How to Start a Craft Business

I found myself in a deep pit of depression and anxiety, fresh out of college at the young age of 21. I applied for so many jobs, only to be turned away in my very competitive field. Negative thoughts hit me like a flash flood and it seemed impossible to stave them away.

My designs aren’t good enough.
They must not like me.
I’m not good enough.

How will I ever help take care of my family by contributing to our finances?
I felt like I would be unemployed forever.

Feelings of uselessness and disappointment in myself overwhelmed me. I felt that I was talented, but the corporate world either didn’t seem to think so, or they always had someone better to hire. The only option I could think of was to pursue my dream, because, in a way, I was forced to. I always wanted to own my own business and be self-employed. If no one else would hire me, I was going to work for my self, darn it. I was determined to find a way, any way, to work for myself and enjoy life again. I decided to start a craft business.

If They Won’t Hire Me, I’ll Make a Job for Myself!

I have a BA in Fine Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design and a minor in Marketing, so I knew my passions well and knew what I was good at. I spent countless hours researching different business ideas and starting various businesses. Day and night, I worked on starting a wedding planning business, then a wedding favor business, an organic dog supply website, making wedding jewelry, selling custom designed address labels and offering my design services to make websites and logos. I worked harder than I ever did sitting in an office (and admittedly, spent some of those empty office hours with nothing to do starting businesses) just trying to find something that would be profitable.

Seven businesses. I started SEVEN businesses before I found one that was profitable and was something I was passionate about and actually enjoyed doing. To say the road to entrepreneurship is easy would be a disservice and a total lie. If you want to start your own business, be prepared to work many hours finding what business you should start, many months finding out if that business is the one you should stick to, and the persistence to keep trying – and even start over and try again. (Be sure to read the whole post for my secret sauce on how to start a craft business that WILL be successful!)

Perseverance Pays Off

After much research, Luxe Loft Wall Decals was born. I still remember the first week I made some designs sitting on the floor of my office with my little Cricut machine. Not long after listing my items, I kept hearing the beautiful ring of “cha-ching!”. My first week, I sold $50 of merchandise. My first month, $250. And it kept quadrupling from there. My hard work and almost a year of trial and error were finally paying off.

We went from using a Cricut on the tiny office floor, to taking over two bedrooms upstairs, to taking over the biggest bedroom as an office, to needing to move to the biggest downstairs room, to moving into a completely different house to house our large rolls of vinyl, work tables, shipping supplies and industrial cutting machine.

My Husband Quit His Job Too

Not too much later, we were busy enough that my husband went part time at his job. A couple years after I started my business, he quit his job and came to work with me full time at home, and we hired his mom as a part time employee.

It was pretty rare for a 23 and 24 year old to be making six figures, working from home, on a craft business. I’m convinced it was because I did due diligence researching business ideas and never gave up. It would have been so easy to give up after the first, second, third business failure and so on and so forth. But I persisted even in the face of failure.

I was lucky enough to be able to work from home with all of my kids, and eventually my husband was too. There’s nothing more amazing than being the ones to see their first smile, giggle, step.

My story is a perfect example of why you should never let your fears hinder you from going for your dreams. It’s a perfect example of why you should never let failure stop you from persisting on.

Do you want to start a craft business? Don’t know where to start?

If you want to start a craft business, you’ll want to download this FREE handy cheat sheet packed with information on how to get started. I’ll give you the tips and formula I used to start a six figure craft business – information that took me almost a year to discover myself.

DOWNLOAD HOW TO START MY OWN SUCCESSFUL CRAFT BUSINESS