Make Extra Money by Painting it Yourself

Working in retail you see a lot of what people need, what people want and what people will buy. Often products are released on the market or someone sells a big idea that makes us smack ourselves on the forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that first.”

I’m not just talking about As Seen On TV items like the pot lid that works as a strainer and other simply brilliant brainstorms. In a tight economy people are thinking of more and more creative ways to make money and get the things they need.

A recent example I stumbled across is a website founded by Christine & Justin Gignac in 2007 called www.wantsforsale.com. The couple came up with the concept of selling paintings of things they wanted for the price of the item in the picture. For example, a 12” x 12” painting of a slice of pizza sold for $1.99 while someone paid $432.42 for a 12” x 12” painting of an iPhone.

The website caught on and most of the wants have been filled by the paintings they have sold.
Sharing the wealth the pair added a section called Needs For Sale where paintings provide charities with the funds to meet specific needs like a 20” x 16” painting of a cow for $500 to help a community through Heifer International. Giving back gives the Gignas’s a good feeling and good PR. Mostly they just want to inspire other people to do good and get creative.

This isn’t the first, OMG-I-should-have-thought-of that-first-scheme that Justin capitalized on. Before he started the Wants For Sale site, he made some quick money and a name for himself as an artist by selling souvenirs. The former MTV intern responded to an argument about the importance of packaging and labeling by stuffing trash into slickly designed boxes and hawking it as “Garbage of New York City.” Originally they sold for $10 a piece but as word spread and the conversation about what make it art grew the price increased to $100.

So if you’re looking for a way to bring in a few extra bucks while fostering artistic impression, put your thinking cap on. Take a tip from the Gignac’s and come up with something simple and attainable that you are passionate about. Find a way to tie it into helping others and you’re almost assured success.

What’s an invention you thought of but it hit the market before you could patent the rights? Let me know in the comments below.


By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer with experience in web, film, photography and animation as well as traditional fine arts like painting and sculpting. In addition to writing for Nexxt, she is co-founder of design and promotion company. Heather’s spare time consists of making puppets, teaching Sunday School, building Legos and doing science experiments with her children.