Funko Pops, to me.
I understand that some of them are fairly overpriced, but I also really like them as is. It doesn’t work on all characters, but it sometimes work on a lot and there’s so much representation and variety that it’s good to have a few.
If people want to talk about waste of plastic and vinyl, they should bark at the companies who make teeny tiny figurines that serve no purpose and have so little detail that spending any money on them is a waste.
I’m a woodworker, youtube often recommends me woodtube content. Tool reviews, project builds, shit like that. And occasionally “How I made $15k making these” with a thumbnail of a guy holding a simple pine triangle.
Turns out he miter saws triangles out of pine, stains them, paints the tip of them white, and now it’s a mountain, which he sells on Etsy for damn near $30 for three. They are functionless and do nothing. And there’s apparently a demand for them.
I refuse to sell trinkets like that. If I make anything, it will have some function. Maybe I will take some off-cuts and band saw out some apple-shaped coasters or something because keeping the condensation from your drink from puddling on your nice new table is a thing and it might as well be a fun shape, but I will always be that one step away from “pieces of wood to clutter your house with.”
Also a woodworker and primarily a tool maker for this reason. I want to make something USEFUL.
Shit if you have enough off cuts after a table, matching coasters for that table is always the best move. Baller as fuck.
On my own projects (some of which you can find in !woodworking@lemmy.ca) I end up having narrow off-cuts, often from ripping boards to width. I save these up and when I’m sick of having them around I glue them up into panels, cut them into squares and make coasters out of them. They don’t really match anything other than they’re made of the same species I tend to work with.