Starter Kit. Idea 185 of 500. Cluster 8
Shell craft, bowls, buttons, jewellery and lamps
The mechanism, from the book
The whole-nut principle. Sri Lanka's coconut exports are growing, which makes this the one chain already moving. Almost every part of the nut has a market and most of them leave the island unprocessed.
The first step
Collect clean shells from a coconut processor and make 20 pieces, bowls, buttons and a lamp or two, finished and polished. Photograph them well and place them in a hotel gift shop and a guesthouse on sale or return for a month. Then send the photos to two homeware shops abroad and ask for a trial order at a wholesale price.
- Who pays first
- A visitor looking for a gift that is useful, local and not plastic, and a homeware shop abroad that wants the same.
- What leaves today
- The shell is treated as waste or fuel, while a finished bowl or button made from it sells for more than the whole nut.
Ask first
- National Crafts Council. Ask whether they run craft fairs or registers where shell makers can show work.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask which hotel gift shops they would suggest for locally made craft.
Check before you spend
Whether your polish and finishes are food-safe if you sell bowls, and what the hotel shop asks before it takes stock on sale or return.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a hotel gift shop charge for a polished shell bowl?
- How many hours does one finished bowl take you?
- Which pieces sell twice in a month, and which sit unsold?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"Not plastic. Stone, wood, clay, coconut shell,"
The visitor at the gate wants something made here, and coconut shell is already on that list.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.