Yesterday, I participated in my town's annual craft fair and sold stationery/greeting cards that I've made. (If you want to see them, here's my instagram video of my table.) I've been making my own cards since I was a grubby eight-year-old who wanted stationery so I could write down all the names of my imaginary friends. My mom let me use clear ink and embossing powder to let me put my name in puffy gold on old pieces of her scrapbooking paper. And I've loved paper and stationery ever since!
Of course it helps that I'm a big letter writer + go through cards like none other. For a long time, I made cards myself, just because I was picky about the designs on my cards and disliked so many of the cutesy fluffy hallmark designs. But for the first time, this weekend, I decided to see what other people thought!
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At the fair (which is very small as far as fairs go), I set up a table, which I shared with a friend who paints canvas shoes. On my half, I set up a board with samples of my cards and stationery options, along with my prices--$3/1, $5/2 and $6 for a set of four personalized notecards.
Overall, I found it to be a very fun experience--though I don't quite have the process down enough to really make much of a profit on the cards. With all the time that I put into them, I made about $8 for every hour I spent on them.
I'll admit. I'm not a professional. I don't really know what I'm doing. I just printed the cards at my house, with my plain-old printer, on plain-old cardstock and cut it up with an x-acto knife and a ruler. There are many ways in which my paper goods need to improve and lots and lots of room to grow.
But what I did learn was that I want to continue doing this in the future. I have potential. People's comments were honestly the nicest. "You are so freaking talented." "I can't believe you made these yourself." "I don't even want to write a letter on this, can I just frame it?" and "When these are on etsy, I want them. All of them." (That one was my dear Victoria on my instagram.)
As I'm thinking about the future, I know I want design to stay a part of it, along with a career in science. I was talking to H the other day about my dream of opening a brick-and-mortar stationery store and I realized that this is the first step. I can't wait until I'm a total professional to start designing and selling and marketing this.
I don't know how it'll work, living in a very small dorm, with a very low-quality printer in the fall. I'm looking into using a professional printer rather than printing myself. If any of you are more knowledgeable at this than I am (which doesn't take much), your advice would be appreciated. In the meantime, I plan to continue designing cards.
So this isn't an official announcement, just know, there are more paper goods in the CMS future.
Thanks for being so supportive, you guys. I love this blog and this community and you.
