Getting started on Zazzle: Design once and Sell Again

Ever wondered how to turn your art into greeting cards, mugs, or even holiday ornaments — without having to stockpile inventory or ship things yourself? 

In this co-hosted episode, Kaylie chats with Delores all about getting started on Zazzle, one of the most artist-friendly print-on-demand platforms.

Delores shares how she fell into Zazzle while creating custom gifts for clients — and ended up turning simple artwork into repeat income from cards, mugs, and ornaments. They talk through:

✨ Why Zazzle is a low-risk way to test product-based income
 🛍️ What products sell well (and how to find your niche)
 🎨 Tips on designing once and repurposing across items
 📦 Mockup tips, upload strategies, and batching hacks
 💌 Why Delores’s “Five Cards in Five Days” challenge is the perfect starter project

Whether you're curious about dipping into product income or ready to build a sustainable side stream, this episode is full of practical insights and gentle encouragement.

👉 Check out the Five Cards in Five Days Challenge and VIP Vault here  

 🎧 Got a Zazzle shop idea or mockup to share? 

Tag us on IG or message us at @spellweavercreativestudio & @deloresartcanada — we love seeing your behind-the-scenes progress.

Don't miss an episode—subscribe to The Creative JuggleJoy Podcast! Follow us on social media and join our email lists for more tips, stories, and updates on new episodes.

Kaylie Edwards - Instagram - Website - Facebook - Threads

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Delores Naskrent - Website & Digital Art School - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest - Youtube

• Procreate Foundations Course
• Affinity Foundations Course

Transcript

Kaylie Edwards (00:08)
Hello and welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. It's Kaylie here with Delores and today we're talking all things print on demand with a focus on the Zazzle platform specifically. If you've ever wondered whether you could turn your designs into greeting cards, mugs or gifts and even stationery, this episode is for you. Delores, before we dive in, can you share a little about, a little about?

What drew you to Zazzle originally and what kinds of products you created when you were more active on the platform?

Delores Naskrent (00:45)
first I'd been using ⁓ like Zazzle buying products there to make custom items as gifts. So I would have people who ask would ask me if I could produce something for their wedding or something for whatever a gift for a person personalized gift.

And I had originally seen an ad on Facebook or Instagram for that specific product that I wanted. So I ordered that item which was a printed clock in this case that a client needed and it turned out really nicely and I decided I'd see if I could do any selling on the site myself. So that's that's how it all started.

Kaylie Edwards (01:27)
Wow, that's quite

cool how it just like kind of falls in, doesn't it? How one thing leads to another. So why Zazzle? Let's talk about the why. So Zazzle is quite different from setting up your own store standalone, so what makes it appealing, especially for folks who might not want to build a full e-commerce site and...

Delores Naskrent (01:31)
Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards (01:51)
I know one of the things you appreciated about Zazzle was the personalisation options Delores. Though customers can tweak designs before purchasing, right?

Delores Naskrent (02:00)
Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly how it worked out for me. That's how it all started. And at that time in my business, like I said, we were doing a lot of custom wall art for people that often included.

Photographs, know, so let's say in fact, I just did one this week, which is weird because I don't do these anymore but this is a special friend who I've done work for her family for many years and she's a neighbor here and Her daughter just graduated college so four years at college and So that's the kind of thing that people would ask and they would provide me with photographs

Kaylie Edwards (02:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (02:43)
and you know at that time so for example we would print the wall art plaque so like a 12 by 18 or 12 by 16 wooden plaque but they would also want to have a bunch of cards to go with it or ⁓ just something else to commemorate the event so

That's exactly how it evolved. We eventually started doing some of those things and I shopped around on Zazzle and found some specific things that would work. And you know, so I started to kind of put it out there that I would do those things. anything from mugs to cards and mockups of the occasional mouse pad and things like that at times, you know, just weird random stuff.

I once had a bunch of customer for a wedding and one of the things we created was a sign kind of like a banner for them. And I generally did the customizing for my customers right on Zazzle, but that definitely was a great service that I could offer. And I could save the artwork and take a screenshot and send it to the customer to have it approved. And at that time,

Kaylie Edwards (03:41)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (03:56)
this was the only site that I personally had found that would allow me to do personalization and it wasn't even really called POD yet, believe it or not. Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards (04:06)
Yeah.

That was cool. ⁓

Okay, so what do you need to know before you start? So let's say someone never used Zazzle before, because I know some of our listeners may have never have heard of it. So what are some things they should know before uploading their first design? What types of research should they be doing? How do you recommend? They approach niche ideas or product categories. Any common newbie mistakes to avoid?

Delores Naskrent (04:39)
Yeah, that's such a broad question and so a little bit hard to answer, Kaylie, because until you really get into using the platform, you don't necessarily know what you don't know. You know what I mean? Like I suggest that you focus on one or two products or markets, you know, so it's really tempting to get in there and you see that there are literally hundreds of different items that are available.

Kaylie Edwards (04:51)
Yeah.

It's so overwhelming.

Delores Naskrent (05:08)
It's so overwhelming and through trial and error, I have found that I have two or three products that sell well and now I just focus on those products alone on the marketplace. So I would say common mistakes to avoid.

is to not create the artwork to be as high quality as it can be. So take time to perfect your techniques and compare your product, your artwork, to what you're seeing out there for sale. So what I suggest to any of my students to do is to get on the marketplace and look at what's trending. And from that, you can kind of make a few assumptions about what you should be focusing on.

Kaylie Edwards (05:52)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (05:52)
Personally for me, my, and this is, I really only learned this through trial and error myself, but personally my best-selling items are cards and Christmas decorations. So I've gotten to the point where that's really what I focus on. And the categories that are most popular for me are friendship cards, ⁓ family-related cards, and dad cards. If, I don't know why, but that's exactly how it's worked out for me. So.

Kaylie Edwards (06:20)
you

Delores Naskrent (06:22)
I would say the friendship cards, specifically girlfriends, are the most popular items. So you can also focus on occasions like Mother's and Father's Day and Grad because these are things that typically a lot of people are looking for something different. So they don't want to just walk into their local card shop or gift shop. They want to find something a little bit unique. So I have a couple of funny

Kaylie Edwards (06:42)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (06:52)
dad cards that sell well. And my best selling artwork on Zazzle is a friendship quote about ⁓ friendship being like the pea in your plants. That one, warm, it's warm, something to do with like only you can feel it, whatever. Anyways, it's just one of those that has become very popular for me. And I also seem to get

Kaylie Edwards (07:04)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (07:16)
bulk orders of girlfriend related quotes. So I'm supposing, I mean I'm just guessing that that's something like for wedding parties or something, I don't know, wedding showers, that kind of thing. So there are a lot of things to learn about the Zazzle site and about

Kaylie Edwards (07:26)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (07:35)
you know, uploading specific for specific design specifications. So for example, a card on Zazzle has to have the artwork on the front and lettering on the inside and a logo on the back. So you're not just setting up the simple card front like I do in the card challenge, like the Greeting card challenge and for card Isle and stuff. ⁓ You can take that artwork, of course, and then adapt it to different products. So like I

Kaylie Edwards (07:53)
That you do, yeah.

Delores Naskrent (08:04)
have a greeting card artwork and I can make it fit for certain things but I also find that I have to make my artwork a little bit differently for zazzle. So I will set it up more likely as a square and have my artwork kind of small, smaller in the middle so that then I can use that square artwork in a porch where

Kaylie Edwards (08:14)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (08:28)
portrait fitting layout if I need to, but it still has a lot of stuff on the sides so that if I want to use it for a mug, I can make a long, skinny wrap around with the extra artwork that I have there. So there are some ins and outs to learning exactly how to cope with what you need to do for a Present So I'm not trying to scare you. Of course you can work with

Kaylie Edwards (08:51)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (08:56)
how you know what you're used to you can do just cards and do just that size and proportion that you need but I just personally find that it's easier to work with a square layout and of course you need to export it as a ⁓ flattened file like a PNG or a JPEG but your original file you should keep in layers so that you can reconfigure it for that different item.

Kaylie Edwards (09:11)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (09:25)
Okay, so I mean, know some of I feel like I'm getting lost in the weeds here, but I also recommend that you create that, you know, and think about the future use of it so that you're not spending too much time making new artworks all the time. So yeah, exactly. So I hope that answered your question kind of sort of.

Kaylie Edwards (09:42)
Yeah, repurposing it.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we're gonna do a little bit of a spotlight on the five cards in five days challenge. So now, which is such a great starting point for anyone curious about designing cards, as Delores has been mentioning, can you share what the challenge involves and what participants walk away with? I know you show the Zazzle platform in the challenge, that's why I kind of brought that up.

Delores Naskrent (09:58)
Okay.

Yeah, I do explain various platforms in the card challenge and I think the card challenge is great because in that five day kind of setup that we have, it gives you so much information on producing cards in quantity. So I recommend that you try to repurpose the artwork and just change the message. So.

If you get like really set on a particular style or technique as, excuse me, as you're working, use that technique several times just so that you can really have your brain absorb the information and build that muscle memory. So if you're going to do an artwork with flowers and greenery, do five of them, like one right after the other so that you really kind of get it.

Kaylie Edwards (10:54)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (11:05)
By the fifth one, it'll be easy. It's always that first one that's hard. So definitely that's part of the greeting card challenge. And we talk about how to do that. And the other part of it, of course, is just the uploading and putting your stuff up for sale on POD sites. And everybody complains that the upload process is so ⁓ frustrating and time consuming.

But I want to emphasize that the process can be made faster. And I explained that in the card challenge. And again, repetition is what helps you build up your speed and your techniques for uploading. We've figured out, and this is myself and, ⁓ not Kelly, sorry, ⁓ Lindy, and a couple of other people who are really active with Card Isle and... ⁓

you know, just uploading on a regular basis. And we just have figured out that it's great to form the habit of uploading a card a day, for example. So if you do that by the end of the year, you'll have 365 cards loaded. And it's actually better for the algorithm if you space it out rather than sitting and doing it like for three days straight and doing your 200 cards. It's not the best way to do it.

Kaylie Edwards (12:15)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (12:34)
So within the challenge itself, I also explain a lot about creating art and laying out the cards as this is something that I do so regularly. And I sell two, three, sometimes 4,000 cards every quarter between the different sites that I sell through. So it's worth it for me to keep this as an ongoing process. I just don't have time to sit and do it for any amount of time, like weeks. I have also trained Che, my daughter.

to, you know, obviously she's been my partner for so many years in the business, but I've trained her to do the uploading for me. So that gives me more time to focus on the artwork. And that's something you really could consider. I mean, maybe like, do have a family member that could help somebody that has time on their hands? I've tried more than once to talk my husband into it, but he doesn't seem.

Kaylie Edwards (13:06)
You

⁓

Delores Naskrent (13:30)
I think

with the challenge, Kaylie, that the main thing that people walk away with is just a plan, you know, and a way forward. And I've got somebody who says she's going through the recorded challenge right now for the third time. And, you know, I think it's great because she's going back and she says every time she goes back, she's kind of focusing on a different thing. And it's, you got to know, it's not...

Kaylie Edwards (13:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Delores Naskrent (13:59)
a get rich quick scheme by any mean, by any mean, like there's no way. You're not going to make piles of money, but you have to start slowly and eventually you'll start to build sales in all these different areas and it's proven. The stats are proven by my students who have gone through the challenge and we talk about this almost every Tuesday at the Thrive meetings.

Kaylie Edwards (14:06)
No.

Delores Naskrent (14:24)
everybody will have two sales or 10 sales or five of a specific card. Like there's always something coming up so it is working for them. So remember once you get really good at it and you'll have cards that you can put into your portfolio you can also consider pitching those cards to greeting card companies.

Kaylie Edwards (14:36)
Yeah.

Yes, yeah. It's such a great little thing you can just kind of do on the side. You know, if you have regular uploads to different sites and then you repurpose that content to cards as well and then just add them up, it just adds that little bit extra to your monthly...well, to your quarterly, isn't it? So you get quarterly payments from them, don't you?

Delores Naskrent (14:55)
Yeah, like a side hustle for your side husband.

Yeah.

Yes.

Kaylie Edwards (15:17)
yeah

that's such a great thing to do. All right.

Delores Naskrent (15:20)
I even

really look at it anymore. I see it when it comes in as a payment. I don't go look at Card Isle and see what I'm selling daily. I did at the beginning, I have to say. I mean, it was sort of like, my God, I sold five cards. So it was really exciting. ⁓ now it's just, I've got so many other things on my plate that it's just like when the quarter ends, a couple of days later, I get a payment and it's...

Kaylie Edwards (15:27)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (15:49)
You know, it can be quite a bit of money, it adds up. And I encourage you to just add that to your little list of things that you're doing.

Kaylie Edwards (15:53)
Yeah.

Yes. Alright, I've got a few burning questions that I know listeners are wondering too. So, what types of designs tend to work best for bundles or themed sets?

Delores Naskrent (16:12)
Ooh, well Christmas, we did lots of bundles of Christmas and then we did something called an everyday line. So that ⁓ we would do, I think it was eight cards and it would be like a thank you card, ⁓ congratulations card, ⁓ sympathy card, just a general kind of sympathy card, not too specific. ⁓ We would do like a thinking of you. ⁓

a feel better, like, you know, hope you're going to be well soon or something like that. And then sometimes we just had two or three in there that were just simply artwork. And so we would put these sets together. They would have they would be in a plastic. ⁓

Kaylie Edwards (16:48)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (16:58)
nice box that was the exact right size that you could buy and with the envelopes and then we also did little stickers that went like envelope seals with every one of the cards and that was actually one of those like just little extras that people don't get when they go to a card shop and buy cards and people would literally say to us i come here to get your cards because i love those stickers

Kaylie Edwards (17:19)
No, no you don't.

Yeah, it's just finding little ways, isn't it, to kind of add that personal touch or that little bit extra that someone wouldn't get in like a supermarket or something. It just all adds up and then eventually you get repeat customers when you do get that.

Delores Naskrent (17:44)
Exactly. Added value.

Kaylie Edwards (17:47)
Yeah, added value. So what makes a card or gift giftable on Zazzle, especially for holidays or seasonal sales?

Delores Naskrent (17:56)
Ooh, how do I answer that? I think that a lot of it is just luck. You know, like I did, I would never in a million years have thought of doing a Christmas ornament. That would be like the last thing that I would think would sell and just by a fluke, it did start to sell and that became giftable. It became just one of those things that I could then offer

Kaylie Edwards (18:06)
Nuh-uh-uh.

Delores Naskrent (18:26)
and put into my Instagram feed or whatever, know, buy this as a gift and then just that added value of being able to personalize it made a big difference too. So I guess that's my answer.

Kaylie Edwards (18:41)
Yeah, that's

why I think so much ⁓ people on Etsy who do customisation actually sell so well because they've figured out that customisation and personalisation for customers is just, it's the way to go. I know it can be difficult because it's still kind of time consuming for some people, but there are ways and automations that you can work in and make it easier and quicker to do as well.

Delores Naskrent (19:10)
Yep, for sure.

Kaylie Edwards (19:12)
So how much time should someone realistically expect to getting their first few products live?

Delores Naskrent (19:21)
⁓ I think getting to know the like the first one is gonna feel brutal to To just get through the entire card first of all when you look at the cards on zazzle There's like 50 different cards, you know, there's like

like landscape layouts, there's your five by seven card, the four and a half inch card, there's giant cards like 18 inch cards, there's cards with no backs like there's postcards you know so the the hard thing is just kind of looking through it all and trying to figure it out. I'd say stick with something that you know so if you are like

Kaylie Edwards (19:48)
I've seen them, yeah.

Delores Naskrent (20:02)
buying cards or seeing cards that are five by seven and they're vertical kind of a layout portrait definitely just do that first. So get through that first card get through the process of creating one card. My biggest advice I think for you would be to create a card from start to finish one card

and then buy it and send it to yourself and take a look at that. And so the process could be kind of long at the beginning, but take notes, write down exactly what you did or if you could even ⁓ do a screen capture of what you're doing, anything to help you just remember it more easily for the next time. But I would say, you know, when you're first setting up, you could spend a week

Kaylie Edwards (20:34)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (21:02)
to just get two or three products live and learn the process.

Kaylie Edwards (21:08)
Yes and not only...and Zazzle has lots of different products so you don't have to do cards if that's not something that you do or you want to do. There's plenty on there. I think I started off with like cushions and... I think it was cushions and mugs or something like that I started with ⁓ because I...that was kind of like the artwork layout I had but I was using on t-shirts they kind of worked well for...still worked well because they had quotes on them.

Delores Naskrent (21:19)
yeah.

Kaylie Edwards (21:36)
and they would work well on mugs and cushions as well for like mums and grandmothers. So that's where I of, where I went with it. Just didn't kind of go very far with it because, let's see, my maternity ended so... My maternity ended and I had to pivot so that's just how things are. Is Zazzle a good side income stream for artists or more of a long game?

Delores Naskrent (22:04)
I think it's a combination and it's like any platform and you know I always recommend you choose one or two platforms only so that you can put some attention into them and I think that on any of the sites the algorithm is going to favor those who are

steady and putting more stuff into their ⁓ shops. And one of the things with Zazzle you can do is set up an actual shop and set up actual departments and you can have separate categories. So if you

find that your mother's cards for mothers or sympathy cards or friendship cards are selling and any products related to that. I did sell a lot of mugs and like I said the ornaments I created different departments so that they could go specifically to the friendship and see all of the ones I offer for friendship and once I realized well it was the funny friendship ones and female

oriented ones that sold well of course that's what I focused on so and I have to say like it is a good side income stream like at the time when I was really active in in on Zazzle and that one card and decoration that I was telling you about I could make $500 a month on that artwork alone and not just on

the ornament, would be on the card and it would be on a mug and it would be so I mean 500 a month is nothing to sneeze at.

Kaylie Edwards (23:42)
Yeah.

No it's not, no.

Yes, definitely it's worth considering. Yeah, I love the Zazzle platform, I just wish I'd had more time to focus on that because I see so much potential in the Zazzle platform and they even do, I think they even do... like what do call it? It's kind of like an affiliate for their products, so you can be a seller but you can also affiliate for other shops.

So they've got licensing for like Marvel and Harry Potter and although like Disney and things like that, they've got licenses for them. So you can actually direct people to, let's say you find one that you love, that you can actually send people the link and you can get an affiliate commission back from that, from that sale. I think that's actually quite a good way because you are not allowed to do that yourself.

No matter how much you want to you cannot create a Disney design and then try and sell that. That's, you know, it's illegal. But at least you can still kind of earn a commission off sending someone somewhere else. I think that's quite a good strategy, the way Zazzle have kind of set that up. So I think that is definitely one that I probably will try and utilize in the future.

Delores Naskrent (24:43)
Yes.

Yep.

Good.

Kaylie Edwards (25:07)
So let's say someone's got a few listings live. How do they get seen? There's lots and zazzle. What helps a product stand out? Any thoughts on tagging, keywords or descriptions?

Delores Naskrent (25:20)
Yeah, that's a great question and that works. I mean, it's a question for every type of site that you're selling on. So to get seen on Zazzle, definitely focus on strong keywords and tags and descriptions. So try to use words that if you were the person searching for that, that you would use those terms. So be descriptive and really specific like.

Kaylie Edwards (25:27)
Yes.

Delores Naskrent (25:46)
floral wedding invitations instead of just card which is redundant. In fact they take that off so ⁓ you don't even have to put it in. They add it automatically to your title so you don't have to put it in. So ⁓ I always really try to add information about the color and stylistic details like if it's ⁓ watercolor for example that's something that gets searched quite a bit.

Kaylie Edwards (26:15)
Yeah, so how important is design mock-up quality?

Delores Naskrent (26:20)
I mock-ups are super important. You do get mock-ups on Zazzle. They provide you with a couple when you make your product. So at first you can just download those to share on social media. So that's that helped me at first. I was able to do that, but I don't use those that much anymore. I buy nice mock-ups. ⁓ I think it's worth the money because I can use those mock-ups.

many times over, you know, over and over. Like, if you find really pretty ones, you know, I think that really helps to sell your products.

Kaylie Edwards (26:56)
yeah.

Yeah, you can find so many good stylised mock-ups that you can add your design to and yeah, I've spent so much on mock-ups over the years.

Delores Naskrent (27:05)
Yeah, find a little boutique. I'll reach you.

In fact, I keep a lot of my money that I make on Creative Market. I just leave it on Creative Market because I know I'm going to be back in two weeks and I'm going to buy five mock-ups. So I might as well just leave it there to use for that.

Kaylie Edwards (27:23)
Yeah,

I had a subscription with Placeit because they do a lot of like the print-on-demand mock-ups and yeah, I utilized that quite a lot to be fair when I first started out with print-on-demand. They've got greeting cards, mock-ups and t-shirts and ball art and all sorts on there which is great and you can set it up in the little design area that they've got and can drag and drop it in and it will just add it straight to it. Same with Kittel.

Delores Naskrent (27:36)
I like it. It's a good show.

You should put that in the

description.

Kaylie Edwards (27:53)
Kittl

does it as well. You can actually design cards in Kittl and it has like really cool text effects. You can do the wavy text with just like one click. You can just drag and drop. So it's really quite cool. And yeah, they have like a built-in mock-up generator as well. And what I love about it is if you're creating something for like a t-shirt, a design for a t-shirt and use the mock-up generator.

Delores Naskrent (27:58)
cool.

Kaylie Edwards (28:20)
you can pick a mock-up where it has like a jacket over the top and like the t-shirt designs showing through but the jacket's over, showing over the sides of the design so it looks real like it's on somebody with a jacket. I noticed that the other day when I was recording and I was like, wow! I need to start doing things like that again.

Delores Naskrent (28:27)
neat.

That's nice.

We know we're nerds when we get excited about mock-ups.

Kaylie Edwards (28:48)
Yeah, yeah, I get excited by mock-up technology.

Otherwise you spend hours trying to create mock-ups. Like, I spend so much time in Canva creating them and before that was Photoshop, like, creating mock-ups. It's just, yeah, you can do so much rabbit hole stuff with them. Okay, do you recommend making themed collections or sets when it comes to Zazzle?

Delores Naskrent (28:56)
It's true.

Yeah.

I recommend it. haven't done it a lot, but it does make it easier for people to shop and it does also encourage multiple purchases like a wedding suite or a holiday set. Like you're going in there and you're shopping for your wedding. You know, that person who is doing that is

going to be very easily swayed to buy additional items because they're just in that frame of mind. So collections definitely also ⁓ make you look more professional. So they give your shop that sort of cohesive, I hate that word, but cohesive professional look. And it's really about finding that strategy, like the balance between

Kaylie Edwards (29:39)
Yes.

Delores Naskrent (30:01)
strategy and great design. So you're trying to figure out what the best way is to move forward with it. So on Zazzle, like I said, you can set up that storefront with categories and you can go and check out my shop to see what I've done. like I have

Those are examples I gave you earlier, but I also have like a category for teacher, which I found was a very good selling category in May and June. And I have a nurse category because that's another one that I discovered was like I posted one artwork for a nurse and then found that I was getting orders for that. So I made multiple additional items. I'll yeah, we'll put ⁓ the we can put the link in the show notes or whatever.

Kaylie Edwards (30:46)
Yes.

Yeah,

they're good on Etsy as well, those categories. Obviously they're quite saturated now, but if you can go maybe even little bit deeper with that category, there are sub niches. Like if you do in for like what they call neurology nurse, like if you go even deeper with things like that now, there's so much you can really tap into if you actually went down that route.

Delores Naskrent (31:09)
Yes.

Absolutely.

Kaylie Edwards (31:19)
Yeah and like with like, like what you're saying with weddings you can literally just, let's say you spent a week just on one collection, you can create it in multiple different products for that wedding niche so you can do your place cards, you do your invitations, your RSVPs, do banners, signs, yeah you can do all of them around even if it's just a colour scheme.

Delores Naskrent (31:38)
Signs, signs.

Kaylie Edwards (31:45)
you know, colour scheme or let's say you have a certain set of florals that you use for that whole wedding stationery collection or décor and just do that, that you can get so much more sales when you do it like that and it's very smart to do it in that way. Some people just pick one thing and then just randomly post and yeah, it doesn't work.

Delores Naskrent (32:03)
Yep.

Kaylie Edwards (32:14)
It can work for some but in theory it will. It's best in practice. Okay, any final words for the artist or designer listening today who's curious about Zazzle or maybe just wants a gentle entry into product-based income?

Delores Naskrent (32:34)
Building a creative income stream does feel overwhelming at times. And I do want to remind you, it's OK to not try to do it all. So platforms like selling greeting cards on POD sites can be just one piece of your larger creative journey.

I think that really focusing on consistent small steps rather than feeling the pressure to conquer everything at once, you know, don't feel like you have to do it all. And again, I'll remind you, repetition is your friend because it helps you to master techniques and to build up your speed and to gain confidence a little at a time. So remember, it's not a sprint. Creative work is not like that.

Kaylie Edwards (33:12)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (33:24)
A lot of times success comes from stacking the little wins over time, not from achieving perfection. And I can tell you that from experience. I'm not just regurgitating the words that everyone says about this. It's, I can tell you that I started with nothing online for sale and I have built a little bit at a time and

I think if you can only upload like once a week, it's okay. It's the habit of showing up that makes the difference. And if you can, like I do, I lean into support.

Kaylie Edwards (34:04)
Mm.

Delores Naskrent (34:07)
I it's not like I don't pay for it, I do pay for it, but you know if you can have a family member or friend help you with parts of the process that feel heavy so you can focus on what gives you the most satisfaction. mean my, Che loves doing it and I hate doing it so why not be here to do it, right?

Kaylie Edwards (34:22)
I know. I hate,

I hated uploading to Etsy. Etsy was, ⁓ I hated it. Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (34:29)
I know it's the hard part. It's the hard part for

me. I want to do the artwork. That's the hard part for her. So it works out perfectly. So it's the goal isn't to be perfect. It's to create and share your work in a way that fits your life personally. So trust me, all those little steps do add up. My like I'm proof positive that it can. So I

When I first started, I was my own best customer. So I ordered all of the things so that I would have an idea about how well my custom worked on products. And that was a great way to learn. again, this is something we just talked about at the Thrive meeting on Tuesday night. One of the members had ordered her very first yard of fabric.

Kaylie Edwards (34:58)
Hahaha

That was awesome.

Delores Naskrent (35:21)
So beautiful.

It was so nice and she listed off the things that she learned from the process and you know it's amazing because you you learn that whole process of uploading, you learn process of judging things like the scale of your artwork, then you get the product and you can judge the quality of the product and

You know, she just realized so many things from that one order. And that's really what this is all about, is learning that.

Kaylie Edwards (35:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's like when I first started with the print on demand I used Printify to start off with and I... well because obviously I was... I'd only just had Aston when I first set it up on Etsy with Printify integration and I'd done my designs for my t-shirts and stuff and like it was on all things but I desperately needed t-shirts after having Aston because obviously I ballooned I was much bigger than what I was ⁓ before having him and...

Delores Naskrent (36:21)
I'm

Kaylie Edwards (36:28)
yeah I needed t-shirts, nothing was fitting me. So I was like, you know what, I'd just order some of my t-shirts because they were at wholesale price because obviously I was only paying for the printing and the shipping, I wasn't paying like the extra on top because it was my designs so yeah. So I ordered two t-shirts with two different designs on it which was good practice for me so I knew the quality that I was getting and I'm actually wearing one of them right now.

Delores Naskrent (36:32)
Thank

Right?

are you?

that's funny. That's funny.

Kaylie Edwards (36:57)
Yeah, the design

has, yeah, has, is not there anymore really, pretty much. The writing is, but the watercolour design that I've created is not very visible, but that is probably because I lived in two t-shirts for like a year after having asked it.

Delores Naskrent (37:17)
It's fantastic and like that's one of the reasons I recommend the cards because everybody can use cards. So ordering five cards that you know you're going to need in the next few months, it's a great way to just kind of learn the process and you know I teach you how to do the all of it in the five card challenge.

Kaylie Edwards (37:22)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah. If you're curious about designing greeting cards or giving Zazzle a whirl, check out Delores' Five Cards in Five Days challenge. It's evergreen now so you can join any time and still go through it at your own pace. If you buy the VIP Vault upgrade that we have, we'll pop the link in the show notes. You can also get all the replays from past challenges and all the resources and bonuses, everything that Delores adds. Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (38:04)
it's loaded. It's loaded. ⁓

we'd love to hear about your first product idea. So message us or tag us in anything that you do behind the scenes. I just love, love, love seeing the stuff that my students create. that's the joy for me in my weekly meetings is almost every week someone has

something to share that they have created and you know it is a great learning experience for everyone else that's there. So we love that. Make sure you message us and let us know. And keep creating, keep juggling and most importantly keep finding joy in the process.

Kaylie Edwards (38:40)
Yes.