where's the fun???

[TOEKNEE]

i have been heavily persuing carving for the last year and a half, i am getting better all the time. (i did not say i was good, i said i was better) so now, i have offcially recieved an "order" for some christmas ornaments. simple "folk" style santa heads, carved and painted, and antiqued. i will post some pictures when they are done, but here's the deal. i have been carving and painting these things the last 3 nights, trying to make 12 duplicates of the style this lady picked out of the ones i have carved. its boring!!! it is tough not to sit there and start hacking away and make what i want. i carve alot of wood spirits and santas, but doing these ornaments is testing my patience trying to make them all look the same and not add a new twist or change the hat, the beard, or something to make it different or better than the last one. it is tough to do. has anyone else gone through this? i am not even going to mention the trouble i am having trying to figure out what to charge her for them...WHEW!!! the, now i feel better...hahaha!!!

[RUssL.]

Many years ago, in order to push my skills as a (hobby) fly tier I offered my services to a local fly fishing shop to tie some of their stock of flies in trade for a store credit.

They accepted my offer and commissioned me to tie a single fly pattern; six dozen each of 3 different sizes in 3 different colors, each...all in time for the spring trout season, at $0.50 per fly.
That's 648 flies.

It was waaaaay too much pressure and way too little fun.

Every time I looked at my fly tying desk and then at the calendar what had been a source of relaxation became a source of immense anxiety .
It nearly destroyed my passion for fly tying.

I was not the sort who could comfortably turn their hobby into a business.

It was a though lesson to learn...
But I can really tie a bulletproof Cal Bird's stone fly nymph! :-)

Russ

[RUssL.]

Sorry for the double post! :-(

R

[susieq]

That's tough since you have agreed already to do duplicates... I always tell folks that I couldn't do two exactly alike, even if I tried. There will always be differences in them. I can do all you want in a similar style but that's as close as it gets. If they want something hand made, they should understand that they won't be exactly alike. You are the one who sets the tone for your work. You cannot possible please everyone, so please yourself and most of the time, others will love it anyhow.

I get suggestions all the time from well meaning folks, like "why don't you carve a santa doing this or that or with a certain item", etc..... if I like the idea, I can do it. If I don't like the idea, I won't do it. I don't need the aggrivation......

[Tom-H]

Funny you should post this just now. Yesterday a lady called me and wanted me to carve 18 Santa pins. She wants to give them to some girls that her service group mentors. Sounds like a great idea. She even said that her budget would allow $15 each. That sounded doable to me. I can carve the pin she wanted in about 8 minutes, painting takes about 10 more minutes. Plus I allready have a whole bunch done. Everything sounded good until she said that she would like all the pins to be the same size, same expression, etc. She said that they couldn't be too different from each other, or the girls might think someones elses was better than theirs. I gathered up my thoughts and told her each Santa pin would have to be different. That there was little chance that I could duplicate 18 pins all the same. She was insistant. I finally told her that I could not do the job, and that she might have better luck buying resin cast pins. Thankfully we left a it at that.
$270 is a lot of money to me, but that job would have been no fun at all! Even if I could have done it.

The fun in carving for me is the differences that result. What ever emerges is it.

Tom H

[Kenny_S]

I use to sell ornaments In Yoder Kansas but got to be a hassle so stoped doing that. It is hard to come up with the exact same expression or same thing each piece.

What to charge? Depends on how long it takes and what is reasonable price in your area. I have seen hand carved ornament go as little as $5.00 to as high as $150.00. I would be hard press to come up with a price for you.

[Canopener]

Dear TOEKNEE
Sounds like you have a TOEJAM!
Sorry; I just had to say that.
You have my sympathy; I would be hard pressed to copy the same thing over and over. I agree with Tom H and others. On the other hand, most of my faces are fairly similar, just the way I am wired. If I was lucky enough to have a customer, they would just have to understand that.
Hope you make a couple bucks for tool money, and call it good experiance.
It's all fun!
Jim

[dart]

Fun is not work. I do my carving for fun. I couldn't take the stress of having to carve something in a time period. It would not be fun. Sad

[Cottonwood]

Toeknee, I feel like I know what you are going through. Carving several ornaments just a like is the pits!

I am carving a big order of Santa ornaments now but I told the customer that they would not all be alike, in fact they would all purposely be carved to look different. I told them that some may have a different color of hat or one may have a candy cane stuck in his beard or that even one may have his tassel on his hat on fire from being too close to his lighted pipe! I further told the customer that the backs would all have something carved on them but I would decide what it would be. If it were not for these arrangement I don't believe I would have been interested in carving 45 Stump of a Pipe Santa ornaments.(See Stump of a Pipe thread under Holiday)
You might double check with your customer and ask again if she really wants all of the ornaments just a like.
Good luck!

[Keoma]

This is a great spot to vent your carving frustrations! You know why? You're not the only one!
Whenever i get e repetetive order, I always always always do something different. The thing is, tell the person that.
"I can REPLICATE this design, not DUPLICATE" That way when they have a crooked nose or cross eyes...its ok!And most importantly, it keeps you from going bat s*** from boredom!!!