I’ve made my first affiliate sale on Amazon! Woot! That makes me super happy. Thank you, whoever you are!

It’s going to take time, and most importantly consistency, to scale affiliate earnings. To that end I’ve created a simple social media plan. I plan on posting blog posts at least 3 times a week. One post will be a crafty tutorial, one about the business side of things and one about life in general.

I’m currently an affiliate only at Amazon, Spellbinders and Ranger Ink.

Amazon needs no introduction, but Spellbinders Paper Arts are best known for their die cutting machines and dies. If you’re brand new to crafting, I recommend sticking with stamps to begin with. You can branch out to die cutting when you know that you enjoy the hobby. A great way of building up your collection of stamps, is to become a member of their Stamp a Month Club. They sell out each month, but if you order on the 6-10th of the month, you can usually snag a membership. If you scroll down on the page, there’s a gallery of photos people have uploaded of cards they’ve made with these stamps. That will give you an idea of if this is your style.

Ranger Ink Industries are best known for their stamp pads. Tim Holtz is their most famous designer. He’s designed the Distress and Distress Oxide lines of ink pads. If you’re just starting out and enjoy both stamping and ink blending, I’d recommend the Distress Oxide ink pads. There are about 70 different colors right now. You can often find deals on Amazon for collections of them. It’s also worth checking eBay and Facebook Marketplace.

Scrapbook.com turned me down. That’s likely because I’m too small for them. I may try them again in 6 months or a year. There are a couple of other crafty companies that I’ve applied to as well. DollarTree, Bay Area stamp company Hero Arts,

Products

Right now I’m earning about $10/week from cards on Etsy. That’s obviously not enough. I knew going in that just selling handmade cards on Etsy wouldn’t be enough to live off. But it’s a low stakes way of showing that I create quality work, ship on time and offer good customer service.

I’ve already mentioned that I’m going to start selling card deck boxes. My first box is now up on Etsy and I have more boxes in the works. I’m going to shift my day-to-day work in this direction over the next couple of weeks.

I’ve bought supplies for making jewelry from another crafter. Those should arrive today. It’s going to be fun to play with them this weekend. Earrings and necklaces will likely hit my Etsy store in a month or so.

One of the limiting factors with handmade products is the time it takes to create each item. All the most succesful card making businesses on Etsy sell printed cards. To do that I would either need to invest in a printer or do print-on-demand. Those are things I’m considering as I’m scaling up.