Meet the people who turned a hobby into a job
BBCThere is an old saying: "Find a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life."
That for many people might prompt a snort of derision. But what if you could turn your favourite hobby into something that actually turned a profit.
The disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the opportunities of online retailing have opened up an entire world of serious side-hustles and enterprises on internet marketplaces.
The BBC has been to meet three people who gave up the day job to focus on making their passion projects pay.
Ribbon art
Jackie Bird spent all her working life in the corporate world, where she had her own award-winning business redesigning office spaces in London.
This worked wonders until the pandemic and lockdown, when offices emptied and it seemed everybody worked from home.
Once the pandemic was over, returning to her line of work meant a 600-mile (966km) round trip from her home in Polperro, Cornwall, to London, which she said was "killing me".
"In April 2025, I decided to hang up my tool bag and follow my passion," Bird said.
"I sketch on to a canvas the outline of an image, and I can do that from people's photographs, and recreate them in ribbon form.
"It's quite abstract, like a pop art-type style, but using the medium of ribbon instead of paint.
"I did a few during the pandemic, but all I've been doing [recently] is commission after commission. I haven't really stopped in the last year.
"It's just amazing, I couldn't have wished for more. I didn't know this was going to be my outlet."
Plucking well
Tobias Kaye cheerfully admitted he struggled to find his path in life.
He said: "I seemed so lost as a teenager. I couldn't see how I was going to work in
"this world, it just seemed mad to me and, the more jobs I did, the more difficult I found it."
Kaye, who now lives in Buckfastleigh, Devon, got into woodturning after working with a relative, and settled down to make hundreds and hundred of wooden bowls.
But the breakthrough moment was when he realised he did not need to add an extra string to his bow - but rather add strings to his bowls.
String theory
"One evening I was meditating on the side of my bed and this image of a string stretched inside a bowl appeared in front of me.
"Since then, I have felt guided... of having the vision and ideas to produce these instruments."
Kaye named the instruments Sounding Bowls and they are now sold for use in therapy to the NHS and hospitals all over the world.
He had even trained other makers to cope with the demand, he said, claiming: "They are unique in the history of world music.
"It has strings inside a circular wooden space with no sound board on the top.
"So, unlike a violin or a guitar, which is a box instrument, this is an open resonator, and the thinness of the wood, thinner on the bottom than a matchstick, and really strong on the outside to take 20 strings, it gives the sound."
Boomerang boom
Will Pearson was running a screen-printing workshop in Falmouth, Cornwall, when the Covid pandemic hit, leaving his business "decimated".
Pearson remembered: "I went down the beach, I was in a blind panic. I took my boomerang with me and then I had an idea about manufacturing them.
"I've always had a pipe dream to start a boomerang brand, to make my own boomerangs and try to sell them, because boomeranging is a lot of fun. I started when I was nine."
No returns
"I've always enjoyed it, when I get my boomerang out people are always intrigued by it and I thought: 'Maybe there's something here. Maybe we could rekindle an interest in it,' and that's what we're trying to do."
Pearson has now opened up a boomerang shop in Falmouth, using his screen-printing skills to create T-shirts and to add a 1960s West Coast surf vibe.
"What takes a lot of my time is I am out in the field test flying boomerangs," said Will.
"I test fly every single boomerang to make sure it gives a complete return - if you've flown it right."
