As many of you know, one of my endeavors for 2012 has been to pick up my interest in greeting cards again. I used to make cards for everything and really let this slide while Jake was in med school. I had a lot of other priorities for those 4 years and don't regret buying a few cards, but I did miss playing with paper. However, I wasn't prepared for all of the work that goes into selling cards. Now that I have a show coming up in a few weeks (more on that soon), I've been tacking the growing pile of cards that I've created since my open house in February.
I spread everything out in Jake's gaming area so I could watch TV in the basement while I was working. I started by sorting out all of my cards. If you click on this photo, you can get a better look at my stitching on the St. Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day quilt cards. And yes, I have been plugging away on Christmas cards since Christmas 2011. I want to have lots of sets to sell at holiday shows this year and don't want to start this huge project in October.
I'm going to sell most of my Christmas cards in sets of 8. I'll have some singles and sets of 4, too, but I think that most people will be interested in sets. I bought these boxes and most of my card packaging supplies in bulk through ULine.
One of the tedious parts about getting cards ready to sell is creating all of these labels. As I create more cards, it gets easier because I can do a lot of copy and pasting. One of my other goals for my shop this year is to create a more unified look with my promotional and packing materials. I'm creating most of my materials in red and turquoise and using the same font as often as possible.
I will also have a shop information label on the cards and/or sleeves (I don't put these labels on all of my mini cards). I didn't think to add those when I got everything else ready, but I will at some point.
I have a photo storage box that I use for displaying most of my cards at shows (I also have some out on little easels). I already have way more cards than it holds (which is fine...how many St. Patrick's Day card sets do I need to stock for a May show, right?). I will need something else for storing extras both at home and to take with to shows so I can re-stock throughout the show. For this packaging session, I grabbed this spare plastic box. I have a nearly empty ULine box that held empty jewelry boxes that will hold card boxes and single cards perfectly so I will transfer everything in there before my next show.
I will be selling a lot more cards in show than on Etsy, but I am continuing to list cards there, too. Here are my two newest that I got up this month. Click on the photos to check out the listings.
I created this design for the wedding shower that I went to last month.
I created this design for Valentine's Day this year and also made an anniversary version.
Is anyone else preparing for a show right now? How are things going with that your way?
Newest article:
Looking for older articles?
Click here!
Where I Linked Up Today:
