By Noha Nusrat & Translation by Dina Amir

In the good old day, many mothers taught their children how to use their hands and skills to create useful handmade products, so that the children –especially the daughters- can benefit themselves and their houses as well. Most of the old handmade work was sewing and needlework, but now it’s much more advanced, and there’re many new forms of handmade work that can keep up with our era. Men and women alike can be very successful when it comes to working with their own hands. Generally, it’s an enjoyable activity for anyone who’s talented or willing to learn; also, you can make good money through selling your handmade work.If you want to know how to make a handmade product, or how to start a handmade business or even how to sell and advertise your products online, then please keep reading, Yaoota is here to help you out. Congrats in advance.

What’s a handmade product?

Handmade work is any kind of work or product that is done manually (using your hands). Through working with your hands, you can redecorate your house, make new accessory pieces, and so many innovative ideas. Usually, each piece is unique and one of a kind.

Advantages of handmade

• Suits everyone, especially housewives, working ladies or even students. Mainly depends on the taste, innovation, creativity, and artistic sense of each individual.
• It would be a treasure if you knew how to use it properly; as working with your hands can relieve stress, and most likely will make you happier because you are being creative and productive.
• The produced pieces are always unique.
• It can be a source of income on its own or you can use it to increase your income no matter who you are, a housewife, a student, or even if you are a working person.

How to learn the handmade work?

• There’re many videos online that explain each craft from beginner level till the professional levels, how to choose the material, and where to find the needed material. This is considered the most practical and less costly way to learn, as you make no effort and can learn wherever you are without getting stuck in traffic jams. You can also check these videos whenever you’re free, without a fixed schedule of course.
• Find professionals to teach you in centers. There are courses that teach various crafts, in exchange for money. What’s good about it is that you deal with these professionals face to face; which means you show them your work, and they criticize it and even advise you on how to fix any problems.

How to market your work?

This is the most important step, marketing your work after being a professional, especially if it’s a source of your income. There’re so many ways to achieve this, and todays advanced technology made everything easier.

• Social media pages, by creating a page or a group on social media you can market your work from your house. You can even upload your work on some related websites to get wider exposure. This makes it easier to reach more customers; social media is very interactive as you can reply to the costumer’s comments and even feel proud when you receive some positive praise. Even if these comments were negative, you can enhance your work, and work on yourself more.
• Peers, family, and acquaintances are a perfect way to market your work, especially if your work is unique and of a high quality, as whenever someone sees your friend and asks about her beautiful bracelet or her colorful bag and she mentions your name, this will be free word of mouth marketing. And you can just receive many orders through word of mouth; people tend to buy more after seeing the actual product or someone who tried it before.
• Exhibitions, you can pay a little amount of money, and reserve yourself a space to show your work. There’re two types of exhibitions, permanent ones that don’t change their locations, and the other type is called the open day where you show your work whenever there’s an exhibition which takes place in different locations and for a limited amount of time.
• If you’re financially capable of opening your own shop, that will e great too, but just a friendly advice, don’t do that unless you reached an advanced level and your products appeal to many people whom you know, so you won’t be wasting your money.

Pricing your products

• Add all the costs of the material, transportation, electricity, or any other overheads. Then divide it among the number of pieces you produced.
• You can even check if someone else produced similar things, and ask for their opinion and get them to price your pieces.
• Add 15-30% as a profit margin for your effort, so that you would be satisfied.

Two pricing schools

1. You start with low prices to cover the costs only until you get more customers and then you start to increase the prices gradually.
2. You show a reasonable price, with a reasonable profit margin for a while so the customer would know that your product is unique and they would perceive it as a high quality product.

Advantages of working as a handmade designer

• It’s a free flexible work, which means you don’t belong to any entity.
• Doesn’t require certain working hours, you work whenever you’re free whether day or night.
• You choose wherever you feel comfortable to work and you’re your self’s boss.
•  You get to know more people and develop your connections network.

How to choose the right craft for you?

If you don’t know where to start, then let’s examine the most popular handmade crafts so you can choose what’s suitable and more appealing for you.

Accessories craft

One of the most popular and delightful crafts. You can make your own accessories, and choose how they will look like, you get to choose the colors, design, and it will definitely be less costly and more enjoyable. You can learn to design different accessories and how to make them, whether they’re rings, bracelets, anklets, necklaces, with various materials as copper, or precious stones.

You will also need this accessories organizer  to keep your accessories in one neat place without losing any of them. You can buy accessories organizer  from Souq.com for EGP 45.

You can buy handmade earrings from Enigma shopping for EGP 60. 

You can also find a turquoise handmade braceletfrom the giftery for EGP 220. 

Crochet, tricot, sewing

If you like fashion, then you will enjoy this craft because it will help you choose the items you like in big stores and make them yourself, according to the size, color, and design you prefer.

If you want to check some of the handmade crochet items, Yaoota provides you with this amazing collection, and you can buy whichever you like or just take a look at the market you are stepping in.

Colorful crochet bag for EGP 100

Crochet scarf for EGP 150 

You can also buy the book called “The Art of Crochet” online for EGP 80 from Nefsak.com.

You might also need this Manual sewing machine to sew simple things if you’re a beginner. You can buy it online from Souq.com for EGP 70.

Cake decoration

If you like standing in the kitchen for hours to decorate the food and present it in a nice attractive way, if you follow the latest dessert and food fashion, then this craft will make you gladly spend the whole day in the kitchen, not just hours. If you ever wondered about how to make a birthday or a wedding cake with 3D shapes and whether you can do it yourself or not; then let me tell you that, of course, you can, because now there are many courses and online videos that can teach you to do all the things that blow your mind away.

This video will teach you how to decorate a cake. Enjoy it.

You can buy tools that will help you to decorate your cake from Jumia for EGP 49

You can check different decoration tools on Yaoota; their prices start from EGP 25 to EGP 102.

Candle craft

Candles make any place more relaxing and romantic. This industry evolved a lot in the past couple of years; you can see now scented candles, candles in different shapes and sizes as ice cream or tart. Candles are being used in houses, restaurants and even weddings to make the place more warm and comfortable. They can be used as gifts too.

This video will teach you how to make candles, using very simple materials.

You can buy some tools that will help you make your unique candles from Nefsak.com for EGP 299.

Decoupage art

If you like to change your house’s decoration every now and then, or if you just enjoy being creative, then the decoupage art will make your life gorgeous. All you need to do is, cut your favorite designs or artistic pieces and glue them on your old decoration plates, vases, furniture, or boxes, so they would look more fashionable and new.

This video will show you how to make some unique changes to your house, using decoupage art.

Leather goods

Bags, belts, and wallets are all leather accessories that can make your look trendier. When you learn how to make your own leather goods you will be able to execute the designs you want from scratch.

This video will teach you how to make some leather goods.

If you have many CDs all over the house, you can buy an elegant leather bag from Yashry for EGP 485 to save all your CDs and keep them organized.

Mosaic art

It’s all about small pieces of flagstones that are made of glass and broken into small pieces, so you can use them to design and make different art pieces. You can also use them to decorate an old item that you already have, so it would look more fashionable.

These videos will teach you the mosaic art.

You will find here tools to help you in creating mosaic art for EGP 40. You can do mosaic with your kids starting 6 years old, especially if you’re a beginner you can learn together and motivate each other.  

Painting and engraving glass

We all have things made of glass in our house, like vases, glasses and so on. If you want to make them look more uniquely fashionable, then you can draw on them using certain tools, or you can use engraving tools to form the design you want on any piece of glass.

This series of videos explains how to draw on glass.

You can find glass-drawing tools for EGP 80 from Hedeya, you can buy them online and you can use it with your kids if they’re above 6 years old.

You will also find this book “Drawing on Glass” for EGP 65 very useful; you can buy it online from Alef bookstore.  

This video explains the art of glass engraving.

Find this Glass drilling/ engraving tool for EGP 165

Drawing and printing on cloth

Very enjoyable craft, especially if you like colors and drawing. You can use it to change how a t-shirt looks, renovate your curtains, pillows, bed cloth, and table cloth, etc.

These videos will teach you how to draw on cloth.

Videos to teach you how to print on cloth.

If you’re into drawing and printing on bed cloth, you can do something like that or you can buy it online from nefsak.com for EGP 1,500. Find it here 

After checking all these handmade crafts, I would like to say a word to all the ladies reading this article; you’re talented and strong, you just need to exert some effort to discover your talent, and once you find it, just keep learning and producing until you become the best.

You can also search for whatever you want on www.yaoota.com, and always remember that you can order from the comfort of your won home and the items will be delivered to your doorstep within a couple of days.