make some cash by utilizing my creative skills

I’ll be moving to Sweden in one month, and whenever I ponder on how I might accumulate cash in that part of the world I start to get a headache.  Pancake will be studying full time, and so the burden of responsibility for paying our rent and buying our food lies with me.
In Italy I was teaching English, and I find that pleasant enough work, even though the pay isn’t great.  I’d be happy to continue with that, except everyone learns English in public school from a young age so I don’t have much chance of teaching private classes.  And even though everyone already speaks English, it’s super hard to get work in Sweden unless you speak Swedish.  Ok, so I’ve been studying, but I know I can’t reach a very high level by the time we arrive.  I think the best way to proceed will be with creativity.
If I could make things and sell ‘em, I’d be into that, but I imagine that as something of an on-the-side source of cash.  As a main source I think I need to find a way to creatively sell myself as an expert in English – offering to edit papers written in second-language so they read perfectly, ghost writing, high-level English teaching that focuses on perfecting pronunciation.  Maybe some other services too – I could be something of a personal assistant.  I’d be happy to organize someone’s home-office files or take on a time-consuming project like organizing and uploading someone’s 10,000 vacation photos.  And if I could sell myself as some kind of a motivational interlocutor – someone with whom a person could speak casually and come away with inspiration, clarity, a feeling of possibility that results in positive change – well, this would be a dream  come true!  
So to make this kind of work happen, I need to organize myself and advertise.  I should make a website and business cards.  I can see clearly what it is I might do, but I admit I need a bit more positivity and feeling of possibility.
I think I will love Sweden eventually, but the initial process of making friends with this cold country is a challenge.

I’ve been putting this off for so long, and, like most things I put off for a long time and then finally do, I found that it was easier than I had thought.

I’ve finally listed some of my creations on etsy.

There are still some journals in this series that I have to complete and add to the etsy store, but my supplies are in another place, so I’ll start with what I’ve got. And there are still some journals from another series, as well as some other handmade items that I haven’t listed yet, but I’ll start with these and see how it goes.

I move from my home at the end of July, and I think I should make every effort to stop acquiring stuff and instead garner cash from the things I’ve already created or am in the process of creating.

Wish me luck!

Got a package in the mail today from my secretary: it contained a lot of etsyable things that have been sitting at her house. We recently discovered that etsy won’t allow me to sell the items through my account but have her mail them from her address. I’ve been lazy on handmade stuff these days, so I told her to just leave them where they are and when I get around to completing the series of items to which these belong then we can figure out the next step. So I was surprised to receive this package. I was even more surprised to see that she included nothing but the etsy items – no note, no little gift for me. I guess she was in one of her cleaning up whirlwind moments and she evicted my little handmade squatters from her house. It cost her forty-five bucks to mail me this package, so I’m left feeling a bit guilty. Not terribly guilty, but a bit. Just enough to put my ass in gear and finish this series so I can list it on etsy, I suppose.

So etsy said I can’t sell the things I’ve made that aren’t here with me … it’s against their policy for some of my items to be sent out from a different address than others. But honestly that doesn’t affect me at all until I’ve made some other things here at the house and put them up for sale. I’ve been completely lazy on this front. But my crafty spirit is waking up lately, so I think I’ll get etsified soon. First priority: finish the sexy-girls journals that I started so so so so long ago. What a shame they’re still incomplete!

I usually define creativity doing / making something, but I think generating ideas and finding a way to (have someone / some factory) manifest them is also utilizing creative skill.

That kinda blends this goal with the invention goal, but I’ll sort that out later.

For now, I live in a super-touristy-symboled town. When you think of an image of Italy, what is the first touristic image that comes to mind? That’s where I live. Pisa.

And it’s also a super-pasta town. You can find all kinds of lovely specialty pastas here. The most popular is penis-shaped pasta (yes, tiny little cocks and balls, in a variety of colors, waiting for just the right dinner party), but there are others too. Going online I can find so many different shapes of pasta, so pasta engineering seems very possible. But for the life of me – online and around the tower at the souvenirs shops – I cannot find leaning tower of pisa shaped pasta. Now that is money just waiting to be made …...

Now to locate a pasta-making factory and find out how to proceed ….

i’m making a bunch of journals from some sexy black and white photos of women. i figure they’ll sell for the sexy images more than for the value of a handmade journal, but i think i can hold off from being bothered by that. hitting the road soon, so hopefully i can use these to make some cash along the way…

I went to a music festival in England and brought a bunch of wallets / wallet-pieces-waiting-to-be-assembled with me. One afternoon I laid down a little blanket next to some other folks selling hand-made things. It took a little while to sell what I brought, but I was patient and I used the time to assemble the remaining wallets. Success!! I left the festival with more money than I came with!

There´s a festival coming up here in Iceland in a couple of weeks. I´m thinking of making some journals and seeing what happens …..

I sold a few wallets at an organic/hand-made market on the Isle of Man on my last day. Nice to leave with some cash in my pocket. I’m reinspired, and so I’m working on a bunch more now.
G told me about a site called etsy.com where I can sell things handmade. I tried to sign up for an account but something blipped so I’ll have to go for it again another day. I really like the idea though.

I’m seriously considering cutting my time in Copenhagen shorty by about a month and taking that time to travel in Scandanavia. This means that all the putting-off that I’ve been doing about making some simple things and selling them have to be done SOON if they’re going to be done at all. I think I’ve got enough stuff made or almost made to put up a stall in Christiania this weekend. Wallets, the earrings from Huacho, journals, photo albums, Christiania stencils. That would be it. Nice, though, to keep it simple. I think that way I could put a nice little cash in my pocket for my travel.

While in the Canary Islands I learned how to make wallets out of laminated paper, and I’ve since figured out how to apply the medium to what I already know of book-making. It’s a really enjoyable craft, so I’ve gone into production-mode with the idea of selling them while in Copenhagen. A few pieces I’ve given as gifts, but the other day I finally sold my first one. This is the first time I’ve exchanged money for what I have made with my hands. And it actually felt really weird. Dirty, somehow. I’m not dissuaded though; I’m open to trying this out a few times more, altering a detail here or there of the transaction to see if I can make it more to my liking.