Taylor Maed

Custom made from my hands to yours

Archives for October 2020

The Shop

Deciding What to Sell on Etsy

deciding what to sell on Etsy

Deciding what to sell on Etsy was not entirely my choice, I kind of threw everything in my wheelhouse at the wall and waited till one stuck. I know there are a lot of blogs out there telling you the dos and don’ts of selling on Etsy and deciding your niche is probably the first thing on the list, but do you?

When I reopened my shop in April, I was selling bachelor party koozies, save the date stickers, acrylic wedding signs, and the cake stands (as well as quite a few other items) under the “Party Decor” category. I thought that I was selling a diverse assortment within my “niche” but what I had was a mess.

Inventory & Production Planning

I couldn’t order supplies in bulk because I wasn’t getting enough orders yet and so I was using Amazon to get fill-in supplies which was costing me more money over time. 

Each item also took a different amount of time to produce and required different shipping materials to ship. Cake stands are in various box sizes, stickers are in envelopes, and koozies are in padded envelopes. 

shipping materials

Removing Inefficiencies

With each item I decided to remove, I found inefficiencies that made it unprofitable or too time consuming to fulfill orders in a timely manner. For example, with the stickers, design and customization was easy to accomplish, but where I found issues was cutting them with my Cricut, I would waste pages of stickers paper and ink because the alignment of the machine would be off by 1/16 of an inch ruining an entire page of stickers. 

The koozies were very good for the profit margin, but they were the most time consuming item on my listings. If I were to get an order of 9 bachelor party koozies (which was the average #), I would be weeding vinyl for 5+ hours. This would take up time that I could be doing other things for other items. The time spend did not equal the amount of money being made per koozie.

What Next?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t only want to sell cake stands, but finding the next step that feels natural has been a process. I want to tell a cohesive story in my shop but we don’t have the manpower to make and sell multiple different items. 

Shop at TaylorMaed Designs

New items to come. I promise.

The Projects

How to Print then Cut a PDF on a Cricut

So you’ve downloaded my free stickers and want to print then cut them on your Cricut…

How to Print then Cut on Cricut

First, download

You start with your own file or download the free sticker printable I posted here.

Once you have your file downloaded, open Cricut Design Space.

For PDFs

PDFs require a bit more work because you need to convert them to a usable file for Cricut. This can easily be done within the PDF file you have.

My screenshots are from a Mac but this process works the same for Windows.

Open your pdf and go to file.

The choose export to> image> jpeg:

Change a PDF to Jpeg

Save your image and jump back to cricut design space.

Now that you are using a compatible file

Create a new project in Design Space and click “Upload” on the left toolbar

New project in Cricut

Choose the jpeg image you would like to upload and select your image type depending on the complexity.

My image is only 2 colors and simple shapes, so I’m going to choose “Simple”

Image type in Cricut

Once you in “Select and Erase”, remove anything you don’t want cut. For example, I only want the circles cut, so I am going to remove the area around the circles.

To make this simpler, I reduced my colors down to 2 so I could remove all the white at once.

Select and Erase in Cricut

Save your new image as a print then cut image

print then cut on cricut

Editing your image in Design Space

When you first upload your image, it may be too large to print then cut.

You will need to reduce your image size to be within 6.75″ wide and 9.25″ tall. This will fit the image on a letter size piece of paper with enough room for the register marks for the Cricut to read.

reduce image size
print then cut reduced size

Print then Cut

Make sure your machine is connected either by USB or Bluetooth and be sure your image is set up correctly on your page

Set mat placement on Cricut

Send the image to your printer and print. This should be your regular printer settings.

Print on Cricut

Set your Cricut to vinyl, load the mat, and cut!

(The thick black circles you see is because I had the page print with bleed. This isn’t necessary)

cut on cricut

And there you have your stickers!

save the date sticker

Comment and share! And be sure to download the Save the Date or Change the Date stickers here.

The Shop

Welcome! We are so glad you’re here

16,000 views, 250 orders, $8,000 in revenue in 5 months time. How my quarantine business venture turned into a full time side hustle.

In November 2019, my husband and I got married in the beautiful Estes Park, CO. We had a small wedding at Della Terra Mountain Chateau. It was an  outdoor ceremony in the light dusting of snow and indoor ceremony in the warmth of the venue. Of course, we were on a budget and we had already opted for a destination wedding, so that left me to tackle most of the decor on my own. That was probably the best decision of my life.

What we made

Here is just a small list of the items I (*and my husband) made:
-an 8’ tall champagne greenery wall with neon sign*
-gold wooden table numbers
-acrylic decor signs (welcome sign, seating chart, favor table, bar menu, guest book, and gifts)
-my veil
-favor coffee mug design
And of course our cake stand!

favor mug design

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Then we were working from home

Flash forward 3 months (and yes, we thank our lucky stars everyday that our wedding and honeymoon happened when they did). Covid-19. My husband was working from home starting early March and I was working from home a few weeks later. Mid-April I was furloughed. Writing this in the future, I am super grateful that I am back at work and my husband was never out of a job, but during that period of time I felt depressed about the situation.

I’ve had my Etsy shop since 2017 and previously I was just selling Snapchat geofilters for events. With the increasing user-friendliness of Snapchat’s geofilter creation site, there really wasn’t a need for what I was selling anymore, so I stopped. I made multiple attempts over the last 2 years to come up with an idea or product to sell, but nothing stuck. But now, with ample time on my hands and wedding projects still swirling around my mind, I tried again.

I set up my listings, a new Instagram and Pinterest account, and put the minimum into marketing through Etsy, I was all in.

And nothing.

In the four weeks that I was furloughed, I got maybe 10 orders. I made each order on my own (sawing, gluing, staining, sanding, vinyl application, boxing and shipping). I was learning new ways to be more efficient each time. But 10 orders is not a lot and I felt defeated and my time at home was coming to an end.

And Finally!

Beginning of June I was back at work, but something had changed with the shop. We were getting more orders each week and with each purchase and good review we got more orders. The only problem was that I had started this shop when I had time to custom make the cake stands, but I was now back at work. Thankfully, my husband saved the day. He is still working from home and now making the cake stands. He does nearly everything except for the custom vinyl. And we are fulfilling 25+ orders a week.