so unpleasant – I just want to get the job done. I enjoy crafting and love doing it – it is therapeutic to me, so I never thought about speeding it up. But, if you can quickly create more items to sell in less time – you have more to sell and can earn more money.

James gives a super secret way to search online to save you time in production. You have to get the book and read it yourself, I don't want to give away all his amazing secrets. This alone has been a game changer for me. I tried it and it actually worked for the reusable home products I make. Now I know how to cut and sew the fabric in batches, rather than one by one, which in the end – saves me more than an hour!

Now, I just need to figure out a way to get them all listed as quickly on Etsy – I don't have them all listed yet, because that still takes the same amount of time!

If you or your kids are crafters, I highly recommend you get this book.

Upcycled Crafts Book Review