One of the most popular ways to start a small business is to take something you love and build a business around it. But is it feasible to create a business around your favorite things, or hobbies? It is if you think outside the box!

Sometimes you have to get creative to build a business around your hobby, but it can be done. You might not be able to create a business crafting or drawing because it’s too time consuming to make much money at it (although I’m sure there are those out there who do).

Think outside the box with your hobby, here are a few business ideas using the crafting and drawing examples I used above.

• Instead of actually selling hand crafted pieces maybe you could create patterns from what you make and sell the patterns.
• Create a blog about your craft or art work. Teach others to create.
• Make crafting or drawing how to instructional videos and sell them in an online store, or have others sell them for you through Clickbank.
• Create a website to sell your favorite art and craft supplies. You don’t even have to stock the supplies yourself just find a good affiliate program to promote.
• Don’t have money for your own website? Start with a couple Squidoo lenses about your hobby, and make money selling the supplies through Amazon, ebay, or your own affiliate links. Promote your Etsy, ebay, or Zazzle store.
• Sell your crafts through Etsy.
• Sell your artwork on t-shirts through Zazzle, or Cafe Press.
• Teach crafting or drawing classes locally
• Create a membership site with learning resources for people who would like to learn more about your hobby.

Just substitute your hobby in for the crafting and drawing, many of these will work for different hobbies. If you like to play music, collect antiques, take photographs, etc, just take a look at the list and decide what might work for you. If you’re good at what you do share it with others, you should be able to create a small business around it.

Many business ideas can be tested these days without a big dollar investment. You can create a video and upload it to Youtube, set up a free blog or Squidoo lens, or patterns to be downloaded by your customer, and it will cost you very little, but you can make money from it with a little promotional effort.

Think outside the box, what type of small business could you create around your hobby? How can you promote that small business?

Image: istockphoto.com

Squidoo is giving away 1 new Kindle reading system for every 1000 TwttrList lenses created. All you have to do is create a (quality) Twttrlist to be in the running.

Visit Make a TwttrList. Win a Kindle for all the details!

If you’re stumped for ideas here are 20 lens ideas to get you started. You could write about…

1. 4th of July games and activities
2. Your favorite pool games and activities
3. Your favorite local amusement park
4. Your local county fair (fair food yum!)
5. Summer shoe styles
6. Summer swimwear for toddlers
7. The best summer vacation spot
8. Your favorite childhood summer memory
9. Your favorite summer foods
10. Strawberry recipes
11. Your favorite watermelon recipes
12. What’s growing in your garden?
13. The best places in your neighborhood to visit during summer break.
14. Outdoor summer activity ideas for children
15. Anything baseball
16. Your favorite summer blockbuster movie
17. Your favorite herbs to grow
18. How to stay cool when it’s hot outside
19. Your favorite flower
20. Your turn… you tell me what number 20 should be.

I posted this in the Squidoo Forums, but I wanted to reprint it here:

I’ll be glad to answer any questions I can (from anyone), and any questions I can’t I’ll direct to Kimberly. I don’t think Squidoo HQ is interested in closing down everyone’s group, I think they just want to clean up the spammy groups that don’t really serve a purpose except to spam their own spammy links out there in one more way (groups with only their own lenses on the group page, groups that don’t even have a group page set up, groups that are set to let everyone in and never update their group page, abandoned groups) .

I would say most lensmasters who are visiting here care enough about their groups, and take care of them enough that they don’t need to worry about their groups disappearing.

Making the cut for the top 100 and the extra prize may take a little extra effort…but I love a challenge, and I think most lensmasters here do too:-) I need to work on my own groups to get them up to snuff.

I’m working on a new lens to help lensmasters work on their group. It’s not done yet (I don’t even think it’s ranked yet, but you’re more than welcome to stop by and let me know if it helps, and give me some feedback on anything else you’d like to see there:-)

Taking Squidoo Groups From Good to Great

If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment here, contact me through the contact form at Squidoo, or leave a comment on one of my groups mentor lenses. I’ll get back to you with an answer, and if I can’t answer I’ll direct you to Kimberly.

My first attempt? So, what’s your favorite party planning tip, or idea? Please feel free to share. I’m still working on the lens, I ran out of play time tonight, so I’ll have to work on it a little more tomorrow.

Here’s the scoop:

TWTTRSTRM is a very cool new Squidoo application that lets you ask a question, or make a statement.

From Squidoo:

This is a tool that helps you to “Ask a question of your Twitter followers and easily gather all their answers in one spot.”

Here’s how it works:

1. Simply ask a question
2. Enter your Twitter ID
3. Create a tracker keyword
4. Pick a category, and a tag
5. Build your TWTTRSTRM, which is a Squidoo lens that hosts the conversation.

Very cool! Have you made your own TWTTRSTRM yet? If you have feel free to add a link in the comment section.

Go to the Squidoo Charity Giveaway lens and vote for your favorite charity. You can only vote once. But all your friends can vote too. So get the word out, especially if your favorite charity is involved.

For every vote a charity receives Squidoo will send $2, up to the first 40,000 votes. So get over there and get your vote in! It’s a win win situation.

The new Squidoo mentoring program also has a Giant Squid Mentor, a Mentor for Promoting Your Squidoo Lenses, and a Module Mentor, and some Squidoo FAQ’s.

So if you’re new to Squidoo, or a seasoned expert check out some of these lenses, if you don’t see the answers to your questions drop us a line, or leave a comment, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

What is the Answer Deck? It’s a group of how-to lenses created by wonderful Squidoo lensmasters. These lenses answer everything from ideas to create awesome lenses, to how to get the Giant Squid out of your sink (well maybe not that one yet).

Squidoo’s lensmasters are the experts, and chances are if you have a question, someone else has had that question in the past, and now has the answer posted for all to read.

Check out the answer deck, spend a few hours, or days there. When you come up for air you should be able to create a quality Squidoo lens.

While you’re there check out my new groups mentoring lens, and let me know what you think:)

You will be able to add labels to your lenses, and group them according to the labels. That’s the part I’m most excited about. I have about 5 or 6 different labels that will divide my lenses nicely. No more scanning down a list of over 200 lenses to find the one I’m looking for, only to miss it somehow.

I’m also excited about being able to see which lenses need my attention. Right now I tend to pay attention to the lenses at the top of the lens rank pile, because they are the most visible when I open my dashboard. Now I’ll be able to see which lenses need an update.

To see what others have to say about the new Squidoo dashboard, check out the Lensmaster Dashboard lens.