Creative children can make money from their hobbies in a lot of ways. Whether it is a market day at school or your kid is enterprising and shows interest in monetizing their creativity, check out this list of business ideas for kids to create and sell the work of their handicrafts. Not only do they get to earn money, but they also understand the basics of sales, marketing, and the value of money as well.
Jewelry
Handcrafted jewelry has a lot of value and is popular among youngsters because of the unique designs and styles they come in. Kids can create jewelry out of beads and other cheap products and sell them for good profit either in physical stores or online.
From necklaces, and bracelets to rings, jewelry making can be a diverse and creative hobby to make money. Learn how to start your eCommerce website from this article.
Pottery
Pottery is an interesting hobby and if your kid shows interest in it, they can make handmade pots, pans, and the sorts for sale. Though this is more suited for older kids, it is a useful hobby to grow the creative skills of children, provided they have a passion for it.
Play Dough
Play dough is a fun activity for kids and is easy to sell at school markets and garage sales. Making play dough is also easy as it requires simple ingredients like flour, starch, and baking soda. Kids can also optionally add food coloring and essential oils to make different varieties of play dough.
There are even edible play dough recipes that are even more fun to experiment with and are a good idea for kids to create and learn.
Key Chains
Both adults and children like key chains. DIY key chains have a lot of potentials for your kid to explore their creativity. From simple key chains made from wood, plastic, and rubber to superhero figurines, DIY artists make cute key chains of all kinds and people love the unique designs from small designers.
Get your kid some basic materials to make simple designs and see what they are interested in, to help them create key chains from simple materials and sell them online or even to their school friends.
Dream Catchers
Dream catchers make a good addition as home decor and make for good gifts. They are easy to make and let your kid explore the different ways they can make to create unique pieces. Ingredients for making dream catchers are cheap to buy online, and you can also give them old reusable materials like fabric, thread, and more to further make it cheaper and DIY.
Holiday Decorations
Making hand-crafted decorations for holidays can be a fun group activity for children. They allow families to spend time together and if your kid has a natural flair for decorating and creating ornaments, that can be a good business idea.
Create and sell Christmas decorations at festival markets and online and your kid will have the independence to buy things by themselves besides gifts and money given to them.
Wood Work
Birdhouses, post boxes, photo frames, and toys, there are a lot of practical and sellable options to create for kids interested in woodwork. Signboards, bookshelves, and wind chimes are also useful and kids can make them on custom requests or just sell whatever they make depending on the type of wood-crafting they create.
Metal and Glass Crafts
Crafted metal, plastic, marble other crafts from stones make for cute collectibles. Metal crafting like small toys, and charms are also a good idea to make and sell for kids. A good thing is kids can find raw materials for this kind of craft from old unused things to recycle them.
Besides plastic and metal, kids can also make crafts from glass for this. Creativity is the limit to what they can make out of these materials.
Making this kind of crafts from a young age helps kids refine their skills and find what they are best at and make more sophisticated art as they grow up.
Slime
Let’s be honest, kids love playing with slime and they are still popular toys. Just like play dough, they are fun to play with and your kid can learn to make slime with kits that are available for cheap in online stores.
Go a step further and sell slime maker kits along with slime as some kids might be interested in making slime themselves. Edible and glitter slime are to watch for as they are fancier and loved by kids than regular slime.
Lemonade Stand
Lemonade stands are timeless classics for children to set out and earn their first dollars. Try making lemonade stands that make freshly prepared lemonade and other drinks besides lemonade in your stands though, a lot of kids have the same idea as yours, and having unique points like this makes your stand, excuse the pun, stand out.
Home Made Pastries
Does your kid love baking? Turn this hobby of your kid into a business by selling cookies at school markets and fairs. Brownies, pies, and donuts are just some examples of homemade pastries that sell out like cakes. (this pun was unintended too) Not many stalls selling pastries stay unsold for long and are a definite way to sell out and make decent cash by making and selling pastries and sweets.
Pet Treats
While making pastries is cool, why not make treats for our fur friends? Dog treats and other pet food are easy to make and there are a lot of recipes online to get started.
Home-made pet treats are great alternatives for store-bought treats as homemade ones do not have preservatives and other harmful chemicals and have fresher ingredients. If you are making human edible pet treats, make sure that you don’t include any ingredients that are harmful to pets. Get your kid creative and make irresistible treats for pets.
Designing Apparel and Accessories
For fashionistas, apparel design is a huge field to explore. Kids can make tote bags, bandanas, face masks, and other simple accessories to get started. Designing t-shirt prints and tie-dyed clothes are also great options as people love to buy such things.
Adding new designs and additions to premade clothes, bags, and other accessories is also a good idea, whether it is for your kid’s personal use or selling.
Setting up an online store on Etsy is a good option if your kid is serious about it and is seeing results from selling their designs locally.
Crocheting and Knitting
Have a knitter at home? Crocheting and knitting are productive hobbies even if they are not done to sell. So it is a simple transition from making crocheted dolls to making custom gloves, scarfs, and hats in different designs and selling them.
Hand Painted Mugs and Bowls
This is another creative idea for kids. Painting mugs and coasters are simple to get started. You can do it with a few white mugs and coasters, kids can make their designs on them. You might need some acrylic paints or markers to do this. They can also make cute gifts for father’s day and mother’s day.
Rock Crafts
Creative kids can make a lot out of otherwise normal-looking rocks. Painting geometric patterns, animals, eggs, and more makes for simple keepsakes and presents. They can also make spelling games and sort out of similarly shaped rocks like alphabets and numbers.
Some kids also like to keep pet rocks and kids can go on rock picking trips to find uniquely shaped rocks to sell. Rock rings are also cool creations to sell.
Soap Making
Natural homemade soaps are a cool idea for your kids to learn and earn. Get some essential oils and scented oils to make different flavors. Other ingredients to make homemade soaps are also relatively simple to find and make soaps by yourself. Your kid can also use DIY soap-making kits for this.
Candles
Homemade candles are similar to soaps. They make for simple but thoughtful gifts and making them is relatively easy. Get some wax and thread to get started and like soaps, you can make different types of scented candles with scents and coloring agents.
Bath Salts
Bath salts are easy to make and there have been cases of kidpreneurs growing a huge business by selling them. Epsom salt, sea salt, and baking soda are all you need to make bathing salts. There are plenty of bath salt recipes to learn and experiment with before making them for selling.
Also, adding essential oils, flower petals and the sort gives unique flavors to the salts.
Paper Crafts
You can make a lot of things with paper. Origami designs, bookmarks, decorations from paper roses to wreaths, and more. Find the right type of paper or cardboard and let your kid’s imagination do the rest. Experiment with different things to make from paper and sell or make them for decorations.
Fridge Magnets
Kids can make fridge magnets by using any small crafts they’ve done and sticking a clear glass magnet to it with hot glue. Alternatively, marble pebbles are also a good choice. Stick a wrapping paper bit to the pebble and attach the magnet to it for cool-looking pebble magnets with different patterns.
Painting
Kids who like to paint can do it on canvas and sell them. With a decent portfolio, they can make commissioned art as a freelance artist. Digital art is also an opportunity to do the same. Promoting the work across social media helps get more exposure. Kids can also sell prints of their paintings, either digital or physical.
Photography
If your kid is interested in photography, there are lots of ways to monetize it. Taking pictures of different contexts and selling them as stock images (like the kids in the photos of this article, for example) is a simple way to get started.
Creating a portfolio of photos in apps like Flickr and promoting it can help your kids find photography gigs.
Writing
Kids with an interest in writing can be encouraged to write blogs, short stories, and in any format they like. This nurtures a healthy habit as well as grows their potential to make a career out of it. Consistent blogging and SEO practices can make blogging a money-making hobby by displaying ads. Writing is also profitable, with a lot of kid authors who have published books for other kids.
Social Media Content Creation
Social media is ever-growing and kids have a natural interest in them. While you should monitor their use of social media to prevent the negative aspects of it affecting them, social media content creation is a profitable hobby.
Depending on their interest, kids can do meme creation, short educational videos, and more forms of content to find their community and grow a following. With a decent amount of followers and user engagement, their social media channels can be monetized and find collaborations to create promotional content and other clients through their social media activities.
The internet has made creating and selling handcrafted products easier. I hope this article helps you find an idea for your kid to create and sell their handmade products. Watch/read guides by DIY articles for further inspiration and ideas to get started. If you have any suggestions or comments, do let us know in the comments.
Further Reading
