What do you'all think of this as a sideline?

[gimmethesimplelife]

The weekend before I left for Mexico, I stopped at a yard sale and bought a rock tumbler for $10 (after plugging it in to make sure it worked). I am thinking of buying some rocks - such as malachite, getting the four stages of grit, and polishing a few loads of these stones. Possibly making key rings out of them and selling them? Honestly I don't know how such would go over in this economy BUT it is low barriers to entry and not too expensive to get started and to start a web site to sell these would not be hard with the new software that makes this easy. What do you'all think? Any input is appreciated. Rob

[iris lily]

The weekend before I left for Mexico, I stopped at a yard sale and bought a rock tumbler for $10 (after plugging it in to make sure it worked). I am thinking of buying some rocks - such as malachite, getting the four stages of grit, and polishing a few loads of these stones. Possibly making key rings out of them and selling them? Honestly I don't know how such would go over in this economy BUT it is low barriers to entry and not too expensive to get started and to start a web site to sell these would not be hard with the new software that makes this easy. What do you'all think? Any input is appreciated. Rob
buzzkill:

Everyone and his brother here is making jewelry. Everyone. Keyrings are not far off from gem and rock jewelry. The low barrier makes it attractive for anyone. My friend sunk $2000 in gem/rock supplies from the big Arizona gemology trade show, plus gold and silver, plus metal smithing classes, and hasn't made one dime. And frankly, I was disappointed in his product. He has a modern design aesthetic yet he was stringing boring beads onto a boring wire. The jewelry he made for himself was cool and original, and that's the kind of stuff I thought he would be making.

But I love polished rocks, I can spend hours in a rock shop.

[SteveinMN]

I would hit etsy and find out how many other people have had that same idea. Might not hurt to do a Web search, either. There may be few people doing it; there may be a bunch. Even if there is a bunch, if there's a way you can differentiate yours (different stones, different shapes), it may well be worth your while. Or -- just do it. As you say, it's not going to cost a bunch to get into the business, and you can pay for no more than one year of the Web site and sell the tumbler if it doesn't work out. Plus you'll have learned a bunch about doing a craft business over the Web. And you could run that kind of business anywhere. ;)

The only other thing I would add is that you'll need to have some place to put the tumbler. My brother had one for a while as we grew up. That thing churned for days and it sounded (naturally!) like a coffee can full of rocks with an electric motor grinding away. Maybe they're quieter now. But even down in our basement it was not the most pleasant soundtrack to life for the days it was running. Got some place to stash it while it's in use?

[jennipurrr]

I don't know anything about making jewelry, but I thought you were going to be buying/selling from garage sales, lol. I used to buy from thrift/salvage stores and resell on ebay. There is a good market in it if you can find your niche.