The Cost of Handmade

 

What is the value of a handmade object? What do you expect when you attend a craft show? Does it make a difference if it's called an artisan market? Do you expect inexpensive DIY or unique one of a kind items?

I suppose the value of a handmade object lies in the buyer's expectations. Anyone who sells their handmade objects will tell you that you will never get paid for the time you put into a make. You do it because you enjoy it. The tag line for my shop reads "My Joy is in the Journey"... because if it wasn't, I wouldn't be doing this.

There was once a time when I gave away my makes. I don't anymore. Why? Well, because not everyone likes handmade things. You know what I'm talking about... you spend time to find, or in this case create, that perfect gift for someone. The receiver smiles and then you never ever see that item again because it wasn't that person's style or something they wanted. When you spend hours birthing a creation but then find that it wasn't wanted you learn not to gift handmade items anymore. That is why I sell what I make. If you are willing to pay for it, then at least I know you want it. I'm done guessing who will or will not like what I make. When I started charging for things it was often a token amount; something to cover the cost of my materials. As I progressed into my maker life I learned that this wasn't good either.

There are those that craft for a living. They are artisans. When you start minimizing your ability to do what they do, you cheapen the craft. While I felt like I was doing everyone a "favor" by making things they wanted while "under cutting" the market, I found that what this does is really bring down the value of what you do. I have found that makers are in two camps - either gift or donate what you make, or charge the market value. No man's land is not a good place to be.

So let's talk about Bernie. A week ago today I had no idea Bernie would be blowing up my phone. Bernie is what pattern designers dream of. Hats off to Tobey King for seizing the moment. She had already written up a pattern for Bernie but changed his clothes when she saw the meme. The rest is history. Her Bernie pattern sells for $5.00 on Etsy. As of this writing she has made over 36,000 sales. Not saying these are all Bernie patterns nor am I saying she made all those sales this week but still, that's a lot of sales!

I bought the pattern on Saturday morning after 12 hours of multiple Facebook tags and messages.

I then plunked down $30 at the craft store to buy the exact supplies that were used in the pattern and stopped at the grocery store for a bag of beans.

I already had the black and white yarn, poly-fil, gray embroidery thread and white embroidery thread. The photo shows a mountain of yarn for a little doll and even though I'd only use a fraction of it, you couldn't make the doll without it. The signature mittens alone used three different colors of yarn.

Let's see how long it takes to make Bernie...

I followed the directions, all 15 pages, in order. The body and head were one piece and went pretty quickly. The shoes were little but not too bad and worked continuously into the legs. The mittens took awhile. Three different colors of yarn that switched colors every row. The mittens worked continuously into the arms. Once I got the arms and legs attached it looked like I was close... but oh I was wrong!

The next step was to add the facial detail. The head was made with a nose and I had attached safety eyes before closing up the head. Now I had to add eyelids, eyebrows, ears and hair. This pretty much took a looooog time. It would have been WAY easier to do this before closing up his head. His mask was next. The directions said to glue embroidery thread to the felt for the mask straps but I couldn't get the glue to hold. The glasses were impossible. I decided to deal with these later and went on to the coat.

The coat, including the hood, is made in seven pieces. Seven itty bitty pieces. By the time I'd finished the coat I had been working on Bernie for 12 hours. I called it a night.

Sunday morning I had a brain storm and decided to iron fusible interfacing to the back of the felt masks and sandwich the embroidery thread in between for a secure hold. Then I spent an hour trying to figure out how to bend the wire into nice little glasses that didn't look like a Pinterest fail.

And finally... he was done.

So my intent all long when I decided to make Bernie was to sell him. I had a price in my head when I started on Saturday afternoon and the price kept going up with every hour. Finally I decided I had no idea what a reasonable price would be. So what was everyone else charging? There was nothing to be found on Etsy. He was too new. I went to eBay... and was floored. The original Bernie doll was going to $12,000+ in a charity auction. There were pre-orders for the doll selling for $70+. Finished dolls were in the $100 range.

As an aside, I really wish Tobey King had watermarked her original photo. There were copies of her original doll photo all over eBay, some poorly copy-pasted into other backgrounds, and I found some of the listing really deceptive - like the cover photo being Tobey King's doll, and when you saw the actual doll in the following photos (if there was even an actual photo) it didn't even look close!

I thought my doll was a good rendition of the original so I decided to see what the market thought.

Tobey King's doll

My doll

The original sold for $20,300. 100% of the proceeds went to Meals on Wheels.

Mine sold the follow day for $94.00.

So how much did I actually make?

Selling price: $94.00

Shipping: $6.00

Tax: $7.53

Buyer paid me: $107.53

Paypal fee of 0.029% transaction cost + 0.30 : -$3.42

Paypal/eBay collected the tax on my behalf: -$7.53

eBay fee of 10% final value price: -$9.40

eBay fee of 10% shipping price: -$0.60

eBay fee for 3-day auction: -$1.00

Shipping: -$4.12

NET: $81.46

Now back out $35.xx for cost of materials and pattern and it's down to $46.

Divide $46 by the 12+ hours it took to make Bernie and I made $3.83 an hour for this Bernie.

Regardless, I'm happy with how this turned out. I'm also confident that I got a good price because I listed my Bernie early. The price is coming down as more Bernies are listed and this was a good exercise in helping me determine how much to price my Bernies.

I'm aware my subsequent Bernies will not have the material cost and I don't have to pay eBay fees or Paypal fees if I sell direct and take cash, but you get the idea. Selling handmade items will not make you rich. You better love what you do!

My joy is in the journey.