I'm a retired boat builder. Several years ago I made and sold 350 tile and wood trivets. I made the frames out of oak , rabbeted to hold a 6x6 tile. It's tough to describe, but I made the frames so the butt joints chased themselves around so I only had to make one part. The tile was from a paint and home decor store, I dickered a deal for remnants and odd lots, I drilled and screwed 'em together with #6x1 5/8 sheet rock screws. I cut my own plugs. The trivets cost me 46 cents finished, I sold 'em for $4.50. My best sales were at Christmas bazaars. I went to two and at the second a woman who had a craft store bought 175 of 'em for her store, she paid my retail price, $4.50 and marked 'em up to 7or 8 bucks and sold the lot in two weeks. Another good seller is animal shapes bandsawed out of 2" sugar pine. Little ducks, bunnies, dinosaurs, kitties, any simple easily recognised shape. I drilled eight holes in them for crayons to stand in. Sold those for $3.00. I got fifty or so out of an 8' 2x10 Another good seller was a little pine toy tool box 12" long, 6" wide, 2 1/2" deep with tall ends and a 3/4" dowel handle. I screwed these together so kids couldn't knock 'em apart. For toys I never liked using finish nails or air staples, too much danger of coming apart. Another real good seller was a little stool for kids. teh top was 12" long 7 1/2 wide with a leg on each end and a stretcher between They were 6' tall. I cut a half circle out of th ebottom of the leg to make four feet for the stool to stand on and routed a hand hole in the top. I cut the hand hole with a hand router and bullnosed everything 1/4" with a laminate trimmer set upside down in a formica covered table top. I don't like raw corners for kid's toys. I sold the stools for $8. This was fifteen years ago, prices would likely have doubled by now. I see similar things at places like Michael's Craft stores for twice the prices I was charging and I wouldn't use that crap for firewood. Bad joints, finish nails and splinters all over the place.
The toy tool box was a favorite, my wife put a little kit of a Dixon "fat" pencil, ruler, protractor, 5x8 scratch pad, rubber eraser and a little water color painting kit she found at an educational toy store, the entire kit cost us less than $2. I offered the box alone for $6 or $9.50 with the two dollar "tool pack" in it, I sold five of the tool pack boxes for every plain one. At the end of the season I gave any stuff I had left to the Salvation Army taking a 50% of retail deduction from my income tax. I got my template for the "Crayon Critters" from a toddler's coloring book. I used sugar pine for all my toys because it has short weak splinters and it tastes good.
Gerry N.
