Christmas ornaments - can I sell them?

Question

I am counting on everyone in rctn to be "in the know" on this, as you've never let me down before!

A new business opened in town. Besides selling the company's own products (salsa and pickles is what they're known for), they are also interested in promoting local arts and crafts. For example, there is a shop in town that makes homemade paper, which they are selling in the store for the paper company, and the owner also has photography by local artists for sale.

I saw some x-stitch pieces there for sale, and asked who'd done the stitching. The owner replied they were pieces her mother had picked up at flea markets/antique stores. Long story short, she told me that she was looking for Christmas ornaments to sell later in the year, and wondered if I could make some x-stitch Christmas ornaments, which she would sell them for me.

My question to all of you is, can I sell stitched designs that I did not sell? I have a lot of charts in old magazines, but they are long out of publication, and I have no idea how I'd ever get in touch with the designer, much less anyone from the magazine. If I put a sticker on the back of the frame with the publication's info, would that be sufficient? Or do I need to come up with my own designs to safely sell ornaments? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I may sell greeting cards there as well, but most of the rubber stamp companies have Angel policies that clearly state their requirements when using their stamps to create artistic works for sale, so I'm OK there.

Barbara HJ

PS - no need to get into the pricing. I am fully aware that I will not make money on my time, I'd just look at it as a way to fund the supplies for my hobby!

Brenda Lewis · Accepted Answer

Read the fine print on charts or in the magazines to see if they mention the selling of finished items.  If they don't, the safest thing to do is to contact the designer or publisher of each chart and ask permission. That goes for freebie charts too!  Of course designing your own will work just as well since it is easy to give yourself permission.  ;-)Barbara Hass wrote:

Barbara Hass · Answer

Not being extremely artistic, or having a lot of extra time, I'd rather avoid designing my own charts for the most part. None of the magazines mention the sale of the finished items. I did manage to reach one publisher. She told me that most companies are fine with selling things like ornaments as long as (a) they aren't being mass produced - one individual can't stitch up enough to matter in terms of royalties on the pattern, and (b) the chart itself is not being duplicated and sold in any way, other than in the form of the finished stitched piece of course. She said if there's a place to acknowledge the publisher, it's nice to include that info, but otherwise if I'm an individual selling a few craft pieces made from their charts, I should be fine.

Barbara

Brenda Lewis · Answer

Sounds like you got a good response.  In digging, the only charts I found that language indicating the sale of finished items would cause a problem were Precious Moments (Gloria & Pat) since that is part of their licensing agreement with Sam Butcher (PM creator).  Have fun!Barbara Hass wrote:

Barbara Hass · Answer

Doesn't surprise me. I have a PM Christmas leaflet, but had already nixed those from my list of potentials, since I knew trademark items like that are almost always problematic, even on a small scale. For example, all of the stamp companies usually say "no problem" in their Angel policies (no mass production, under certain quantity), but

*always* with the exception for licensed images like comic characters and Disney, etc.

Thanks for looking for me!

Barbara

Christmas ornaments - can I sell them?

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