Getting Ahead: The New Faces of Handmade

WALK INTO JON WYE'S UNFINISHED Eastern Market garage and you'll find creative chaos. A stair-stepper rests next to a bench press. A corner worktable — littered with scissors, saws, axes — supports a wooden shelf piled with more tools and a couple mannequin heads. There are scraps of plywood and an old box fan on the already supply-littered floor. Dozens of colorful leather belts are draped on the right side of a bench-press barbell, near the 28-year-old's sewing machine.

"Fred won't come in here," says Wye of his dog, a gentle retriever mix. "He's scared of all this." Perhaps rightly so. Aside from the fact that the belt designer's workshop has no AC or heat — Wye admits he just started feeling his toes again in March — there are some heavy-duty machines in here that, when turned on, sound like they're about to go into orbit.

Welcome to the world of independent crafting … well, sort of.

"Craft" doesn't seem to really describe what an increasing number of Washingtonians are cranking out creatively, often for profit. Forget the Styrofoam balls, googly eyes and felt Mom would pick up at Michaels. Today, tastes have moved past generic do-it-yourself kits toward eclectic creations and personalized ventures. The days of rubber-stamping and wreath-making are so over. Instead, independent businesses — from funky beltmakers like Wye to spirited fabric artists — are gaining ground and often making money. According to the Craft and Hobby Association, crafters spend $31 billion per year in the States alone.

"People better appreciate handmade items today more than 10 or 15 years ago when it was more of a materialistic world," says spokeswoman Terri Ouellette. "It didn't use to be that way. You'd have to negotiate for five bucks for the thing you worked three days on!"

She says the green movement and accessibility of information on the Internet have played significant roles in the current craft boom. In an age of mass-produced everything, people crave the authentic, the handmade, the imperfect. And there are a lot of people making stuff these days — 57 percent of American households do. So, in order to make a living (or some extra cash) weaving, forging or hammering stuff, your product really needs to stand out. "People just aren't buying crocheted hand towels anymore," says Ouelette. "And it's probably a good thing."

So, how do some of Washington's creators manage?

For Wye, it began with a girl, back in September of 2003.

"I'm not a bar-hopper kind of guy," he explains. After meeting a woman he liked at church, he suggested "'Hey, come over to my house. I have this great idea for belt buckles.'"

Not that Wye had ever made anything like that before. But, with his new crush, the scion of a DIY family who'd once taken a pottery class as an undergrad in Illinois, Wye spent an evening making one. The pair formed a design in canners' wax and then cast it in plaster. After that, they put a blowtorch to some scrap metal, liquefying it before pouring it into the mold and baking in the oven. Yeah, a few pans were destroyed in the process. But Wye's "Junk" buckle (a metal piece that literally says "junk") was born. "We proudly wore our funny little creations all around town," he recalls.

But, sigh, the creative meeting of the minds was to be cut short: Wye's muse already had plans to move to Barcelona in a few months.

Rather then mope around, he threw himself into his work. In a matter of months, the buckle designs multiplied (there are now variations shaped like waffles and men's underpants). It was while looking for his next step that he found his niche: "I had this concept that I could probably get these really cool images onto belts," he says.

And he did just that. In August of last year, Wye quit his job as an office manager at Home Front Communications and devoted himself to furthering his funky brand. He works with graphic designers from New Zealand to Seattle to put his loopy illustration ideas into reality, and then embeds them into leather strips.

Now his buckles, belts and T-shirts are sold in boutiques from San Francisco to Puerto Rico. This retail reach helps him stay afloat; so does the fact that he saves on rent by living with his parents. Still, he's not making Kenneth Cole-like bucks yet, so the monthly payments on his embossers, hole punchers and other machines stress him out sometimes. Still, making money with his hands is exciting, even if it's not yet that lucrative. "There are some moments where I've been, like, 'Holy crap! I need to buy dog food this month — that's $30! I eke by, and there are months that boost me up again."

Erika Rubel, 42, of Brentwood found inspiration for her craft business in 2002 after a friend brought over a mirror for the occasional mosaic hobbyist to work with for a tiling project in her fixer-upper house. Things didn't go exactly as planned.

"Instead, I took stuff I had been collecting for garden art and hammered it on to the mirror," she says. It wasn't long before she quit her job as a customer service manager and took part-time gigs as a bartender and photo researcher to stay afloat while she fleshed out the idea. Two years later, Had Matter was born.

She started a stand at Eastern Market in March 2004. At first, she primarily focused on selling mosaic outdoor cocktail tables and the mirrors. But nothing really caught on, so she took a chance. Switching out the mirrors for old photographs and wooden shelves, Rubel developed quirky key holders made from recycled materials — vintage photos, old clocks and coffee cans. When she introduced them that July, she says they "quickly took over as my most popular pieces."

She's been crafting full time ever since, selling her wares online (Hadmatterart.com), at local fairs and on weekends at Eastern Market. How does she survive as a full-time crafter? She says markets can be profitable, and she lives frugally and doesn't have a big mortgage. She also hustles: In order to make it full time, Rubel says, "You want to shoot between $4,000 and $8,000 in sales" per month.

And for 8th Street Soap Kitchen's Jenny Isaacs, the beginnings of her part-time business were simple. "I've always liked making things," she says with a laugh. "But I can't sew; I can't draw. So, I picked up a beginner 'how to make soap' book."

For her new hobby, she ordered soap-making ingredients online. Except what she thought would be a small pail of coconut oil turned out to be a 40-pounder. "I had to use up all of it. So, I made more soap!" Now the 38-year-old graphic designer's Brookland basement is awash with bars in various creation stages, like the citrusy Flora de Naranja and fresh-from-the-dryer sweet Fluffy Pajamas.

As any DIYer will tell you, getting the crafty ball rolling is one thing. Keeping up with a full- or part-time business is another. For starters, there's incorporation, setting up a Web site, keeping track of orders and shipping packages. It also helps if you're comfortable with bragging a little — which most crafters will tell you isn't exactly their style.

Then there's the issue of how much to sell your vintage fabric-covered lampshades/star-shaped bowls/handknit sofa slipcovers. How do you know what's too much — or too little?

Rubel says many folks who create things for money don't put a high enough value on their time. Sure, it may take a couple hours to put the finishing touches on one of her key holders, but that doesn't factor in time she's spent working on her Web site, shipping purchases or sussing out old license plates, photos or geegaws to incorporate into her designs. Even though she primarily works with recycled materials, it's not like she's happening upon yard sales and Dumpster diving on weekends. Some of her pieces require very specific items that take time to source.

For instance, she has an alligator-themed piece that requires a Florida license plate. "The only way to get Florida plates regularly is in eBay," she says. Just surfing the auction site to bid on used plates can take a few hours each week.

By not taking these factors into account, she says, one not only runs the risk of undervaluing themselves, but that of their crafty counterparts. Online craft-selling sites like Etsy.com can be a blessing and a curse. Etsy allows its 100,000-plus users to set up virtual shops without establishing their own sites. But you won't make money if you price your masterpieces too low. "Too many people aren't trying to make money off of it," she says. "They're just selling what they're making while watching the ballgame. You should take yourself seriously."

The more you respect your work, the more customers will, too. Isaacs points out that the higher she priced her soaps, the better they sold.

Yeah, there's money to be made in crafting these days. During its first year (2003), Etsy sales totaled $3.8 million. As of May of this year, sales profits had already reached $25 million, says Etsy spokesman Matthew Stinchcomb.

But before you start thinking those boxes you decoupage will make you rich, Stinchomb suggests approaching the hot glue gun cautiously: "I'd say we have a couple hundred sellers who could support themselves by what they're selling on Etsy," he says. That's out of 100,000 vendors.

And like anyone who is starting a business, be wary of who you bring on board. When Wye started establishing a little street cred, people started coming out of the woodwork. "It's not always the best people right away. It's always, 'Hey, we've got the best commerce package, we can be your PR people.' I've learned that these are things you stay away from at all costs in the beginning and for many years to come."

And just because you're working independently, you don't need to be a hermit, holed up in your studio, er, apartment. Network with your crafty brethren. There are national groups like Craft Mafia (Craftmafia.com) and Bazaar Bizarre (Bazaarbizarre.org) that have chapters from Anchorage to Boston. There's also the local Craft Mutiny (Craftmutiny.com). Sites and organizations like these provide a way for those with an artsy bent to meet and mingle, ask for advice and even set up shows together.

Isaacs became a Mutiny member last August. "It's got a spirit of playfulness I really like," she says. "They're definitely kind of alterna — there's someone with pink hair. They're all crazy creative." When Mutineers aren't volleying questions back and forth on their online forum, the group of 12 20- and 30-somethings brainstorm ideas at Silver Spring's Pyramid Atlantic Art Center.

The key ingredient to becoming an indie craft success? Looking ahead to what's next.

Rubel has her key holders almost down to a science. So much so, that creating some pieces is more drudgery than creative work. Now she allots extra time to brainstorm future projects: She's thinking wall sconces from recycled cigar boxes, old tin cans and vintage photos.

For Wye, it's developing new belt designs, expanding his line into clothes and — no surpise — developing unique dog collars.

Isaacs is delving into lip balms, cuticle creams, and, gulp, penis enlargement cream.

And, of course, the soaps are still churning along, due to inspiration gleaned from her daily life.

"I've been working on a soap I'm going to call 'Brooklandia,' because that's my neighborhood," she says. "It's going to have dandelions that I'm going to pick on my way back home today. I'm going to use holy water that I'm going to get from the Franciscan monastery up the street! I'll probably burn in hell for it, but it should be an interesting soap."

GRAB THE GOODS

» Belted: Wye is usually at Eastern Market on weekends, but the easiest way to find him is at Jonwye.com.

» Lather Up: Find Isaacs and her soaps at Craft Mutiny events (Craftmutiny.com), or order directly from 8thstreetsoapkitchen.com.

» Hang On: Rubel is most often found at Eastern Market (not this weekend, though, as she sets up shop at Baltimore's Honfest). Peruse and order her funky key holders and clocks at Hadmatterart.com.

Posted By Kris Coronado at 12:01 AM on June 11, 2008 Tagged in Do It Yourself , Getting Ahead , The District , Top Stories

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