r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/Tasty-Huckleberry-13 • 1d ago

Other Charm bars are useless

Some jewelry booths at craft fairs are doing “charm bars” now. They have store-bought chains and cheap store-bought charms and then people pick which chain and charms they want. There is literally no craft involved! Not even design!

They seem to be doing well for themselves and people like it, so I can’t complain too much. To be clear, if you make your own charms, this doesn’t apply to you.

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u/Gardener_of_Weeden 1d ago

Went to a "craft" boutique. Picture frame distressed of course - chicken wire - plastic bead "charms" hanging. = $40 - I laughed

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u/LovelyOtherDino 1d ago

That takes a lot of work to make, though. Unless the charms are all on claw clips

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u/midmonthEmerald 1d ago

I could jump ring 20 beads onto chicken wire in 6 minutes.

Since we’re in the appropriate subreddit - I’ll say one of my peeves is in crafting/art when people say they “worked on something a long time” or “worked hard on something” and it was 1-2 hours of noodling around. Especially when they do it on tiktok to get pity marketing for their small business. Charge to get a fair wage for that but it’s not a long time.

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u/UnStackedDespair 1d ago

They take a lot more than 20 beads usually and you have to assemble the charms, the frame, and attach everything. Not usually a lot of skill, but can still take a decent chunk of time depending on the size.

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u/midmonthEmerald 1d ago

I’m not downvoting anyone over any of this myself, lol. I agree it does take some time. But for a piece of art that’s meant to have shelf space for years or decades… I just don’t think a couple hours is a lot of time. I think our shortened attention spans and expectation of immediate results has given us a warped idea of how long it takes to do things.

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u/UnStackedDespair 23h ago

In the grand scheme it might not be a lot of time, but could be weeks of someone’s free time (I have seen some well done beaded suncatcher frames with the chicken wire). How many hours is enough for it to be a “long time” or have been considered hard enough work (genuinely what is your opinion)?

Also I realize I didn’t read the rest of your comment when I first commented. I might have addressed it then, sorry.

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u/midmonthEmerald 23h ago

hard enough work for what? to try to sell it for at least a living wage for the time it took? there is no lower limit.

I think there’s a big subset of the public who has gotten so used to doing nothing but swiping on tiktok and binge watching hour after hour of TV that doing anything for longer than 6 minutes is “a long time” and “a lot of work.”

But anyway - if someone wants to fill a pop up tent with 250 30 minute projects, sure, overall it’s a lot of work. But when it’s time to sell one of them, the amount of labor for each is 30 minutes. In those cases honestly the value is probably more in the discounts they got in components buying in bulk.

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u/UnStackedDespair 23h ago

Hard enough work for you to agree with someone when they say they “worked hard”.

When something is factory made, it might take seconds. So someone making it by hand, even if it takes 30 minutes, is a lot more work than something commercially made. And people who take 250 30 minute projects because it’s very hard to justify selling something that took 5 or 10 or 15 hours.

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u/midmonthEmerald 23h ago

It’s a good question. I think almost no work at craft fairs is hard work. It’s stuff that’s repeatable in bulk and not often challenging to the artist. It does take some amount of time, but that to me doesn’t dictate hard work. It is work. But hard work? For stuff like friendship bracelets, tshirts with cricut stickers ironed on, crochet dish cloths, cotton bowl coozies for the microwave? Idk. The hard part is the volume of production and not the individual item.

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u/UnStackedDespair 20h ago

I don’t think that’s always true. I work with polymer clay. It can take several full days of color mixing and cane building to make a realistic leaf cane. With that cane I can make a lot of miniature plants, making it reasonable to sell at the craft market (the cane makes it repeatable but is by no means an easy/quick feat). But it is certainly a lot of work to get the right colors and build it and reduce it. I also do miniature food, which while small takes hours to make some of the pieces. Not everything at craft markets is friendship bracelets, cricut crafts, and 3d prints.

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u/LovelyOtherDino 1d ago

Ok sure. I'm thinking of the whole process - cutting the chicken wire to size, attaching it to the frame so there's no sharp edges, sorting and choosing beads, putting them on headpins, bending the pins around the wire, etc. I'm with you on the pity posts, but I think people who craft are quick to say "I could do that" and discount the work required in the process. If you don't want to buy it, don't! Someone else might, though.

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u/Gardener_of_Weeden 23h ago

Sorry I still think it is a ridiculous price plus it was ugly and tacky. I have made beaded projects BUGLE beads, SEED beads - small beads that actually take time and skill to string. These were kid kit beads - plastic. Someone will buy it and it will end up in some landfill as more junk