If you could make the hobby your job would you?

I would do it in a heart beat, I love miniature things and used to make dioramas and what not all the time as a kid, I've been trying to self-teach myself sewing but-- I have really bad time management skills and a pretty gnarly procrastination streak so I probably wouldn't be able to do that much.

 

Yes, it would be great to make a living from
1. doll photography,
2. doll styling (not the sculpture but the styling as we mean it when we talk about real people),
3. writing and/or translating marketing and social media copies for doll-related businesses.

The 3rd is actually my real-life job, I do it for other businesses, but for most of the doll industry does not focus on professional marketing.

 

I use to get so stressed out even just thinking about something like this! I love to draw and it’s one of my favorite things to do but I was paranoid I would make no money from it/would hate it if it became my job. But I started to realize that it’s the one thing I really am most passionate about and that I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t devote my time to it. So short answer 100% yes lol.

 

No. I would like to sell the dolls I have created to others who might like to have them someday, but I would not like to turn it into a full-time endeavor. I think it would sour my love for BJDs, and that’s the last thing I want. These dolls are my escape and happy place.

 

Absolutely not. One of the concepts I was taught as part of my psychology degree is the idea of internal vs external motivation. When you apply an external motivation, such as money, onto something you're internally motivated to do, like your hobbies, it has a tendency to burn you out, decrease your personal enjoyment/fulfillment, and make you more likely to give up on that hobby altogether. I wouldn't want to jeopardize my main hobby by trying to make it into my profession.

 

Definitely not. It would ruin the hobby for me as it would be work not a hobby.

I have anxiety allready and it would go trough the roof if I did comission work like eyes/faces/wigs/etc.

Not to mention that I would lack the self confidence as well as the ability to stand up for myself.
I would totally give all the discounts and free shippings and partial refunds and what have you.

 

I don’t think I would. I like working on doll stuff to relax and taking commissions would probably stress me and take that calmness away. Besides my work is not nearly good enough for me to feel comfortable to let people pay

 

I definitely would not. It wouldn't be a hobby anymore and wouldn't be fun like it is now.

 

Definitely not. Having a small business in Doll Hobby stuff is basically a Hobby. It's dang difficult to even "break even". I could never work hard enough to make this my LIVING. The amount of effort versus the prices you can reasonably ask people to pay... It has to stay a hobby.

 

The prices you can charge and the effort you have to put in sometimes just don't match up.
I've got my own small venture, a little handmade soap shop. It's been a journey filled with countless late nights, painstaking attention to the smallest details, and the constant struggle of pricing products. It's definitely a tricky balance - making them affordable for customers, but also ensuring they're worth your while.

But you know what? It's not impossible. There's something incredibly rewarding about seeing your passion project take shape and become a tangible business, even if it's not quite enough to fully sustain you. Sure, the profit margins might be slim, but it’s not just about the money, right? It’s also about the joy and fulfilment you get from your work.

This journey made me stumble upon this page, a treasure trove of business-related articles. It really helped me understand some practical steps I could take to give my profits a bit of a boost.

 

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I would never make my hobby my job except in the circumstance where it was necessary to my survival, such as becoming disabled and being unable to work a job with it. This is mainly because I would lose all enjoyment of the hobby if it became something I had to force myself to do when I didn't feel up to it. But I also I have lots of stress when mailing resin that constantly putting myself in that position with faceup commissions or something would wreak havoc on my mental health.

 

Christ alive, no. At most, maybe I would sell some handmade things since I tend to make a bunch of stuff at random then go "why did I want to do this?" But that would be for sale posts when the thought struck, not a full on Etsy shop or something. Or maybe I'd develop some knitting patterns and put those up for some money.

If it came to survival and not being able to work a full-time job, maybe I'd lean more into the knitting patterns. I'd offer faceups but I don't have a ton of supply or experience with those. And, honestly, I suspect there's more money to be found developing patterns for playline dolls. How much more, I don't know, but there's definitely a wider audience for Barbies than BJDs.

 

At one point I thought about going down this route. In general I planned to make my passion for art into a graphic design career. After a grueling last few semesters working towards the degree, I grew frustrated with the field (and art in general). For a time after graduation even doing art-related projects was anxiety-inducing. It took a long time for me to get any passion/love for doing/making art back. Nowadays only personal art projects seem doable.

To tie this more directly in with bjds: I started dabbling in resin eye-making. For a while it was a fun pastime, something I thought about "making to sell" once I got the process down. Similar thing happened with wig-making and sewing. They're fun pastimes, but would be stressful to do full-time at any capacity. I at one point also thought about taking on faceup commissions. I do all of my own, and have developed a knack for it as well. Much like with graphic design, however—I realized that the stress from customer expectations and fear of never being able to successfully meet them took all of the enjoyment and enthusiasm out of the ideas.

Honestly, I've decided to take things in a completely different direction and focus on making a career out of a passion that won't be destroyed while working in the field: working with animals.

My art and bjd projects will be my own little personal pieces of joy that I'll do for my own enjoyment, and let something else I'm passionate about "pay the bills" instead.