Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
12 unusual creative ways to make money
Kamal Khurana
13th Feb 2020
There are so many unusual creative ways to make money these days. Indeed, the UK’s creative industries are now worth over £100 billion per year to the UK economy.
We’re amazingly creative as a nation, with world-leading entertainers, architects, designers and more.
That means you, by the way….you are innately creative and being a Brit, you have even more chance of doing well with your projects.
So with this in mind we’ve put together a list of 12 creative ways to make money, from taking photos to making Youtube videos and scrap-booking to writing.
See our creative ways to make money with your fave hobby!
- Get creative with your hobbies
- Make money behind the camera
- Earn cash as a manicurist
- Make beautiful things with arts and crafts
- Start writing
- Be creative with digital media
1. Make money scrapbooking
In the US, scrapbooking is huge – it’s a £2.5 billion a year industry – and it’s becoming more popular in the UK, too.
Scrapbooking is basically putting together photos and keepsakes of a special event in a gorgeous album for people to treasure, and there’s an increasing demand for people to make them which can make you some good money.
Because scrapbooking is still fairly new in the UK, throwing a scrapbooking party is a great way to show your friends and family your skills and the kind of thing you could do with their photos and keepsakes, as well as a good way to seek out potential clients.
If you think scrapbooking is the creative money maker for your click here.
2. Make money knitting
If you have basic knitting skills you can create products that you can then sell for a profit.
There are a range of easy items you can produce through knitting.
The easiest, and the one that most people begin with when they first start to knit, is a scarf which you could sell to your friends, family, or even at a market stall if you come up with a creative enough design.
Once you’re a little more confident with your skills you can move on to jumpers, socks, hats, bags, cushion covers, and blankets.
If you don’t fancy standing on a market stall all day or find the idea of selling online a hassle, there are different ways that you can make money from your knitting skills.
For example, designers sometimes look for very skilled knitters to make up specific items. If you’ve got an eye for design and a good head for maths to scale designs up and down for different sizes, you could make money as a knitwear designer, too.
Look here for our guide to earning money from making, selling and teaching knitting.
3. Make money selling your photos
Got camera skills? Then start making money from it.
There are buyers all around the world, so sell your photos online and you can make money while you sleep!
This isn’t child’s play and takes practice to get right.
If you can capture an interesting image that’s well framed, well lit and properly focused you can sell it for good money.
There are many amateur photographers about, but the demand for digital images is also increasing.
Every day, new photographs are needed for company websites, public sector newsletters, corporate presentations, and thousands of other uses.
Want to know more about how to sell your photos for more? Click here and we’ll show you!
Make money as a nightclub photographer
Another way to make money from photography is to become a nightclub photographer.
It’s a flexible job which can earn you anything from £30-£100 a night.
Anyone can become a nightclub photographer, although it will obviously help if you feel comfortable in the clubbing scene and have the confidence to approach strangers to take their picture.
It’s particularly suited to students who are looking to earn a little extra cash during their studies. However, it also suits anyone interested in pursuing a career in photography who enjoys hanging out in clubs.
If you’re a social butterfly with a passion for photography click here to learn more.
4. Make money facepainting
Do you enjoy painting faces as a hobby?
Can you work with children and adults?
If so you might be able to turn your artistic hobby into a money-making opportunity.
Facepainting is a fun creative way to make money and it doesn’t cost much to get started.
When you start face painting you’ll have to invest in a face painting kit. This will probably set your back around £50.
If you’re serious about generating an income, being well kitted out will give you an advantage and hopefully it won’t take you too long to make this money back.
Take a look at our article on 5 ways to make money facepainting, to see a full list of things you’ll need to invest in here.
Practice makes perfect so grab your friends and family and experiment with different designs and ideas.
Once you think you’re good enough you can start making money.
There are many ways to make money facepainting including: face painting at children’s parties, festivals, special events, and the theatre. If you’re really good you could even teach it.
5. Make creative money as a manicurist
The nail industry has become very popular in the last few years with the rise of nail art, acrylics, and extensions.
A manicure is no longer about French tips or simple red fake nails.
People are getting creative with nails, and nail art can make you a lot of money.
Becoming a mobile manicurist can be a great part-time money maker if you’re interested in the beauty industry. But you must have the patience to create intricate designs using nail polish, glitter and crystals.
If you do your own nails and friends’ nails regularly, this could be the perfect job for you.
6. Make creative money from homemade beauty treatments
Another beauty-related creative money make is selling homemade, organic, 100% natural beauty products.
If you need a bit of extra cash and love being a bit crafty, why not try your hand at whisking together some bath salts or sugar scrubs and incorporating pretty packaging.
Bath salts and sugar scrubs can sell in the shops for around £12, but they’re so simple and cheap to produce that you can make an easy profit selling them as gifts.
Once you’ve perfected your craft you can sell them at your local jumble sale, at a product party you host, or just give them away as presents so you don’t have to spend on stuff from the shops.
Take a look at our guide to make money selling homemade beauty treatments here.
7. Make creative money writing greeting card messages
There’s potentially good money to be made out of writing greeting cards – if you can get into the market.
It’s very competitive though, so you may not want to make a career leap just yet.
Giving it a go, however, can provide an outlet for your creative writing that will earn you some extra cash.
It doesn’t take much and a punchy pun or quirky quote could earn you up to £150!
Start by researching the market – the best place to start is at a high-street card shop.
- Go in and take note of the types of cards available, read them and get an idea of what types of cards are popular.
- Take down the publisher’s name, which can be found on the back.
- You should write down as many publishers as possible.
The amount of money earned varies from publisher to publisher and like all freelance work, it sometimes takes a while to receive payment.
So initially this isn’t a good option for steady income; however, with steady contact building many people make a career out of greeting card writing.
Take a look at our guide to making money writing greeting card messages here.
8. Make money blogging
More and more people are starting to blog and some of them are finding you can make good money from it.
But it’s not just money you can make. You can also get free tickets to events, free music, free DVDs and more depending on what you write about.
Blogs are completely free and pretty easy to set up.
You can be in complete control of your blog yourself, and all you really need to get started is something interesting to say.
Even if you’re completely new to this blogging lark, it’s honestly not difficult to get the hang of.
Most people fail because they get bored and stop before it gains traction. If you pick a subject that’s fun to write about, you’ll be far more likely to keep it up. The key is persistence!
Take a look at our essential guide to make money blogging for more information.
You could blog about your life, particularly if it’s interesting or different.
You could review something specific like beauty products, a football team, jazz music or vegan restaurants.
Whatever you choose, it needs to be something you really care about and want to keep writing and videoing about.
Often the successful blogs are ones that find a niche to attract people, so get your creative juices flowing and start blogging today.
If nothing else, you should be able to bag yourself some good freebies after a while.
9. Make creative money writing a novel
You don’t have to be signed up to a big publishing company to be a best-selling author nowadays.
You can write your own eBook, market yourself and sell far more copies than most authors do on paper.
Sure, there’s a LOT to writing a book, and even more to getting people to read it.
It may be true that ‘everyone has a book in them’ but many of those books should never see the light of day!
Be aware that it takes a lot of effort to market your book once you’ve mastered the work of actually writing it, designing it, and turning it into a PDF.
If you’re going to try to promote and sell it yourself you will need to:
- push it through social media
- possibly advertise it through Google Adwords
- do as much offline publicity as you can
- set up a website to sell it and get people to sign up to regular updates
- and more…
So, this is not an easy option, but if you think you have a really good idea for a book – particularly a non-fiction, how-to kind of book – then go for it.
All you need is a computer and the will to get on with the writing.
For a more detailed guide about how to make money publishing a Kindle book, click here.
Or if you’d prefer to write something shorter, then find out how to make money writing short stories.
10. Make creative money from Youtube
Many people are unaware that you can make cash from your home movies.
But if you upload popular videos to YouTube, you can apply to receive a share of the income from the ads.
Plenty of people make serious cash by sharing their videos on YouTube, with many managing to make thousands of pounds a year.
A lucky minority even quit their day jobs and make a YouTube hobby their career!
If you hope to make any money from your YouTube videos, they must meet these minimum requirements:
- The content must be family friendly.
- They must not contain any content that you didn’t create or get permission from its author to use (this obviously includes any use of music still under copyright).
- They can’t show people from whom you didn’t get permission to feature.
So whether you have a one-hit wonder video like Charlie Bit My Finger or go on to build a YouTube fanbase like Zoella, there’s money to be made from YouTube if you have a bit of a creative streak.
11. Create your own money-making app
Do you have an idea for an app you’ve been mulling over, but wondering if you have the right skill set to develop one?
Even if you’re a complete technophobe you can have a go at the app-making industry, and maybe even bring in a tidy profit.
Obviously, the money you earn from your app will depend largely on its popularity and how much you decide to charge. So, it’s difficult to say how much money you’ll make, but you could have the next Angry Birds and bring in nearly £660,000 a month.
You do need some technical know-how. If you have a really good idea, it’s possible to get off-the-shelf solutions that don’t take too much techie knowledge to put together.
Seriously, if you think there’s an app that should be on the shelf, but isn’t, take a look at how you could potentially create one yourself – or at least start one and get it to the point where you could partner with a coder and do it seriously.
Take a look at our guide to creating your own money-making app here.
What creative skills do you use to make money? Share them with us in the comments below.
Wow! This is interesting super amazing how you can earn.
Cheers
REALLY GOOD IDEA!!!|
THE OPPORTUNITIES TO USE THE COLORS WITGH THE GOAL TO MEDITATE FOR SUCCESS IN THE LIFE OF EVERYONE OF US ARE
AMAZING!!!!
WE HAVE TO USE THEM!!
KIND REGARDS,
TEODORA
21.4.2023
SOFIA
There are many opportunities beyond the old-school 9-5 way to earn money these days. Some interesting ideas here. Thanks.
Great!