Crafters can make money online too! So, hello to all you crafty people. Are you one of the millions of middle-aged women who are wonderfully crafty and make beautiful gifts for family and friends? Do you find that you love your hobbies, perhaps more than you love your partner? Only kidding! But, let's face facts. you can never make any money doing handicrafts. If you are lucky enough to ahve an outlet to sell your wares, you only ever make enough money to purchase the next lot of materials. You can never charge enough for handicrafts to cover your time spent in making them. I know, because I do the same.

Perhaps, like me, you also work. Maybe full-time, maybe part-time. You probably run a household, with husband - hopefully the kids have already flown the coop - possibly a few pets, an aged parent or out-law - sorry, I mean in-law! Sometime there just aren't enough hours in a day to do what has to be done. Especially if you work away from the home too. So, how do you make time for your precious hobbies?

That has been my dilemma for quite a few years now. My husband gave up working many years ago due to a disability and now just gets in my way, if you know what I mean! It was a pleasure to go out to work up until about three years ago when I started feeling a bit tired of the whole thing. I mean, I had a 'slightly' disabled husband (shortening of the tendons in one finger!!!) who was also an alcoholic. This man would drop anything to help out his mates or even a stranger yet wouldn't do a damn thing to help me.

I had had twelve years in the same job in retail, being nice to complete strangers all day, putting on this fake smile that felt like it was stuck to my face permanently while he sat on his backside for the majority of the day until he flaked out in bed before I got home from work. He was no company for me, was no help to me, and cost me the majority of my wages in household expenses, to boot! My hobby was my outlet, but didn't make any money. I needed something that would take up less of my time than working full-time, giving me extra time to devote to my hobby, yet make more money than I could in retail.

So, I started surfing the net. Looking for anyway to make money online. I looked at typing from home jobs (as that's what I did for the majority of my working life). I went to the expense of buying the headphone and foot pedal set to do transcription typing. I did typing test after typing test to try to get my speeds back. That was worth the effort as I got back up to 80 wpm in no time at all. But I couldn't get any work. There are lots of sites on the web looking for typists and they are all happy for you to join - some even charging a fee for the service. What they don't tell you is that you must put a bid in for any jobs that come up and wait to see if your bid is accepted. What they also don't tell you is that you are competing with people in China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc. who are happy to work 12 hours a day for five bucks! How can you possibly compete with them and make money? The answer is simple. YOU CAN'T!!

So, I looked on the net again. Nothing interested me terribly much. I mean, stuffing envelopes and answering online surveys were about all that was really offered. Until.... I found a site that went into great detail about Internet Marketing. I had absolutely no idea what that mean, to be perfectly honest, but the site owner, Steve, made it sound a bit glamorous, set realistic goals to aim for, stated that you had to be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into it but, in the end, you could make money on the internet. At last!! Something tangible. Hard work had never hurt me before and I was ready for a challenge. I took the bull by the horns, joined up and put my brain to work.

What a ride it's been. I can't believe what I have learned recently. All the different terms I had read before (like SEO, PPC, domain, links, affiliate, etc. etc.) now had meaning. I had a website up and running within the first week! Truly.

Now, I just want to share this experience with anyone else who has been or is in the same predicament I was: working for someone else, not earning enough to make ends meet, not having enough time to do the things I wanted and basically in a rut with no apparent way out. There is a way out. You just have to have the courage to have a go, be prepared to put in the hard yard it takes to really get a grip on things and start making money online, working for yourself, working from home, working whatever hours you choose, learning something new every day, meeting like-minded people who have achieved and are only too happy to help you to achieve the same. It just might be the best decision you have ever made in your life. I know it was mine! Good luck! You deserve it!