Life is hard these days. At the brunt of the recession, many people find themselves jobless; not because they lack the skills, but simply because the companies themselves are cutting on costs. If you find yourself on the chopping board, you lose your job, plain and simple. But that also means that you suddenly have all the time in the world.

What do you do, then, with all the free time you suddenly have on your hands? A lot of people will understandably use it to spend more time with their families. And a number of people will use their time and energy towards looking for a new job. But, let’s be sensible about this. Until we get away from the eye of the storm, so to speak, finding new work will be difficult.

Instead, why don’t we set up a small business? It will, in all likelihood, be incomparable to the salary that you used to have. But it’s something, at least. Costs will continue to come, and it must be alleviated somehow.

I have decided to go back to a hobby that I used to do as a teenager, for example. Back then, I used to make wonderful wood carvings, which I slowly gave up when I started becoming an adult. There were more important things, apparently. But now, with all my free time, I have decided to return to my hobby, and make extra income at the same time by selling them at craft fairs.

In this Internet age, looking for craft shows to sell my products have never been easier. To help other people, some have decided to make a listing of all upcoming events online. Finding the next show’s schedules and venues is just a simple matter of surfing for details and information. It doesn’t give me much income, admittedly, but at least I still have a bit of money trickling in.