Puzzling Out 50 Years

Here's a neat article that was in the news yesterday. Pam McPherson is an 84 year old scroller from Carbondale, Colorado. She has been making jigsaw puzzles for her friends and family for the last 50 years! She cuts about 100 puzzles per year, but has nearly 3,000 images in queue. Check out this article from Glenwood Springs Post Independent.

Brass Snowflake Ornament

Many times, us scrollers only think about cutting hardwoods and plywoods. But there are a number of other materials that we can cut as well. The folks at Woodworker's Journal has a great article on how to scroll saw a snowflake ornament out of brass! The article includes the free pattern, detailed instructions and accompanying photos. You can find brass and other sheet metals at your craft store or hobby store. If you still can't find any brass, check your home improvement store. You should be able to find a brass kickplate for entry doors that would work great. After you cut this pattern, dig through some of your other Christmas ornament patterns. That will give you plenty to cut out with this great material.

T-Rex Dinosaur Puzzle

Since we're on the subject of T-Rex, here's a fun little dinosaur puzzle you can easily make for the budding paleontologists in your life. This free standing puzzle was designed by William Berry for Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts (Issue 29 Holiday 2007). You can read the full article online which includes detailed instructions and a free PDF version of the pattern. Check it out!

Adapting Patterns

Need a little help adapting patterns for scroll work? Sue Walters has written a great article for Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts covering just that. The article first appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of SSW&C. She explains the overall concepts of breaking down a line drawing or photo into sections. She explains negative and positive space in conjunction with bridges, which scrollers rely heavily on. These simple concepts will take you on your way to designing your own patterns in no time. Check out this quick article. You will look at patterns in a whole new way.

Judy Gale Roberts Intarsia

You can't really mention intarsia without thinking of Judy Gale Roberts. She has been on the forefront of intarsia since the 70's and has written numerous books and articles about the subject. Her website has a lot of great stuff, that it's hard to pick just one to talk about in this article. So I'm gunna jump right in and highlight a few.

First, she has a couple of free intarsia patterns. We all like free stuff, right? She offers a whale pattern which is quite nice. But I really like her Santa Teddy bear. Christmas seems so far off, but this Teddy bear is such a great pattern, it's hard to pass up. So definitely take a look.

Second, check out her newsletter/catalog Intarsia Times. She has several great articles in each issue, along with the patterns available she has available for sale. Intarsia Times is distributed in PDF format with a hefty download weighing in at 15.8 Megs! But don't worry, you can request the catalog be sent to your home if you can't handle the bandwidth. You can also find back issues of Intarsia Times here.

If you are looking to learn intarsia from the masters, check out their classes. 3 full days of intarsia goodness, complete with Jerry's famous BBQ. You'll walk away with a full belly and some mad intarsia skills. But sign up soon, because their classes are filling up quickly.

So, take a look around Judy's website. There's plenty of stuff to look at. Check out their patterns too. They do some amazing work! If nothing else, it'll provide the inspiration for your next project.

3 Piece Construction Set

We're all kids at heart. There's a certain part of us who still loves pushing around toy trucks. But a bigger thrill is building that toy truck and watching a delighted child push that truck around for us.

Shopsmith has a great article on how to build a bulldozer and truck set, designed by Norm Marshall. Much of the design can be cut with a scroll saw and a small assortment of hand tools. It can easily be finished off on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The article starts off with an interview with Norm about toy making and how he goes about it. Then it is followed with detailed instructions on how Norm built his bulldozer and truck. The article includes several illustrations and measured drawings to make assembly easier. Check it out! I'm sure there's somebody you know who would love a hand crafted toy truck.

Getting Your Craft Show Business Off The Ground

by: Shawn Vincent

For years, family, friends and even people who you just meet, have really liked the crafts you produce. They are the centerpiece for conversation at holiday dinners, or the, “that’s a great idea” thing when neighbors come over for a coffee. So, you’ve decided that you might be able to make a profit off of selling your crafts to others. Great! Here’s what you need to do to make it work!

1.) Have a plan – Even if you just scrawl it down on a piece of loose leaf paper, that will work – but you should definitely go into this with a plan. You will plan for things like: how many craft shows you will attend, the cost to make the craft and how much you should sell it for, craft show expenses (they vary from show to show), how many crafts you want to produce, and so on.

By going into this without a plan, you are essentially going in blindly, without a path to follow. This can be a precursor to failure – and that isn’t what we want. Set some goals, determine a few craft show costs and you are going to be much better off.

2.) Search the markets – A lot of people have expressed an interest in your craft, but are they going to buy it at craft shows? In order to find out, you need to go to a few craft shows before you start out on your own and decide if this product you have will sell. Are others selling it? If so, how is it selling?

Further, you can talk to craft store employees, other crafters, people at the craft shows – essentially anyone who might have an interest in your product and see if your craft is something they would buy. This is a slimmed-down version of market research – but it will be valuable to help you get your craft show business off the ground.

3.) Present well – If you have put together a plan, done your market research and you are ready to take this crafting business to the next level, then here is something you need to think about – presentation. If you just have a few tables with your crafts strewn about on the table – people will be less likely to buy.

However, if you create an attractive sales area, make your products easily accessible and provide a simple transaction for the customer – they are far more likely to buy!

4.) The price is right – You bet it is! You will have to do a little bit of price discovery when you start, just to see the price when most of your crafts are going to sell. Some tips for finding the best prices are: go a penny lower than the next highest number; for example $9.99 instead of $10. Ask people what they would be willing to pay for it. The question may come as a surprise to them, but chances are they will give you an honest answer.

The above points are just the tip of the iceberg. If you are starting a business to sell your crafts at craft shows, you need to do a little bit of groundwork before you start. Talk to others who are in the business and you will find out more along the way. Good luck!

About The Author
Shawn Vincent is the author of Craft Show Success Biz - http://craftshowsuccess.nitchmarketers.com. Here you will find loads of information on selling your crafts at shows, and online. You will also find lots of ideas on crafts to make as well.
vincent.shawn@gmail.com

Paper Cutting for Scrollers

The last few posts, I've been talking about scherenschnitte, the German art of paper cutting. But this is a scroll saw blog, right? So, why am I talking about paper cutting?

Its not hard to see that many of the design principles of scherenschnitte are shared with scroll sawn fretwork. The designs must remain continuous and unbroken. Each art form plays with positive and negative space that allude to details. Sometimes we cut out the shadows, and other times we cut out the highlights. The designs also share similar motifs. From strictly decorative, to word art, to scenic and wildlife designs. The styles between the two art forms tend to be a little different, but that's what makes it interesting. Since the two art forms are so closely related, we can easily take stylistic and thematic elements of scherenschnitte and incorporate it into our own scroll sawn artwork to create a truly unique piece.

The problem with scherenschnitte is that it is very time consuming. Which also translates into expensive end product. Lets say you spent 2 hours on a paper cutting and you want to charge $30/hour. You'll have to sell that paper cutting for $60. Probably out of the price range of many of your customers. You find scherenschnitte artists often make prints of their artwork and sell them instead. Which is fine, but I think I'd rather have a cutting rather than a photocopy. At the same time, I also don't want to spend $60.

Scroll sawing has the same issue. However, we have a trick up our sleeves. We can stack cut our designs to create multiple copies. We can cut four layers (or more) of 1/8" Baltic birch at the same time. So now, we have the same 2 hours of work and charging $30/hour. But now we have 4 finished pieces! Which means you can sell for $15 each and still get your $30/hour. That's a pretty good deal. Now your customers are interested!

What if we combine the two art forms? What if we take 10 sheets of paper and sandwich it between 2 pieces of 1/8" Baltic birch and stack cut them on the scroll saw? We end up with 10 paper versions of the design and 2 wooden versions of the design. I bet you can see where I'm going with this. But lets break it down anyway. 2 hours of work at $30 per hour is $60 worth of work invested. But, you end up with 12 cuttings all together! That means you can sell each cutting for $5 each and still make your $30/hour. Wow! But, that's way too cheap! You don't want to give away your artwork! So let's boost the price of your paper cuttings to something more reasonable. In my neck of the woods, I can sell the paper cuttings for $10 each. And let's sell the wooden versions for $25 each. Now you customers have the option of choosing a less expensive version of your artwork, or the wooden cutting traditionally associated with scroll work. Not only does this technique offer your customer choices, but it also increases the value of your work to $150 for 2 hours of work. I don't know about you, but making $75/hour is not a bad gig!

So how do we go about cutting paper with a scroll saw? Well, Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts forum has a couple of great threads on just that. Read through these threads (Paper Cutting 1, Paper Cutting 2). You'll learn a few techniques on how to add papercuts to your inventory.

Web Sales Can Increase Your Crafting Revenue

by: Natalie Goyette

Think of an ideal craft show for a moment… thousands of people coming through the turnstiles at the fairgrounds or the exhibition areas with money in their hands and an intense desire to spend it. What about having a million people with access to your crafts at a craft show - at any time they wanted. That would really be IDEAL!

At a typical craft show, you are going to see hundreds, and maybe a couple thousand people visiting over any given weekend. Some shows are bigger than others, but even with 2,000 people coming through the gates, how many of them are stopping and looking at your booth with the intention of buying? It can vary. If you could somehow increase the number of people that stop by your booth, it makes sense that you could increase your sales, right?

Have you thought of a website for your crafts? This is the ultimate craft show - millions of people can access your information and your products, and you have limited set up fees - and orders can be placed while you are sleeping snug in your bed at night.

Putting together a good website for your crafts takes a little bit of effort to get off the ground, but it might be well worth the work. Here's what you have to do:

" Design a site - You can probably find someone to give you a hand with this, and it doesn't have to be very elaborate looking - just enough to show pictures of your crafts, their prices, a little bit about you… etc. It is important to make sure that you set the site up with a secure credit card payment system, as this will aid in a greater number of sales, just like in a regular craft show.

" Find a host - All sites need a web host in order to post them on the Internet. There are hundreds of providers out there, and you just need to find the one that is right for you. Chances are you have a friend or acquaintance that has a website, and they may be able to help you with on for your crafts.

" Drive traffic to the website - This can be done any number of ways: articles like this one, having others link to your site, update your pages regularly so your pages are indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo! Coming up with the right keywords for your crafts is important for when people are searching the Internet for the type of craft you make.

" Maintain the site - I would suggest updating your crafting website at least once every two weeks, and maybe even once a week if you have time. This provides a certain amount of confidence for web buyers that your craft site up alive and well!

While having a website can certainly boost your sales, the other side of the coin is that you might be inundated with orders! That's not necessarily a bad thing, except you could be working night and day to meet the orders! One way to avoid this is to post on your website how many of a certain item is available.

Remember imagining a craft show where millions of people came in and they had money to spend on crafts? Now you have it… albeit a virtual craft show. The sky is the limit when you are talking about selling your crafts on the Internet. With the right presentation, the right price and with the right traffic driven to your site, you can open the doors to your crafts for millions of people.

About The Author
Natalie Goyette is the author of the best selling e-book "Craft Show Success" which finally shows crafters how they can make money selling their crafts! www.craftshowsuccess.com.

Leather Dyes On Wood

From time to time, we want to add a little color to our projects. But not just a little color; a lot of color. The kind that stands out and says "Look At Me!" But as woodworkers, it breaks our heart to cover up the beautiful grain of the wood. What are we to do? Use leather dyes! Leather dye has incredible vibrancy that can't be found in traditional wood stain. It is one of the favorite coloring techniques of Sue Chrestensen of Chrestensen Burghout Designs. She has written a great article on how she uses leather dyes to really punch up her designs. Check it out. While you are there, check out the patterns they have to offer. Their patterns are fantastic and many of the examples use this technique. Very cool.

How To Profit from a Craft Niche

by: Natalie Goyette

One of the things that you might consider is finding a niche for your craft. Maybe you have some expertise, skill, or interest that might be a creative tool for you to use in creating items for craft shows. Below are some hints to finding what that area might be for you:

What interests you? – You can take an interest you have and turn it into a craft show success. If you are a gardening hobbyist, why not come up with something every gardener needs. Provide that craft inexpensively and you might have yourself a winning craft for spring craft shows.

What do you have knowledge of – Maybe you are a model railway buff, along with being a crafter (the two go hand-in-hand) and you want to provide railway buildings or railway terrain for people to use in their own train sets. You have the knowledge of what needs to be built and used – so why not combined the two joys in order to come up with one profitable craft show item?

What are you good at? - If you are a good cook, then make a quick recipe book. If you are pretty good at organizing things, then why not come up with a desk organizer that anyone can use.

What are other people doing? – This is certainly not an open invite to start copying the design of other people at a craft show. Instead, it is an opportunity to see what is out there and for you to be the one that says, "You know, this craft would be better if it was… (fill in the blank)." Once you fill in that blank, it might trigger an idea inside your head of how you can improve this product or maybe even come up with one that works WITH it.

When in doubt, teach others – This is becoming a great way to make extra profits at craft shows. Some crafters love to take the bull by the horns and make their own crafts, so why not capitalize on that? Provide them patterns or instructions and unmade kits at a cost – so it takes the labor out of it but you are still selling the product.

At last resort, create a niche that works for a craft you have in mind. Sometimes that niche is staring right back at us and we don't even know it. If we are good at something, or interested in another, or you see something you can improve on, feel free to take the initiative to take it and make a profit from it at your craft shows!

About The Author
Natalie Goyette shows you how to make your craft show business profitable in her best selling ebook: Craft Show Success Secrets. Visit her site: http://www.craftshowsuccess.com

The Ascent - A Wooden Clock Kit

Last post, I talked about Adrian Iredale's video on how he makes wooden gear clocks. It is pretty inspiring and he makes it look a little less intimidating. But, maybe you're not quite ready to jump into the deep end just yet.

Jim Bumgardner of KrazyDad.com has written about his experience making a wooden gear clock. He isn't a woodworker. In fact he has very little woodworking experience. But he was curious about how clocks work, so he ordered the Ascent clock kit from Wooden-Gear-Clocks.com. Granted, the gears were all precut, but that shouldn't matter too much. As scrollers, we know how to cut. Its the precise assembly that seems overwhelming. But Jim was able to put together the kit with little trouble. You can read about his experiences here. Its pretty interesting and he gives a little writeup about how the clock works. Check it out!

Dingy for Dingbats

As pattern makers, we like to collect unique fonts to use in our designs. But often overlooked is the use of dingbats. Dingbats are fonts that have small pictures instead of letters. Sarajane of polyclay.com has a great article about how she uses dingbats in her crafts. She lists some of her favorite dingbats as well as some great dingbat resources. She also has a useful Font Table download where you can create printouts of all the characters in a particular dingbat. The article is very interesting and really gets your imagination going. She has a disclaimer, though. Collecting dingbats is addictive. So you've been forewarned!

Scroll Saw Art and Art in Wood

by Pete Jansen

Creating scroll saw art in wood, and scroll saw portraits takes a lot of time and patience on the artist's part. Each portrait starts out as an idea, and goes through many stages before he, or she can show off the finished product. These stages include, but are not limited to, selection of a workable image, filtering and pattern making, wood selection, transferring the pattern to the work piece, drilling, cutting, and finally framing and finishing the artwork. Finding a workable image to create a scroll saw pattern from is not very difficult. Images with solid dark (shadows), and light (highlighted) areas work the best. Light shining on the subjects in the image from an angle, produce the best results. These images can include photos captured by a digital camera, or artwork scanned into a computer. The computer is an important part in creating great scroll saw patterns and portraits in wood. It is possible to convert an image to a pattern by hand, but it is extremely difficult and time consuming. The best and fastest way to create a scroll saw pattern from an image is to use photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. This editing software allows you to isolate the dark and light areas of the image to create a completely black and white pattern. The black areas will be the areas cut out of the wood to create the dark areas of the portrait or scroll saw art. Find the best filters to separate the dark and light areas of the image. "Poster edges" is a good way to start the process. The light areas can be touched up by hand with white-out to add finishing touches to the pattern before you transfer it to you work piece. When the pattern is ready to be applied to your work piece, it's time to select a flat, clear piece of 1/8" furniture plywood to work with. Baltic birch is the favorite for me. It is very light, free of dark spots and flaws. Cut the birch to fit your pattern and frame. After a light sanding, the work piece is completely covered on the top side with masking tape. The scroll saw pattern is printed out on the computer scaled to fit the area to be cut as well as the frame. Spray the masking tape with a light coat of high quality contact adhesive like 3M. Before it has a chance to dry, place the pattern on the work piece and smooth out any bubbles. You have to work fast, and apply it in the correct position the first time, or you will have to start over. Let the work piece dry for about an hour before continuing. Now that the work piece has the scroll saw pattern on it, and it's dry, it's time to drill lots and lots of tiny holes in it. Using the smallest drill bit that will allow the scroll saw blade to pass through it is a good idea. Every black area in the pattern must have at least one hole drilled in it for the scroll saw blade to pass through. Yes, every dark are is and individual cut and must have a hole drilled through it. On the opposite side of the coin, every light are must me connected to "all" other light areas, or sections of light areas will fall out of the artwork as the dark areas are cut out. Remember this when creating your pattern also. It's more work to fix it later, after you've started cutting. Now the cutting begins. Work from the center of your scroll saw portrait out, as this helps keep the work rigid and strong as you are cutting. I like to use a 2/0 size spiral type scroll saw blade on my "portraits in wood". This style scroll saw blade will cut in any direction, keeping you from having to constantly turn your artwork while cutting. Cut your first black area out of your piece remembering to start near the center of the work and leaving enough white area thickness so it won't break off while you handle and cut it. It looks bad when you have to glue a broken of area back into the portrait. Now the tension on the blade is loosened, the top of the blade is taken out of the upper holder on the saw, and threaded through your next drilled hole. Keep cutting until all the dark areas are removed. The time has come to remove what remains of your pattern from the scroll saw portrait. Carefully peel the masking tape from the wood, being careful not to break any of the thin areas of the portrait or scroll saw art. Now you can see a little of how your work will look when it's completed. Hold it up to a black background to admire all your hard work. Clean up the "fuzz" on the back side of the scroll saw art with fine sandpaper. Be careful not to break the portrait. Use a matt or semi-gloss style clear spray finish on the face of the scroll saw art, making sure to get finish on the inside of the cut areas to create a finished look. Let the scroll saw art dry overnight. Now it's time to set it in the frame. A frame with glass or plexi-glass is recommended, as it makes the scroll saw art much easier to clean and dust later. Cut a backer board from wood, particle board or cardboard to fit your frame in back of the scroll saw art. Spray a light coat of spray adhesive on the backer board, and apply your dark or "black" backing material to it. I like to use black felt purchased at the fabric store, as it creates very dark negative space in your scroll saw portrait. Let it dry and add it to the frame in back of your portrait or scroll saw art. Insert the frames back and you're done! Now that you've spent 10, 15 or even 20 hours creating this heirloom quality art in wood, it's time to hand it over to your customer, loved one, or hang it on your own wall. Enjoy it, be proud of it, it's truly one of a kind, especially if you used your own photo or image. And it took a long time to create. You now know how to create great scroll saw patterns as well as portraits in wood. Take a look at some of the highest quality scroll saw portraits at www.LoneTreeCreations.com

About the Author
Pete Jansen is one of the Southwests number one scroll saw artists. Creating scroll saw portraits, portraits in wood, art in wood and other beautiful creations. Pete shares some of his secrets and techniques with other woodworkers in his articles that have been published world wide.

Selling Your Intarsia

By Jerry Mifflin

Our challenge as Crafter's and intarsia artists is to discover our markets. You need to know your market, who is your customer? Are you selling a product to local or global customers.

If you're selling to local customers say out of a storefront, you must know if you are in the right market and selling at the right price for this local customer. If you're not showing the right product to the right customer base, chances are they're won't be any sales are at least very few.

It only makes sense that If your selling a product that is not of use to the customer and its not something that they see they want or need, you had better find either different markets or a different product to sell from your store.

I use to have a shop that sold simple crafts like little animal yard and driveway signs. I sold lots of country style decorative items for the interiors of their homes. These items sold well because I was living in a rural area where my customers had big yards and long driveways.

These people loved the country style of decorating. They loved the crafts I was making for them. I even had other crafters producing items for me to sell for them. I was producing and selling to my market base.

If I was trying to sell the country style signs or plaques where I'm living now, in the city, I would not do so well. For my customer base is not the same. Their yards are different, their driveway is short and their interior decorating may not be the same kind of "country style." So for this new customer base you have to change your product line.

Does your product fit into the decorating scheme of most of your customers, if not very few are going to buy. You must be certain that your craft fits with your prospects or your business will fail. You must take the time to study this. Find the proper market place.

Crafts people are used in having friends and loved ones telling them how cool and how beautiful there craft is, this is encouraging. The problem is that it's not realistic. You need to get input and about your product from a source that will give you a helpful honest response about your product.

When your customers come into your shop and say how much they like what you're doing but walk out without buying anything you have to ask yourself, what's wrong?

Are you in the right market for the craft you sell?

If your craft fits your customer, how is your price? The price you sell your product for may need to be adjusted up or down.

For the price setting you need to look at your competition. At what price are they selling a comparable product. Ask yourself can I make a profit selling my product at that price. Can I sell my product and get a higher price? What can I do to make my product worth more money?

I now sell art, "intarsia woodworking art" that is higher priced, which means for the customer to let go of the money, she will have to really love your product.

Crafts, can be a tough market. I am a cabinetmaker, caught up in the world of art. I love to add artistic designs to cabinet doors to make them stand out from what other people build. The cabinets add atmosphere to a room by giving the room character and there by adding value.

I have managed to sell a lot of my work over the years. My prices are usually from about $200 to $15,000 depending on the work involved. As I said before, some time ago I had a craft shop in a small town. I built every wood craft I could think of to build and it was fun, but not really much money.

The money only comes after you learn the business end of the craft market. As a cabinetmaker I have learned the hard way that you must get paid for the hours that you work, even when you love the work.

How much should I charge for my work?

It's basically the same for most businesses, how much do you want to pay yourself per hour. Just add to that a percentage for overhead plus a percentage for profit and add material cost. That gives you a charging rate for all of your products. You must add the profit, that gives you the money to grow, like buying more tools. My charging rate depends on if it's commercial or residential, $45-$85 per hour depending on how custom the work is. In my old "craft shop" my charging rate, at that time, was $35 hour, the price fit the product and the overhead.

If you can sell your craft as "ART" it will increase the amount you can charge for your product. Perceived value! Do you have awards! Do you have newspaper and magazine articles about you! Do you have references? Have you developed a recognizable name for your market? If not, you need to work towards these things. All of this adds to the perceived value of your craft.

Intarsia woodworking is my craft, my art. It's the work I look forward to doing. Find the craft you love to make, find the correct customer base, set a reasonable price for your work and your on your way to a successful satisfying life.

(c) Copyright Jerry Mifflin, All rights reserved

Jerry Mifflin creates many works of Intarsia Art and gives away patterns of his work for other crafters to use. Articles and information on how to build intarsia are on his website, www.intarsia.us , specializing in that woodworking art and business. For patterns and a how to do intarsia art e-book go to www.freeintarsiapatterns.com to get yours.

The Business Side of Craft Shows

by: Natalie Goyette

Starting a craft show business when you're really an artist at heart may be a rude awakening for you. Nevertheless, if you decide to turn your hobby into a business, you need to switch hats from time to time. You wear your artist hat when creating and producing your crafts, and you put on your businessperson's hat when you're running the business end. Begin successful on the craft show circuit doesn’t just mean you have a great product; it also means you have a decent head for business.

Planning your craft show business

It's not absolutely essential to write a craft show business plan if you're not seeking a loan or partner, however, it can help you focus your business goals from the start. There are numerous books and Web sites on how to write a business plan, and most will fit with craft shows just fine. The most crucial elements are the financial projections—which include your estimated income and expense for the next several years—and the marketing plan. The marketing plan helps you identify your target audience and how you can best find and serve them. This is essential as you develop your craft show product and find the right shows at which to sell. If you are seeking capital or a partner, you will probably need a complete business plan. If doing this overwhelms you, contact your local Small Business Administration, Small Business Development Center, Chamber of Commerce or local universities to find help with developing a professional business plan for your craft show company. At this point, you may also seek the advice of an attorney to decide what business entity yours will be—a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a limited liability company or a corporation. You can always grow into corporate status later on, though it's advisable to at least know your options up front.

Licensing your craft show business

Most cities require any business, home-based or otherwise, to register and purchase a business license. These range in cost from $15 to $100 depending on the size of your city and are obtained from the city clerk's office in most cases. It makes your craft show company official and enables you to conduct business legally. Find out if your city requires any special-use permits for operating a home-based business. The rules may differ if you have customers, supply trucks or employees coming to your location.

You may also need to file a fictitious name statement with your county offices if you call yourself anything other than your name, such as Posh Pottery. This guarantees that nobody else in your county is using the same business name. From here your file the name with a newspaper, and then you can open your business checking account. It's highly advisable to keep craft show business income and expenses separate from personal if you are serious about being in business. Then on a regular basis, you can "pay" yourself from your business account. You can also now file your taxes as a business entity and take advantage of the many tax exemptions for businesses. Car expenses or mileage, supplies, overhead costs and more are all deductible. Find a copy of a schedule C (www.irs.gov) to see some of the expenses you can write off.

Now you have officially moved out of the hobby status and in to the serious craft show business. Actually the IRS considers your enterprise a hobby if you haven't made a profit in two out of five years that you file as a business. If that happens, it's time to rethink taking your goods to craft shows as a business venture.

You will probably need to get a resale (sales tax) license. This allows you to buy wholesale anything you will be reselling and not pay taxes, however, you need to charge tax on your crafts and then submit it to the tax board either monthly, quarterly or annually. Check with your local state board of equalization or state office of taxation to find out what their rules are. It doesn't cost anything to get a resale license.

It's helpful when starting out to set aside a savings account for your sales tax to be sure you have it when it comes due. Also check with your sales tax office if you are required to collect tax when you're selling in other states. Some show promoters collect tax from you at the end of the show, so you need to keep accurate records, which you can do by issuing a receipt with every customer purchase. Make sure you find out the amount of tax you need to charge at the show as it varies by city, county and state. Also, it's a good idea to carry your sales tax permit everywhere—you may need to pick up some supplies, and you can avoid having to pay taxes on them.

Each city, county and state has different regulations regarding licensing, so make some phone calls to find out what's required, and do this well before your first craft show.


About The Author
Natalie Goyette shows you how to make your craft show business profitable in her best selling ebook: Craft Show Success Secrets. Visit her site: http://www.craftshowsuccess.com.

Intarsia Teddy Bear

Now that you made your first teddy bear intarsia, your neighbor's cousin now wants one. What to do? Well, Wood Magazine can help you out on your next intarsia project. They have provided a great article by Judy Gale Roberts, about getting started in intarsia. The article is free to download and presented in a 12 page PDF format for easy printing. The article takes you step by step through the entire process. And true to Wood Magazine's style, the article is richly illustrated with photos and drawings that explains every detail. Naturally, they also include the free teddy bear pattern.

So if you still need a little more help in your journey down intarsia road, or if you just need a great pattern, check out this great article.

The Different Varieties of Scroll Saw Blades Used for Intricate Cuts

by Muna wa Wanjiru

A scroll saw is used to generally cut intricate cuts. To help the scroll saw perform these types of cuts you will find the need to have a variety of scroll saw blades. These blades which are available from hardware stores are designed for many different purposes. For this reason you should either have a large variety of scroll saw blades or depending on your crafting abilities a few specialized blades.

There are about six different major varieties of scroll saw blades that are available. These blades are generally about five inches long. A brief look at the different scroll saw blades will let you see how these blades are different in nature. The first one we will look at is that of the Skip tooth blade.

The skip tooth blade is named due to the saw teeth being positioned with a gap distance between each tooth. The next type of scroll saw blade to be looked at is the Crown or two way saw teeth. In this blade type the teeth of the blade are facing both upwards and downwards.

This double direction facing teeth on these scroll saw blades allows you to make cuts in the material. You will have the option of cutting in a downward stroke. You could also cut using an upward stroke. This is very handy as there may be times you will need to cut the wood in either direction.

Another of the scroll saw blades is that of the Double Skip tooth. In this the teeth of the blade is fashioned in a manner that is similar to that of Skip Tooth blade. You will find however that the gap is located after two saw teeth have been found. In other words the arrangement of the teeth for this blade is two teeth, a gap and then another set of two teeth.

You can use the Metal cutting scroll saw blades for the purpose any cutting any type of metal. Here the blade is made from hardened metal. Now if you are cutting any other substance such as glass with a scroll saw it is best if you use a Diamond blade. This particular blade has a diamond coated wire blade. This is truly the blade to use when you need to cut through glass.

The final major scroll saw blade that we shall look at is that of the Spiral blade. This blade is formed in an unusual way. This blade is a flat blade that has been twisted so that the teeth of the blade are facing in every direction. This makes using this type of blade perfect for the tasks where you need cutting ability in just about any direction.

You will find all of these saw blade useful. While these are a brief look at the major scroll saw blades you will find that there are many other blades to use. See what the various saw blades are like. You might find a few more useful ones.

About the Author
Muna wa Wanjiru is a Web Administrator and Has Been Researching and Reporting on Saws for Years. For More Information on Scroll Saw Blades, Visit His Site at Scroll Saw Blades.