Wood Carving: Making Your Hobby a Business

Many successful people who have made their own business have simply turned their hobby into a career. A wood carving career is no different than someone who sells a one-of-a-kind product. However, one main difference is that the wood carver usually takes time and care to give his customer the very best. Making a business out of wood carving can be done and there are many ways to market your product, get your name out into the world, and start making sales one wood carving by one wood carving.

Know Your Technique

If you have been in the wood carving hobby for plenty of years and are practically a novice or an expert on how to wood carve, you may not have any trouble deciding how to go about wood carving in the first place. However, beginners and intermediate levels of knowledge that people have may need to be refreshed and even taught some of the other tools of the trade. A good start for beginners or for those who would like to know about how to wood carve and what all goes into wood carving is to take classes. Wood carving classes are held at a variety of places. Some private individuals may hold wood carving classes, but one of the more popular places to learn how to wood carve is in a community college or other university. Most community colleges and universities do have wood carving classes that are held within their Art Department; it only takes a little bit of research to know where to begin.

Decide on a Plan

Before you go blindly into turning your wood carving hobby into a business of selling your wood carving creations, you may want to know how you’ll begin getting the word out. The first plan of action should be to create a website that showcases some of your work, tells a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been in the wood carving business, and also it should give example prices of your products. Creating a website will also help you get more organized for when you put your name out into the world, also.

Your wood carving website can also be a basis for brochures. After you’ve made brochures or business cards, many stores and businesses will allow you to post your work and business card on public notice boards that hang on the wall.

Another thing to think about when it comes to receiving wood carving orders is how you’ll fill those orders. Will you create your wood carvings on an order by order basis, allowing 1 to 2 weeks for delivery? Or will you pre-carve some common wood carvings so that you’ll be able to market and sell those right from the beginning? There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but being prepared to tackle them when wood carving orders start rolling in would be beneficial.

If you’re careful and know what you’re doing, getting started turning your wood carving business into a hobby should not prove to be very difficult. Of course, finding that first sale for any business is the most difficult. But the more orders that come in and the more requests for wood carvings that you get will allow you to take a deep breath, relax, and watch your wood carving business grow!