Start a Card Making Crafting Business
If you have a crafty teen or child a card making business might just be the thing to get them started on their entrepreneurial adventure. Handmade cards are popular, well loved and needed for all occasions. People of all ages and walks of life send cards for birthdays, anniversaries, thank yous and more! Help your child tap into this great avenue of making money!
1. Making the cards: There are a lot of options for actually producing high quality handmade cards for others. Computer generated images, hand painting and drawing, rubber stamping or background papers and/or stickers is just the start. Your child will naturally tend toward a certain type of crafting but start out by trying several options. Search paper crafting magazines and online for ideas on how to make beautiful cards and start creating. Your goal at first is not to have a “sell ready” card, but just to establish what type of cards you want to make.
2. Pricing your cards: You want to, obviously, make a profit so keep detailed records of how much your materials costs are as well as how much time you’re putting into making the cards. Don’t price yourself out of the market though. Not many people will be willing to pay $25 for a greeting card unless it’s really spectacular! Making several of the same card assembly line style saves you time so you can lower your “per card” cost and still make a good hourly profit on crafting.
3. Selling the cards: You can sell your cards locally through various venues like craft fairs, small retail stores, consignments shops and more. Retirement homes are great avenues for selling your cards as elderly folks tend to send more cards and often are unable to get out to purchase them from the store. Talk with the director of activities or the manager to see if you can set up a display and take orders to deliver later or to sell them outright somewhere on site. There are various ways to sell cards online as well. Places like craigslist and ebay are one way to start but you can also set up accounts with Esty and Artfire too, which are specific to crafters.
After a while you’ll find your child has developed a specific style to her card making, must like any artist does when creating. Make the most of that. Keep your eyes open where similar styles are sold and approach those outlets as possible sales sources for your own work! Be creative in your promotion as well as your crafting!
