Wife's hobby business

Since my wife became a stay-at-home mom a couple of years ago she has tried to come up with a small, home based business to make mad money.

Last month, the day I paid the shop in Houston what I owed them for Healey work, she asked if she could "upgrade" her sewing machine to a more modern model. (great timing) The next thing I knew, we were looking at websites with $2K+ machines. After some due diligence and some shopping, we bought her a machine (less $ than that) that can not only sew but can do all kinds of embroidery.

Over the last few weeks she has been doing work for friends making dresses and embroidering and has put a couple of things on Craigslist. My dad asked her to make him some Airstream stuff, so she bought the hardware/software combo to scan graphics in the computer and embroider it on shirts. That came out really nice.

Right now she is mom/daughter focused as to what she is making but asked me about LBC stuff. I told her that I would think about it, but the only thing I could thing of would be items with either custom colors to match (closely as possible) the desired car, or the ability to put model numbers or owner names along with the car or marque's logo. She is going to make me an Austin-Healeys.com shirt using my logo.

Is there any demand for small batch, custom LBC stuff? Anything other than shirts (hats need an adapter she doesn't have)? What would be reasonable to tell her she could ask for stuff like this?

You can see her website (another donation from her good husband /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ) to see what she can do, but there is no LBC stuff on there. www.meliascloset.com


Thanks
Patton

Looks like a lot of talent in the family, I hope she is successful (it will save you money). Does she use www.etsy.com to sell her stuff? It is like ebay for crafters only. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

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You can see her website (another donation from her good husband).

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Sounds like it might also be a wife's HUBBY business, with you her LBC and Internet Marketing Manager.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif

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Sounds like it might also be a wife's HUBBY business, with you her LBC and Internet Marketing Manager.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif

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I can't find enough Healey time much less time for her stuff. There is a reason she has a simple, free, Google hosted site, I don't have to maintain it for her.

Patton

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Does she use www.etsy.com to sell her stuff?

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I think craigslist is it so far, I'll tell her. Thanks,

Patton

I think she could sell a few items in the "orphan" car arena. It's almost impossible to find things for cars like Allard, Kurtis, Berkeley, Turner, Bond, and so on. If her setup makes it easy to do very low quantities cheaply then there's a market, alhough it's small.

A couple in the UK is doing this and they to do all right with it. They make keychains and similar things, not clothing.

Following off Coldplugs post:

The members of our British Saloon Car Club of Canada also have lots of "orphan" cars of various sorts, many of the older British saloon cars in the club don't have many other cars within North America to keep them company...

I could put you in touch with the club if you wish... A club membership is quite cheap, and allows for advertising in the newsletter...

How about patches, I think there might be a demand for small orders of patches, say a dozen, or so...

patton, she got the machine, hardware/software to scan graphics? way, way cool! o.k so im one of those guys that once wrestled, was on the swim team and boxed, but im the only one in my family that saws,i do all hems on any pants that i buy, all my sons stuff and all my wifes hemming and all the repair work needed, i even did the hem on a leather pair of pants and a leather skirt i brought home from england for my wife, that was hard to do since my machine is not really designed for such thick material,i envy the set up your wife has, i know if she produced an "austin healey" patch either generic or mark spacific i would perchase one or more, she could even offer these in various car collors etc, perhaps even the lbc logo/patch etc, childrens cloths cost as much if not more then adult stuff nowadays thats a great market, your wife could start her own childrens "designer" line, sorry i got a little excited having read your post but i really dig working with my little cheap ebay singer non-programable unit, shes in a great "nitch" market and should do well, keep us posted. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif

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I think she could sell a few items in the "orphan" car arena.

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John,

I really, really like that idea, now I'm going to have to help her a little more as she would never find the brands, much less logos for that.

Thanks
Patton

I think with the way her machine is set up, patches may be difficult. It is pretty easy to do something that looks like a patch directlly on the fabric. I think she would need some sort of adapter but maybe she only has to embroider it on a fabric, then cut the patch out???

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How about patches, I think there might be a demand for small orders of patches, say a dozen, or so...

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your wife could start her own childrens "designer" line, sorry i got a little excited having read your post but i really dig working with my little cheap ebay singer non-programable unit, shes in a great "nitch" market and should do well, keep us posted. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif

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The childrens thing is the main thing she is going to do. She is making baby hooded towels, burp cloths, dresses and matching clothes for mom/daughter. The machine we got her is a Brother PC8500 which we got used from a local dealer. The price from the dealer was about the same as ebay and she is getting lessons on some of the features she never had with my grandmothers 1950's Kenmore. My dad bought her the "Ultimate Box" card writer/reader and I think the software is Embrid for the computer.

Here is the info on the machine.

https://www.brother.com/USA/hsm/info/pc8500/pc8500_ove.html

Patton

If you start to do car logos etc you have to watch the copyright thing. For a few friends its probably not a problem but once you start to advertise....

You would be surprised at how many defunct car manufacturers names/logos are still owned by someone.

Sorry to put a damper on it but you have to be very careful in these litigious days!

wow, now thats a nice machine! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif

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Sorry to put a damper on it but you have to be very careful in these litigious days!

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Sewing people are being pressed as hard as anybody on copyrights. My wife was telling me that certian fabric makers are trying to forbide buyers of thier fabric from making anything that they can sell with it.

https://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/9/11/82110/2869

Some embroidery pattern companies are sueing people who bought CD's on ebay that (unknown to the buyer) had copyrighted material on them. The companies are suing the innocent end consumer for damages even if they never made anything with the templates.

https://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/HallOfShame/AmyButler/AmyButler.shtml

I didn't belive here until she sent me the links.

The point is that she knows to be careful, and her bread and butter for this is still kids stuff. Since there is a very limited amount of regalia type stuff for many of our cars, I think small batch stuff, like club do, would be OK.

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wow, now thats a nice machine! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yesnod.gif

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Thanks, it's hard to deny her that when I have the Healey in the garage!!!