nursery themes and selling art (and yes they are related!) WREN! IN HERE!!

Hi all, i did all the art work for sarahs room myself and a number of people have commented that I could sell them (and not just family and friends who are humouring me!). So I want to put together some paintings and see how far I get with selling them so my questions are:

1) What nursey theme do you have that I can try and cater for? I tend to go for animals so far - all ours are farm animals - also planning some jungle animals and sea animals but what are other popular nursery/kids bedroom themes/colours I should try and cater for?

2) How much would you pay for a canvas for your childrens room? The canvases I have ready to use are mainly around the 10x12 inch mark

3) Any ideas on where I can sell them?! Will go and see the two galleries locally who stock stuff my local artists and maybe circulate at some baby groups...

4) Any business bods who know how much I can sell before I have to declare it all? I'm not allowed to run a business from home...

5) Wren: Talk to me about folksy shops...

Thanks all!!

Looby

1) Matilda's room is butterflies.

2) Ummm... I am rubbish at pricing things. Maybe £5-£10 if it matched well enough.

3) Craft fairs, would your local library display them? Ebay? Here?

I'll pass on 4 and 5 though I could ring my OH and ask re the cash. You'd have to declare it all but when you'd start paying tax etc is the question.

To answer your questions

1.) Kind of Cath Kidston meets Laura Ashley country shabby chic?!   That's the plan anyhow!

2.) Maybe up to £30 ish?

3.) Set up an online shop - I have one and can highly recommend the people who host it etc.   Also try ebay?

4.) You'd have to declare you are self employed right from the get go (I think you have a month of setting up to tell HMRC).   Check to see if you are allowed to run an onlilne business from home as they may allow this.

thanks ladies! I'm off to spend a small fortune on canvasses now!

I really struggled to find nice "under the sea" type prints for Austin's room.  All the ones I found were quite grown up styles, whereas I wanted something quite cartoony.  I ended up buying some canvasses, covering them in fabric, and cutting shapes out of felt to make into fish/seahorses/crabs etc.

I would probably have paid up to £20-£25 for something that I loved, fitted with the theme, and was in the right colours.

As soon as you start to sell anything for profit you have to declare it and must register as self employed.  You might want to check with your landlord as the clause in your lease might be more about you running a business from home that involves people coming to the house/parking issues/having lots of deliveries etc.  So if you can prove that running your business will not cause those problems, you might be ok.

Sorry missed a load of your questions!

colours wise we had lemon/aqua for Aliya's room, the theme was jungle.  Austins room is blue and the bedding we have is blue/green mainly, but I love bright colours so there is a lot of red/purple/yellow etc in there too (theme is underwater).

Definately look into baby shows.  I would also suggest that an online shop would be good, and at the very least you NEED a website!

And Lots of luck!!

great idea- i remember your nursery and it the pics are fab.

we've got neutral cappucino type colours here and i couldn't find anything suitable so ended up making my own pics (teddy and rabbit) but i was originally looking for neutrally farm animals but they were beyond my skill level to do!!

i would pay about £20 i guess for 10X12 sixe although i tend to prefer a set of small canvasses (maybe 6x6) and would pay £30 ish for a set of 3. if you are albe to offer a bespoke service - say having a range of designs that can be done in different colours i think people would pay more for that. a website is def a good idea and what about asking local nurseries, baby clinic, doctors surgeries etc to put a poster up for you?

i loved the letters you did with your LO's name as well- maybe something else to add to your portfolio?

don't know whether you have a poundland anywhere near you but they often have canvasses in there which i've bought before - the quality is fine as far as i can tell and that would obviously reduce your overheads!

can't help with the business bits i'm afraid but good luck to you x

1) Kayla has a jungle/ noah's ark theme in her room. Others I have seen a lot of are teddy bears, farm animals, circus, underwater. Alternatively, you could also offer bespoke commissioned pieces as you are going to be making from scratch anyway.

2) £20-30 but more for a commissioned piece (maybe £10-20 more). When you are pricing up someone once told me a good place to start is the cost to produce x3 (so 1/3 of the retail price will go on costs, about 25% will go on tax and the rest will be profit).

3) Definitely leave info with local baby groups. But easiest route would be Ebay.

4) As others have said you have to declare any income from the start. You must have registered your own business with HMRC before your raise your first invoice but you will be able to put expenses receipts through up to 28 days before the registered start date of the business. Agree with others to check with landlord as I suspect that the issue is with people visiting the house for business purposes. We couldn't have frequent visitors for our business but can run a business from home iyswim.

5) Sorry, can't help on this one.

We have a dotty theme, but I think fairies and butterflies seem to be very common for little girls.  If we'd had a boy then it would have been a maritime theme, so probably boats etc.

We have a jungle theme and the canvases were from Vertbaudet. I'm thinking you can get a guide on 'fashion' by getting yourself on the mailing list of the premium baby item shops - so Blooming Marvellous, GLTC etc, and 'taking inspiration' from there?

B had an 'under the sea' theme in his nursery. His Daddy is a Submariner so it seemed fitting lol. My other idea wwas a Noahs Ark theme.

I would have definately paid around £15-£20 for a canvas that size, especially if I was able to specify what I wanted. A Submarine would have been fab as I couldnt find much on them when I was hunting for bits.

I would look at setting up on ebay, flyers at local toddler group/libraries and then later on maybe place an ad in baby mags (the ones at the back?).

Hello!  I feel so special being called on! I'll message you via FB and go through Folksy and some other stuff - there's massive social networking going on in the craft world - it's why I haven't been here much.....I'm tweeting, blogging, talking on Folksy (they have a forum) and ning-ing!  I definately think you'd need your own website - think of places like folksy, ebay, misi etc as stockists - an additional place for people to see/ buy your work.  Anyway, will get a message sent to you with some links and stuff for you to look at. x