Pyrography trinket pot

Hi all,
In my last post I mentioned the various reasons why people do craft work and one of them was to earn some money. Probably not stacks of money, but enough to a least pay for the material consumed by their past time. Some may make a bit more and I suppose it all comes down to a mixture of effort, skill and finding a product that people want to buy.

There has never been a better time for crafts people and artists to sell their work because it can be done over the Internet easily and cheaply. Of course, that brings more competition but if you can provide something unique that people like it is sure to be a decent seller.

I don't have time to make as much stuff as I would like too, and my wife always has first dibs on anything I produce, but every now and again I manage to put up something for sale in my on line shop on Folksy.com It is really easy to set up a shop and it only cost 15p to list an item for 3 months. There is a commission to pay when an item sells, but at only 6% it seems quite reasonable to me.

Anyway, if you have a pyrography iron and want to make something quickly that sells, here are the instruction for making this, "absolutely beautiful little trinket pot."

Those aren't my words, I took them from the review on Folksy that was left buy the purchaser of the last seed head trinket pot that I did some pyrography on. If you are interested in making one to sell or keep for yourself here is how to go about it.

Firstly, you will need a blank pot. These can be purchased from Wood work craft supplies for less than £2.00 each.

Step 1 The lid
Draw four curves on the top of the lid in a symmetrical pattern.

Then do the same around the sides of the pot. You should be able to fit six curves in.

Step 2
Using your pyrography iron, with a spoon tip if you have one, burn a small mark that will represent the seed. Then with the spoon tip inverted, burn the line that leads from the seed. Then, still using the pyrography iron spoon tip in the inverted position burn five short lines from the end of the line in a fan shape. I do the two outside ones first at about 45% and then burn another one in the centre. It is then easy to burn the last two lines between them. This needs to be done quickly on a medium heat setting. When making each burn, put your iron down onto the wood at the top end of the line and then move it away quickly thus making a burn mark that feathers away.

At this stage it looks a bit crude in places, but this project is a quick one and all will be well with the finished project. Once the sides are done it should look something like this.

Right, nearly finished already. With a small brush carefully paint the fluffy bits on the end of the seed heads. You can use acylics or watercolours, the only thing I'd say is this, if you use watercolours, make sure you use a spray varnish. If you use a brush-on type varnish the watercolour paint will come off very quickly.

I used some of my wife's watercolour paints on this pot and then sealed it with a spray varnish. I gave it two coats and it was done.

 My wife kindly put some felt on the bottom of the box and the whole thing was finished. In total, I would say that it took no more than fifteen minutes to create this little pot and I should be able to sell it for three times as much as I paid for the blank pot. I know it isn't going to make me a fortune, but the profit will go towards my next order of materials and that can't be bad.

I will put the box on Folksy in the next couple of days and see if anybody wants it.