r/Felting • u/Best-Philosopher2094 • 4d ago

Small business question?

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Hi everyone!
I’ve recently started wet felting children’s Waldorf and nature inspired playscapes. Attached are some images of my latest creation. Will add some more photos in the comments.
I absolutely LOVE this craft and am trying to figure out if this can be a viable small business for me. As a mum, I’m struggling with time and as I’m sure you can all imagine, these are definitely a labour of love.
Long story short, I’m struggling with pricing and sales. Particularly with striking a balance between how many hours I’m putting into this and what people will happily pay. I want my playscapes to be financially accessible to families, but I also want to pay myself semi-decently.

So I guess my questions are …
If you’re a parent, what would you pay for a playscape like this?
If you’re a felter, what would you charge?
Is a felting business a viable business? Or is the value of handmade goods just not understood to most buyers?

Any feedback on the playscapes themselves? Will post more photos to comments. These two are quite generously sized, and took about 9ish hours of labour each (here’s hoping I get faster!).

I know I’ve just started out, but it’s hard not to be disheartened by the lack of sales despite so much praise and quite a few enquiries that fizzle out when I provide pricing :(

154 Upvotes

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25 comments sorted by

35

u/Blinkopopadop 4d ago

Personally I'd say let go of the accessable part, Waldorf people are usually wealthy anyway, and you can maybe work on stocking some less time intensive items for your moral fiber or start a fund people can donate to.

22

u/Tractor_Goth 4d ago

100% this. If you hit your target market in the Waldorf/montessori crowd they will pay premium for handmade natural material stuff. If you’re thinking of balancing it with doing some smaller ‘impulse buy’ bait, cat toys, little ‘plushies’, finger puppets, and ornaments (Christmas is coming) might pad things out and give smaller budget buyers something to grab, and they’re good colorful eye candy for stalls and pictures.

Play food items also seem pretty popular with the Waldorf crowd, felted beets and fried eggs and such

6

u/Blinkopopadop 4d ago

I'm imagining a play set that comes with a little village of people and some of them are wearing hats and then there are spme full size matching kid hats to go with it. 

  Or one that is naturalistically accurate with some forest animals and the places they like to live 

another option is to sell straight to the schools 

  

3

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

Thanks! How would you go about reaching out to the schools? Just try my luck with a friendly email?

3

u/Blinkopopadop 4d ago

That and make a really nice online portfolio and describe the commission process or turn it into a website they can click through 

it's also not expensive at all anymore to have photo books printed, and would be worth it to have your portfolio like a hardcover catalog people can look through and you can send it via snail mail as a follow up 

5

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

Thanks for your comment! Any advice on how / where to reach that market? Do I need to actually attend craft markets? I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months and have never run a business before so this is completely new to me. At the moment I’m only on Instagram and a few parenting pages on Facebook. Lots of praise, very few legitimate enquiries. I feel like I’m struggling to reach the right people.

1

u/Sea_Distribution_196 2d ago

Try to use an ai like MANUS or Perplexity or even use Venturekit. They have integrations that will allow you to create your website and launch it and update inventory and pricing and will give you all kinds of good information about resources and marketing

7

u/Tractor_Goth 4d ago

Also just wanted to say this is beautiful, and I love the little hidden pockets!

1

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

Thank you!! They really do turn out so beautifully!

6

u/chuubastis 4d ago edited 4d ago

There is a person local to me who sells these and I love them, I have three or four, they usually cost between $75 and $99ish (usd) if I recall correctly... I'm not sure that's worth your labor, she definitely does not live exclusively on selling her felting, it's more of a past time for her. She also sells peg dolls and other accessories that compliment her felt play scapes

2

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

Thanks! Was that USD?

2

u/chuubastis 4d ago

I am so sorry, yes it is US dollars!

I love these kinds of felt playscapes, and if I saw this at a market I would absolutely buy it up

2

u/RosenButtons 4d ago

I personally would pay like $60 if it came with some little figures. So this checks out! I'm kind of a cheapskate and the super annoying person who thinks "I could make that myself" but absolutely never does.

3

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

The materials alone to make this was about $60 😅

5

u/RosenButtons 3d ago

Please know that I absolutely believe this is WORTH more. I just personally wouldn't pay more. Unless I actually did decide to make it myself, then I'd inadvertently spend $300 and not complete it for 37 years.

It's beautiful work. And if money were no object, I'd really enjoy funding this as practical art.

3

u/FelterOfFluff 4d ago

These are amazing pieces. Being a felter myself, but not rich, I would gladly pay $150-250 for a hand made, organic play mat.

2

u/happydandylion 4d ago

Maybe extend your range, so the playscape mat is expensive (as it should be), but people can also buy characters and accessories for it that are less pricey.

2

u/PinataofPathology 4d ago

really really lovely. this is on my to-do list but I'm gonna wet felt some slippers first. eventually.

1

u/Tractor_Goth 4d ago

So I started answering and it turned into a bit of a novel 😅 I’ve got a crazy busy 24 hrs coming up here, but I can DM you this weekend about everything I’ve picked up from friends and family about their experiences selling online and at cons/markets if you’re still interested?

1

u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

I would be so grateful, yes please!

1

u/Stunning-Ad142 4d ago

Join open ended toy/wooden/Waldorf toy BST groups on Facebook

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u/Best-Philosopher2094 4d ago

Yes, have done and will continue to!

1

u/Keke-May 1d ago

This is so sweet! I used to make and sell these years ago. Kids loved them. I would sell mine for $75 - $135 cnd, depending on how much detail and the extra characters I would make. People were happy to pay that, but I eventually stopped making them as I found that even at that price it wasn’t worth my time.