OWJones

What else do you do besides sign work/vinyl cutting?

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For example, before I ever got into vinyl cutting, I had a small side business making pin-back buttons. I lucked into a deal at a real-life auction and got about $800 worth of Badge-a-Minit button making gear for $27. I used to collect funny buttons when I was younger and had always wanted a Badge-a-Minit set, but the good stuff is a little pricey for an amateur who only wants to make stuff for himself - but at $27 I could afford to splurge. :-)

I started off making buttons for myself and for the TV station where I worked, we would hand out custom buttons at local events like the Home Show and Race For the Cure. Someone approached me at the Home Show while I was stamping out buttons featuring The Simpsons and other FOX characters (one of the few opportunities I had to legally produce copyrighted items) and asked if I made buttons for other events. I told her that since it was my gear, I could make buttons for anything and next thing I knew I had an order for 130 buttons for her son's college graduation party. After that it just took off.

I don't buy my button parts from Badge-a-Minit, I get them from a vendor on ebay. I buy them in qty of 1000 at a time and pay about $0.115 per button in parts , plus the cost of artwork (I can get 6 buttons easily out of an 8.5x11" sheet of paper and still use my automatic circle cutter - if I can find a way to run them through my Graphtec, I can get 9 per page) so the artwork costs only pennies per button. I sell them in single quantities for $2 (and could probably get more) or in large quantities for as low as $0.45 each. I can stamp out about 70 per hour while I'm watching TV, so that's $21/hr for just sitting there. At local craft shows, I have 1/2 page printouts with a circle drawn to the right size and a large assortment of crayons and markers and I let people design and color their own artwork, which I'll then cut and stamp for them - $2 each, so $1.80+ profit on each one. Not big bucks, but more than enough to pay for the booth and it always generates leads for more business.

If you want more info about making buttons, let me know - I don't want to turn my post into a big ad for button making companies.

Then in the last few months I got into vinyl cutting and making decals, and then sandblasting/etching using cut vinyl stencils, and just today I got my Epson WF1100 with high temp inks that I purchased from forum member kysportsxchange *and* got a Craigslist notification this morning that someone a few miles away was selling a Sunie 15x15" heat press, only a couple of months old - so I snatched that up and am ready to add dye sublimation and maybe heat pressed vinyl to my list of available products.

Now I'm interested in what other product lines the rest of you are into... Surely I'm not the only person going every possible direction at the same time... am I?

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I buy non-working Mac computers, fix them ,and give them to poor kids in town who can't afford a computer.

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My day job is active duty Coast Guard. Every few days I have to spend 24 hours at work so not much time for a lot of other side jobs.

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I buy non-working Mac computers, fix them ,and give them to poor kids in town who can't afford a computer.

Wow, even though I don't like Mac's*, that is an awesome way to make use of your time!

* There is nothing wrong with the Mac - they're actually decent little machines - expensive, but decent. Specifically I don't like Apple Computers or Steve Jobs - I don't like companies that feel it's OK to lock in their users, give them minimal choices and insist that they are entitled to a share of every dollar that can be potentially made.

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Let's see, I airbrush for a career ( 22 years ) and got a plotter because of the prices I was paying for banners etc and since then, I've acquired a WF1100 with pigment ciss to do transfers and I also do screen printed shirts as well.

The button thing sounds interesting, we made those when I was in high school as a fundraiser.

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got a Craigslist notification this morning that someone a few miles away was selling a Sunie 15x15" heat press, only a couple of months old - so I snatched that up and am ready to add dye sublimation and maybe heat pressed vinyl to my list of available products.

OWJ, what notifier do you use for craigslist? I'm always scanning, would be nice to have it automated.

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well i work on dirt bikes and i am currently going to school to be a lineman for the electric company

im 25 with 2 kids

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well i work on dirt bikes and i am currently going to school to be a lineman for the electric company

im 25 with 2 kids

No kids for me..but by 25 I already had 2 ex-wives.

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By day I work as a business analyst for a huge US based bank and also do the sign thing at night and weekends..

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Ive worked for well over a decade as a Paramedic Firefighter, After apprenticing as a Tattoo Artist, retired from public safety, opened a shop, and somewhere within all that got sucked back into the airbrushing side of art, and incorporated paint & vinyl graphics, into what I have going already...

Bruce

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I build Commercial Buildings as a day job , vinyl by the nite and weekend, and my other Hobby I am a Chapter president of a christian motorcycle group and we are always on the go trying to do benifits for sick or needy an we support all local benefit rides, just trying to help out with something I enjoy doing

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OWJ, what notifier do you use for craigslist? I'm always scanning, would be nice to have it automated.

I have a free app on my Android phone called CraigsNotification. It lets you create custom searches and will pop up and notify you when something matches.

When I went to meet the lady, she thought my original e-mail must have been from a scammer because I e-mailed so fast after she listed it. I also texted her a short while later and mentioned my e-mail, and that convinced her I was legit. ;D

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I have a free app on my Android phone called CraigsNotification. It lets you create custom searches and will pop up and notify you when something matches.

When I went to meet the lady, she thought my original e-mail must have been from a scammer because I e-mailed so fast after she listed it. I also texted her a short while later and mentioned my e-mail, and that convinced her I was legit. ;D

Here is one for a PC just installed it hoping it works.

http://www.toggle.co...Ad_Notifier.htm

i have it running but needs some tweeking works great

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I have been in construction of some type or other for part of 6 decades currently I have a professional handyman service I also install signage for the local sign shops including lit signs,channel letters,plastic letters,flat metal signs,etc. I also build sign bases of all types. I have cut back to 45 to 50 hours per week trying to slow down .

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OWJ, what notifier do you use for craigslist? I'm always scanning, would be nice to have it automated.

I use WebMon.

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