this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
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leathercraft

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a place for makers and creators - whether business or side hustle or hobby.

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bowreality@lemmy.ca
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Saying no (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by bowreality@lemmy.ca to c/leathercraft@lemmy.ca
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I was wondering how you hobbyists say no to friends and acquaintances mostly. I have gifted a few small things and others just know that I do leather work.

I am getting inundated with requests and some are just way too much work. Of course they offer to pay but my time is limited and really I can’t even ask for a real hourly rate without out being prohibitively expensive. Especially when I have to design from scratch it takes me a ton of time.

I also would like to keep it a hobby and make when and what I want and not fulfill orders! I already have a side hustle I don’t need another one.

I was wondering how your experience is and how you handle this.

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[–] Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Hey friend, sorry I misunderstood the original question. I still think a standalone page might help, but like you said, you really want to put a firm boundary down that this is for fun not open for commissions.

Maybe something like "I'd love to be able to help with this request but since this is my hobby and not a business, I'm not equipped to handle requests like this". Feel free to chatgpt it more closely to your scenario, but I think a single sentence is probably the simplest thing you need here.

Your boundaries are totally reasonable.

[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

OP, this is solid advice until the ChatGPT part. Please don’t use AI to formulate answers to your friends.