Making Art and Craft Again

For the past year, I’ve been working with my mother to relaunch her craft business. We’ve been going to craft fairs more weekends than not, sometimes even doubling up and do two events back-to-back in the same weekend.

I missed doing this kind of stuff.

Sure, it’s not on the same scale (mostly) as when I would go as press, or a guest/speaker, or even a vendor at big conventions, but it’s scratching that same itch. I get to show off what we made, meet a lot of new people, and help bring the perfect gift or must-have item into the hands of people searching for them.

I bring a mix of my own items depending on how much space we have. My mother is the priority, so we have to make space for her gorgeous ceramics and crochet pieces. Sometimes, I get a little sliver of the table to put up some 3D printed fidgets; other times, I might get my own table where I can setup everything from original art to books to prints.

We’re working on getting online sales setup in a way that makes sense for our products. Ceramics are as heavy as they are fragile, so shipping can sometimes double the asking price of an item; that’s rough.

But the 3D prints? There’s potential there.

You can visit my Ko-Fi to order digital, physical, and audiobook versions of my books. Now you can also visit to order 3D printed and hand-detailed fidgets.

Selling the fidget toys keeps me in robotics supplies so I can come back to each tournament stronger. It also allows me to explore different methods of manufacturing and designing for 3D printers by licensing different models for commercial sale.

Yes, everything I print is either my own original design, printed with a paid-for commercial license, or adapted from public domain/creative commons pieces that allow for commercial sale.

Now the big challenge of tracking which pieces need to be shipped out versus which pieces can be packed up for the next show begins.