So we did our first “show” last Friday. We did alright in sales, especially for how poorly prepared I was, and the fact that forgot some of our better items. But… back to the point. I figured this would be a good time to give a little information on what brought me to this point.

For our 30th anniversary, I let my wife know I really wanted a 3D printer. I’m a gadget geek by nature, and I had been eyeing 3D printing for some time. Our 30th anniversary just seemed like a good time to pretend to justify the expense.

So, my new Bambu P1S system arrived, and I got it all set up. I printed my obligatory benchy, and it turned out fine. Bambu included some free filament, one of which was green (my least favorite color); so I used that for my benchy, and the first few odds and ends tools a user needs to print up. Everything worked great, so I was ready for some fun stuff to print. At this point, it really was just an interesting gadget, and hadn’t really even approached “hobby level” yet.

Then an interesting looking articulated dragon caught my eye. I was a little intimidated by the length of time to print, but decided to give it a try. It turned out great. I was amazed that I could “make” something that impressive with a machine I had owned for less than two weeks. I showed it my wife Gini, and mentioned that Ava, our 21 year old granddaughter that lives with us, would probably like it. She did. A lot.

Then my wife came to and said “You know that dragon you gave Ava, I really liked that. Can you make another one for me?” Well, of course I did; shoot the printer was a gift from her! So I printed another one and gave it to her. The next day, she came to me and said “Ava showed the dragon to Kylee,” (Kylee is another adult grandchild, one of Ava’s cousins), “…so I gave Kylee mine. Can you make another one for me?” Again, of course I did.

Then the following Sunday as we were getting ready to leave the church, two of the little girls in Gini’s Sunday School class came running to me and said “Pastor Gini says that if we want a dragon like hers, we need to ask you!” Yeah, she showed it to her Sunday School class and sicced them on me. I semi-calmly explained to the girls that the dragons take a long time to print, and I have other things I’m doing with the printer. Then I went home and started printing the eight she would need for her class. I may be a grump, but I’m not just downright mean… and besides, who can resist a couple 8 year old kids begging for a dragon?

Meanwhile, Ava (the granddaughter that got the first dragon) had mentioned to me several times “PeePaw, you could make a lot of money selling these at the antiques mall or swap meets”; so that started the idea churning that maybe I could monitize this little growing hobby.

So, I subscribed to a few designers, and started printing inventory. I had just enough by the time a local city fair rolled around that I gave it a chance. Unfortunately, I then left some of my favorite products home; but we did well enough that my wife and I decided to start pursuing this as a “side gig” after I actually retire. I’m past retirement age, but we decided to pay off everything before I pull that particular trigger. If this works out, that day may come sooner, or at least make the “retirement” more manageable with some extra cash.

So, that’s the back story behind HP Hobbies. My original intent was to call the online shop My Dragon’s Lair, and even went as far as to register the domain names MyDragonsLair.com and MyDragonsLair.store. Then I started seeing so many other 3D models that interested me; I decided to look for a different name. As I was driving home for work one day, I thought “What name can I come up with to describe this new hobby”, and HP Hobbies came to me.

I’ve still got a lot of stuff to do on this website, and we’re waiting until we build up some more inventory before we do another show, but I’m feeling good about this working out. If you’ve read this far, I hope you follow along was us as we run headfirst down this road. Many years ago, I bought my first computer (an Atari 800) to get into that “hobby”. The hobby turned in to a 35+ year career in the IT business. I’ve joked around that this turning a hobby you enjoy into a career is a good way to ruin a hobby; but the truth is if I HAD to get paid to something someone else wants me to do, my computer career has been good to me. I can only hope monitizing this new hobby can do the same for me in retirement.