7 Creative Hobbies That Make Money (From Real People)

Get inspired by these creative hobbies that make money for real people, including 3D printing, wood carving stencils, and YouTube art videos.

With monthly grocery bills resembling an extra rent payment, who hasn’t thought about ways to turn their hobby into a paying side gig?

But if you’ve never sold something before, getting started feels overwhelming.

That’s why I went straight to the source: current hobbyists making cash from their creations.

I got the scoop – why they started, what they’re making, how they’re selling it, and what the money they earn goes toward.

Hobbies that Make Money

I had so much fun learning from actual hobbyists about their processes – both the creative side AND how they started making cash.

Be sure to read to the end, as you’ll find some seriously cool ways people are cashing in on their hobbies.

1. Sell 3D-Printed Homemade Essential Oil Holders

This is such a fun story of a woman who had a nuisance, and a husband who accidentally started a hobby that makes cash by solving the issue.

I just love it when things work out like that!

Dawn says, “My husband (an engineer) loves to make things and tinker with his 3d printer, and I love essential oils. So, he started making essential oil holders/organizers for me. It started because I was always knocking over rollers on the nightstand and waking him up, and the organizers kept them from being knocked over in the middle of the night.”

Her husband started with a Creality Ender Printer – a Christmas gift from her – but upgraded to a Prusa MK3, which has proved to be much better and more reliable.

The prints take anywhere from 6 hours for the really simple strips to up to 18 hours for the larger items like the diffuser trays (with their drawer storage tray taking over 20 hours). Once the pieces are made, Dawn uses a Cricut machine to cut out velvet in the shapes of each organizer to put on the bottom.

The costs include the colored filament for the printer (an ongoing supply cost), velvet for the bottoms of the organizers, parts for the printer when it needs maintenance, and the cost of electricity to run it. 

They started selling them on Etsy, which is where the majority of their sales come from. Dawn says that at the time, there was no one else doing 3d printed oil holders. Now, not so much.

“There are several copycats out there that make theirs much lower quality and can crank out items quickly because of the lower quality, and those don’t look as polished. But we still sell quite a few every week.”

So, how much do they make doing this? Dawn says that they have two teenage boys who eat a whole lot, and they’re able to make a sizable dent in their grocery bill with their hobby earnings.

We all know how expensive groceries are getting…so what a great way to pay for a good chocolate-chunk of them.  

2. Sell Wood Stencil Designs OR Wood Carvings

Angel Nunez turned his wood-carving hobby into a more scalable business by creating and selling wood carving stencils.

You’ve got to check out his beautiful Santas!

He used to sell the carvings, but now he makes stencils for laying out the carbons and sells those. The stencils are printed in PLA, which is the standard 3D printer material.

Hint: here’s a tutorial for how to use stencils to carve wood.

His wife, Natasha (who paints the carvings by hand), says, “He would say he got started because he was “lazy.” Taking time to draw on the piece of wood isn’t as much fun to him as carving, and it’s hard to lay out symmetrical designs.”

When they sold carvings on both Etsy and local stores, the more detailed Santa faces sold for $85-$100 each.

Today, makers using his stencils produce finished Santa carvings that typically sell anywhere from $20 to $100 at craft fairs and seasonal markets, depending on skill level and detail.

While carving is absolutely a hobby people can make money with, I think this story is such a great reminder that sometimes selling the tool that makes the crafting possible or easier can be very valuable.

Here’s his Etsy shop.

He sells his stencils on his brother’s Etsy shop, Ronan 3D prints. They work with him to sell the stencils for 40% of the sales.

3. Halloween Clay Magnets

I was watching a Halloween-themed Remi Clog video on YouTube – she’s a UK Mom of 3 trying to keep her home clean (can you relate?).

She showed these awesome, very unique-looking Halloween magnets on her refrigerator.

And that’s how I found Mr Barghest.

What can I say? Except that I’d like to put in an order for his Halloween magnets (they’re wildly cool-looking!).

I reached out to him personally and learned that he started his Instagram account to post doodles from his sketchbook.

“I had a young son at the time and started to draw fun characters to amuse him and encourage him to draw and paint. I’m an illustrator and artist by trade. I’ve done everything from freelance graphic designer, fine artist, botanical painter and children’s book illustrator.”

Each Halloween character is individually sculpted from Fimo Professional polymer clay.

“Once they are fired, I paint them with artist-grade acrylic paints and seal them with matt and gloss varnish. Extra strong magnets are fixed to the back.”

And the money he earns from his hobby business?

He uses it to buy more art supplies, create even more artwork, and pay for fun experiences with his family.

4. Fairy Garden Pots Website

Carly has an established online business that keeps her on the computer for far too long each day…

And that’s her inspiration for bringing her fairy garden pots to life.

Creating fairy garden pots (even ones in a teacup – genius!) and fairy garden accessories gives her something physical to work on with her hands, and gets her outside (from behind the screen).

Not only has she found this hobby deeply gratifying…but she’s managed to make money from it, too.

She shares her creations on Fairy Garden DIY, and monetizes it with display ads. Right now, it makes around $50-$100/month, but in its high season, it can bring in close to $1,000/month.

How cool!

5. Baking to Pay for Textbooks (And Beyond)

Elizabeth comes from a long line of bakers – German and Czech on both sides – and worked alongside her Mom and Gram in the kitchen as a child.

She turned her love of shaping dough into real money to pay for all of her textbooks in college.

Elizabeth says, “In college, my aunt had a stand at our local farmer’s market selling her baked goods. Mom added her amazing bar cookies and tartlets to the mix. I focused on Amish Friendship Bread and pita bread as those were two of my best recipes at the time, and it was easy for me to scale them for the market. After a couple of weeks, my pita bread developed a following, which was great for me because I both love making it and needed money to pay for my school books. That bread paid for every single one of my books over two summers of work. It was hard work through a lot of hot days, but it was ultimately a great experience as it taught me how to interact with customers and gauge what people liked.

Now a mother herself, Elizabeth is building toward a cottage bakery – and in the meantime, her recipe list keeps growing. She’s currently loving her pretzel cookies and potato chip cookies, both sweet-and-salty riffs on her high altitude chocolate chip cookies. (Her pita bread, she says, will always be on the menu.)

“I will get back to my cottage bakery setup in a few years when my kids require less of me, but until then, I’ve been building up more and better recipes. For now I’m grateful to bake with my baking students and for church gatherings and our monthly game night, always working to level up my packaging game for the day when I do hang up an “open” sign on the front porch.”

6. Create Mixed Media Art on YouTube

Evie Tokens created a YouTube channel to hold her accountable to her mixed media art – watercolour/gouache with colour pencils and pastels on top, as well as some acrylics.

And she’s dead-set on keeping this a hobby (she started getting back into art shortly before her Mum passed away in 2021, and it was a great way to deal with everything) that earns cash on the side, not like with her sewing that began as a hobby and is now her main business.

Evie cautions against monetizing something you really love to do.

She says, “I did this with my love of sewing and pattern making, which is now my business. It meant that I felt like my hobby was ‘work’ and so during my downtime, I didn’t want to sew as I view it as such. The art hobby is just that – a way to earn something from what I love doing that the paying of bills doesn’t rely upon.”

So, how does she make money with her art videos?

“I earn from ads that YouTube places inside the video content (AdSense), sponsored spots from brands, affiliate income from products I use or mention, and digital product sales for a ‘collab’ with my main business.”

She says you’ll want to add your contact info to your channel information so that brands can find you – it does mean she gets emails weekly (some riff-raff, and others from legitimate brands).

You might not think you could start making money from a hobby channel with few subscribers…but that’s exactly what Eve’s hobby business does.

As of this writing, she has just 4,590 subscribers and 175 videos. Eve says, “I have found that the key to sponsorship deals isn’t the number of channel subscribers you have, but how engaged they are. I made it a point for the first year to reply to every comment made on my videos no matter how small, and that built subscriber loyalty, which brands love.”

She also started a Patreon off the back of her YouTube channel – viewers were asking her why she didn’t have one – and now she hosts monthly live drawing sessions with a specific theme each month. It’s small with just five members since its start in March, but she sees this as another way to make additional income.

7. Do Book Folding

My sister and her daughter actually used to have an entire hobby business around creating book fold patterns and book folds for craft stores.

You can find a gorgeous, older-looking book at a book sale or used book store, then pick up one of these hundreds of cheap book-folding patterns.

The results can be stunning, and it’s so unique (though inexpensive, this one can take a bit of time!).

Do you know what stood out to me about each of the people I spoke with? None of them had set out to earn cash with their hobby. It just kind of…evolved. If you’re already doing something you love, then you’re on the right track. Look through these examples, keep your eyes out for opportunities, and try different ways to monetize it. You never know! Even an extra few hundred dollars can give you and your family some real breathing room.