E77: From Craft Tables to Thousands of Cards: What Greeting Card Sales Taught Us About Sustainable Creative Income

From a wobbly folding table at a craft fair to thousands of greeting cards mailed around the world, Delores shares how she and her daughter turned handmade cards into a quietly dependable income stream. 

In this bonus episode she reveals the lessons learned on pricing, displays, wholesaling, and how print‑on‑demand platforms like Card Isle and Greeting Card Universe create opportunities for makers who work slowly and intentionally.

If you’re curious about whether cards are worth your time or how to start listing your designs online, this warm conversation will give you practical encouragement and a nudge to take the first step.

Ready to build a dependable creative income one card at a time? Listen to this episode of Creative Juggle Joy and then join the free Five Card Challenge. 

Delores and Kaylie would love your support – learn more and keep the show going at the link below!

Transcript

Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Hi, my friends. Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Delores, and this is a space for artists and creative business owners who are juggling a lot just like me, creative work life, maybe teaching products and everything in between. Today we are going to talk about building a sustainable, creative practice, the kind that grows over time.

It supports your life, and it leaves room for playing, learning, joy, all of that. And I'm grateful you're spending some of your time with me today because I wanna talk about greeting cards. This episode is not the polished version. It's not that. Six figure launch version that you hear from people. This is the very real, very unglamorous way greeting cards actually started [00:01:00] for us.

And when I say us, I'm talking about my daughter and I when we were doing the craft sales circuit, what we've learned over the years about that, about selling cards, and about creating a sustainable creative income from greeting cards. If you've ever wondered whether greeting cards can be worth your time, or if you're just starting out and you're thinking, is this even viable?

This episode is for you, I. Dying to share it all with you, honestly. So greeting card sales did not start online for us. Like I said, they started at craft sales. And when I say craft sales, I mean, you know, the folded tables? The borrowed displays. Oh my gosh. Our first craft sale was such a disaster. We were not.

At all [00:02:00] organized, and we were using tables with boxes or baskets with our cards in them. Oh my gosh. The long days that we were on our feet trying to figure out how many cards to bring without knowing what to sell, not having enough cards, all of it, like the first few sales were an eye-opening experience.

And for any of you who have tried this route for selling. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Eventually, we figured out that mass production, which for us meant making like 25 cards, felt super ambitious, but it was the only way to make it work. So as. We worked more and more on creating a sustainable card design business.

[00:03:00] We started to learn about all the things that go into pricing and. Creating a product that could make us money. We were figuring things out like the paper costs, the envelope costs, the printing, the packaging, the pricing, all of it. I have still the notebooks and things that I used when I was calculating the value, the actual cost of the cards, and when we were trying to figure out a good margin for selling.

And definitely pricing was a huge dilemma at the beginning. We started to. Expand our card business because we realized that it was a really good seller at these craft sales if they were displayed correctly, and if we could offer a range of [00:04:00] products, we learned quickly that there were certain cards that would always sell.

So we started to make more of that type of card. We also realized that display. Of the cards was critical that it was not sustainable to have baskets on a table because that literally would mean one person at a time going through and trying to find a card, it was just not gonna work. So we devised a display that would be.

It easily moved and easily filled and would show our cards very easily. So all of those things together. What I arrived at as an idea was having an upholsterer create pockets. From that clear tablecloth [00:05:00] material you can get, it's like plastic literally, that you would, let's say, put over a tablecloth so that your tablecloth could stay and your clear stuff over top could be washed.

Well, that material was perfect and we cut. Strips of it, probably about six inches deep, and had those sewn onto upholstery, actual upholstery that you could buy. Vinyl upholstery. And we had them made, I guess about 40 inches wide, whatever it took to put, I think six or eight, no eight cards or so in a strip and.

Also, we spaced it so that they were just like card displays in a store where you'd have the top of the card completely visible and the next row would kind of overlap the bottom. Those were then framed into a pretty [00:06:00] lightweight wood frame, and so the display itself, if you ever wanna take to see what it looks like, you could go into my older blog posts and you'll see some.

Examples of those, and we built entire displays, for the cards. They were back to back two pieces, let's say approximately seven feet high and four feet wide with these clear pockets. And that allowed us to display them beautifully and also to load them up. Before leaving home, so we did take extra cards with us, but we were able to have the completely preloaded displays that could be put out at the craft sale.

It almost built the booth because we stopped using tables and we had a couple of shelving systems for our other products and some box systems for our magnets. Then we had these card displays and cards were [00:07:00] our bestselling items that and the magnets. So we started to be a lot more visible. People started to come back year after year to our booth and we started to get re requests or questions about our pricing and whether or not we'd be interested in wholesaling.

And boy was that an eyeopener. So this is what we learned very quickly. We realize that retail pricing and wholesale pricing are two completely different games. What felt reasonable when you're standing behind a table or when you're in your booth does not always hold up. Once you factor in time materials and repeatability, and you're trying to wholesale your cards because.

Guess what the wholesale wanna buy it for 50% of what you're retailing it at. Oops. That's [00:08:00] something we didn't figure into our pricing. So those early years of wholesaling were definitely not about big profits, but they were about learning. We were learning about what sold, so we learned what categories were really important.

We had a huge section on friendship. We had a really good set of sympathy cards, probably 15 different. Sympathy cards, one or two that were specific to different family members, like mom sympathy cards and dad sympathy cards. We also had cards that were specifically for different family members for their birthdays.

Of course, we had a huge birthday section. We had several. Thank you. Cards. Then we eventually started doing seasonal cards [00:09:00] specifically to match the seasons we were working in. So during the spring sales, we would be selling a lot of cards for Mother's Day, and of course in the fall we were selling lots of Christmas cards and that's when we started to do things like boxed sets

you know, we observed what was happening in our booth, so we were learning what sold. We were learning what people picked up and turned over and looked at and put back down. We were learning how those seasonal cards behaved differently than everyday cards. We were also learning things about creating bundles, which became.

A really huge deal with cards because we had to work out and remember, we're factoring into this both wholesale and retail. We were building bundles [00:10:00] of five cards, 10 cards, and even 20 cards. And one of the most wonderful and rewarding things was having people come up. And these would be often our repeat customers.

They would come and cash out at. 20 cards, they would bring a bundle of 20 cards, and often they would pair the cards with the identical artwork that we had on a magnet. So their gift to whomever, especially if they were mailing it, was to get the Christmas card and then have a coordinating magnet. So we learned a lot about retail, and then that of course translated into wholesale because we could tell the store owners what was really selling.

So that was a [00:11:00] real good way to learn our lessons about the card business. And so my card background goes back at least 25 years, and that was way before anybody was selling stuff online. So why are greeting cards so different than other products? I want to talk about this and now you know that I'm talking from experience when I tell you about these things.

So greeting cards are one of those products that seem simple from the outside, but what they are are emotional products. People are buying them for moments, for birthdays, for sympathy, for celebration, and most importantly for connection. [00:12:00] That's why they sell steadily and not necessarily explosively.

What's important is that steadiness greeting cards, let me be fully transparent here, will not give you overnight success, but they can give you something far more valuable over time, and that's a. Dependable and layered income. So let's fast forward a little bit to print on demand and general online sales of your cards.

So we deal with, and I could say I personally started with a platform called Card Isle. Now Card Isle is not like your traditional print on demand. I would suggest that you check it out, but it's not like Zazzle, for example. Card Isle [00:13:00] is more of, I don't know how you would describe it, but it used to be that the platform was a way for people to send a card to someone else and.

Not have to be physically picking up that card themselves. So it's sort of like print on demand, but it's not wholesale. So in other words, print on demand.

You can sell products, you can mark it up and you can make a certain amount of money. And with Card Isle it's a little bit differently. I would suggest you do a little bit of research about Card Isle and check out my Facebook group for the five card challenge because there are a lot of people who have.

Started to adopt selling through Card Isle because of the card challenge. There are plenty of people who are also [00:14:00] using Greeting Card Universe as a way to sell their cards, and I also do Zazzle, but Card Isle is a little bit differently, different in the way it's set up, but I think these types of platforms have changed the landscape entirely.

So suddenly I don't have to print stacks of in inventory, right? We aren't currently doing shows, so this is the way I have been selling my cards. I don't need to guess on quantities and things. I just list them. I test them because I look at my statistics and I grow without the upfront cost and risk, and that's why I have been endorsing Card Isle to all of my students as a really simple and easy way to dip their toes in.

Now one of the things that's happened very recently, [00:15:00] this is in. Last year Card Isle was AC acquired by 1-800-FLOWERS. So we did have a period of just kind of transition where they were trying to figure out their systems of paying out artists. And I'm happy to say at this point that's all been worked out.

And one of the things I have personally noticed as have a few of my. Students and members who have been on the platform for more than the last year. So maybe the year preceding, is that we've all noticed a real rise in sales across the board for everyone. So I think it's because there is now a lot more visibility, a lot more traffic, and more opportunity for artists.

Who already have their designs listed. So we're getting a lot more visibility through [00:16:00] the companies that 1-800-FLOWERS works with, if that makes sense. So they work, for example, for OR art integrated into GVA chocolates. And flower shops. So if somebody is gonna send a bouquet of flowers, say for sympathy, then their upsell as they're cashing out on that purchase is to also buy a card.

And so I've seen specific cards. Triple or quadruple in sales, and that is super, super exciting. So there's been a lot of growth for me in my sales and I get paid quarterly and I've noticed that what used to be my biggest quarter would be around the Mother's Day period. I now am [00:17:00] selling a lot more. In the last quarter of the year.

So that's a weird thing that's happened. All of this is making me really happy because. It's a platform that I have urged many people to try. Just try. 'cause they don't have to really think in collections. They can think about just individual cards. They can be just starting out. And we have seen unbelievable success.

Unbelievable. Crazy. Let me just tell you about a couple of them. I wanna share two specific student stories. Because this is where it really becomes tangible for you. One of my students, Christine, who has only been selling on the platform for maybe, maybe two years, I don't even think it's that. I think it's more like 18 months.

She has been terribly frustrated with [00:18:00] other platforms that she has tried to sell her surface pattern design work through. Well. She has started selling greeting cards and. Get this. She sold over 8,000 greeting cards this past quarter, 8,000. It's crazy. And there have been several students who have reported huge amounts of sales, like new people they have just started selling and have one card they'll report.

Now go to that Facebook group and you can read about it, people excited that they've sold 30 cards, and then the very next day reporting that they sold 600 cards. And then the next day after that reporting that they have sold way more like thousands. So one student, and actually she is my community manager now, Lindy.

Lindy, if you know her, has [00:19:00] been a really big part of the community and she has been. Very involved with the Thrive meetings and helps me with any of my live workshops that I do, and Lindy was one of those people who was, I dunno, reluctant, I would say, to start listing her cards. Lindy is a hand lettering artist.

She does markets all the time, so every year she is madly doing markets and one of the things that she does is custom calligraphy work. So she'll create custom cards and custom

canvas art. Beautiful, beautiful pieces and really just started hand lettering on the iPad two or three years ago, I think three years ago was when she was really starting to hand letter on the iPad, because that's when I first met her. She's done a couple [00:20:00] of workshops for us in the card challenge. She is a very gifted lettering artist,

as you know, if you do this work by hand, one piece at a time, it just really isn't sustainable. But she decided to dip her toes into Card Isle, well, her first month or two in. In fact, her first two quarters were so disappointing for her that she almost threw in the towel, but because. She was, I'd think somewhat being accountable to me, which doesn't make any sense 'cause she absolutely didn't have to be.

But because she knew how much I was endorsing this and how much I really wanted her to give it a real fair shot, she forced herself to go through a whole year and things started to change. [00:21:00] So she is the person that I'm talking about where she reported one day selling 200 cards of a specific artwork.

It was this past quarter and it was a Christmas card. Quite beautiful and simply done with some beautiful calligraphy and. That card sold a few hundred cards the first day. The next day she reported almost a thousand cards. And then eventually, and this is another day later, she had reached over 1400 cards sold in a single day.

Can you imagine? And this isn't, these are just two of the people. I'm talking about two people only, and so many of them are seeing the [00:22:00] success. One card can sell hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, and most of these people have only been doing this for about a year, maybe a year and a half. They didn't start with massive catalogs and I thought my catalog was big,

it's, I think just under 600 cards. I've taken years to load the 600 cards, but I got into just a habit at the beginning of posting a card or two a week. We talk about this all the time in the card challenge We've even had employees of Card Isle talk about this whole idea of pacing yourself and just keeping a steady amount of cards going in so you don't start with a massive catalogs. You don't have perfect systems from day one, but they showed up. [00:23:00] They kept listing and they let the process compound. So it's that

showing up that really counts. And after you've done that uploading for a while, you do figure out systems. You do figure out things like spreadsheets and copying and pasting your comments and your tags. All of that comes with time, but what I love most is that all of these wins didn't happen in isolation.

They were shared inside the five card challenge Facebook group. In the community, people are openly posting their numbers, their wins, and their encouragement for those who are still building. And the fact that we're all in this community together doing this is the kind of visibility that really matters.

And this isn't just about one platform. While Card Isle has been a big focus, it's not [00:24:00] the only option and some of the community members are seeing. Huge success on platforms like Greeting Card Universe. I still sell on Greeting Card Universe, and I get sales every week. I have had several of the students who have been chosen as the card of the day.

You can check those out in the Facebook group. The point is, there's not one right place to sell. The point is that greeting cards as a product category are working quietly, consistently. And when you build your catalog slowly and intentionally, those listings start doing work for you. So just kind of plan it into your week, maybe create your artworks in batches.

But have a bunch of cards that you can consistently and slowly intentionally grow your

[00:25:00] product catalog. So let's talk about the long of view. I wanna say this clearly, especially if you are new. Greeting card income is not usually fast, okay? I'll tell you that because it's 20 cents a card. Maybe you can make a little bit more on sites like Zazzle. I think you can set it up to 40 cents a card, but think about that, right?

You need to have hundreds of cards sold to actually. Start building up an income from it. But gosh, it's so satisfying when you start making those sales. Greeting card income is not fast, but it's durable just because you have that one card that sells really great one year, it might not be the card that sells really great the next year, but you've got another one there waiting in the [00:26:00] wings.

Each card you list is a tiny employee working for you over time. That's the way I look at it. You don't need hundreds to start, by the way, and they don't need to be perfect. You just need to keep going. And that's why I still teach and run things like the Five Cards in Five Days Challenge. Remember, there's a free part of the challenge that you can access right now and you can get started.

Not just because the five day challenge will change your life overnight, but because five cards, literally those five cards can get you moving. They'll help you learn the system and they'll help you break the inertia. You don't even have to tell anybody about it, but if you do want to, you can share in the Facebook group, just talk about, okay, I'm just starting out here goes, just do it.

Just do it and then repeat the process. Repeat it season after [00:27:00] season, and you're gonna see the results add up. My final thoughts for you, let me kind of reiterate what I was saying is that greeting cards taught me that sustainable creative income is built in layers. It's built by paying attention. So just like we were paying attention at the craft sales, you'll be doing the same thing.

Paying attention to your statistics, seeing what cards sell. You'll be learning from doing small things first. You'll be letting. Your systems support you instead of exhaust you. So figure out a system. Maybe on the weekends is when you're doing your illustrating and then maybe every day of the weekday your listing one card a day or two cards a day.

Think about that. How many would you have by the end of the [00:28:00] year? And the good thing about figuring out a system for it is that you also figure out how to get faster at it. So if you're curious about greeting cards or you've been sitting on designs you've never listed, consider this your gentle nudge.

You don't have to do everything. You just have to do the next small things. Thanks so much for spending time with me today. You can find links to the five Card Challenge and the Facebook group and the platforms we talk about in the show notes. And as always, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process