The Power of Greeting Cards and the Long Game of Selling Your Art

In this heartwarming and practical solo episode, Delores shares how greeting cards—those humble, heartfelt pieces of art—have quietly become one of the most consistent and joyful income streams in her creative business.

She reflects on over 30 years of experience designing, selling, and licensing cards, from her first handmade pieces in local gift shops to a surprise contract with Hallmark. 

This episode is packed with thoughtful insights for artists at all stages—whether you’re looking for your first small win or playing the long game in creative income.

You'll learn:
 ✨ Why greeting cards are an ideal starting point for artists
 ✨ How to design cards that feel meaningful and polished (with layout tips!)
 ✨ The story behind her Five Cards in Five Days Challenge
✨ What it really takes to see results—and how to stay encouraged when sales are slow
✨ How one slow day at a craft fair led to a four-year licensing deal

If you're curious about building a steady art income without pressure or perfection, this episode is a gentle and inspiring listen.

🎧 Mentioned in this episode:
 → Join the Five Cards in Five Days Challenge (free to join)
→ Check out the Card Creator’s Toolkit with bonus resources
 → Explore selling platforms like Zazzle, Etsy, and Card Isle

🖼️ Whether you dream of licensing your cards or just want to start putting your work out there, Delores invites you to take the first step—with patience, persistence, and heart.

Keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.

Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hey there, it's Delores and welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I've been really looking forward to today's episode because we're gonna talk about something close to my heart, which is greeting cards. Now, I know that might sound simple, but stick with me because greeting cards have quietly become one of my steadiest and most dependable sources of income in my creative business.

And over the years, they've really taught me a lot, not just about what sells, but about how we build sustainable careers as artists. So grab yourself a cup of tea or a steaming cup of hot coffee and let's chat about the long game and how five little cards might just change how you look at your art. So I started selling cards before I ever mass produced anything.

I was [00:01:00] selling small pieces of artwork at a local gift shop. So I would create the artwork. I would mount it on either some thicker paper or on wood, and I would cut it out and glue it onto a folded card. And the owner of this gift shop, a wise woman who knew her customers well, pulled me aside one day and said, Delores, you know that anything you make that has a quote on it.

It sells. So that little piece of advice stuck with me, and that's gotta be 30 years ago. So it's been a while. But because of her words, I started adding meaningful words to more of my artwork, and sure enough, it worked. It taught me one of the first big lessons of this business. The art matters. Yes.

But sometimes it's the words that move people to taking out their wallets. [00:02:00] That's one of the reasons I love greeting cards so much. They're tiny emotional messengers. They can be personal or funny or heartfelt. The art can be anything. It can be floral or abstract. It can be line work, animals, kids, birthdays.

They can be sarcastic. They can be sympathetic. You name it, there's room for every style and every voice. Now, I wanna be real with you. This is not a quick money business. I've made thousands of dollars a year selling greeting cards, but it wasn't instant. One year on Zazzle, I even earned $500 both November and December on just one artwork.

And that was from an older design that had been sitting there for a long time, I guess, gaining traction. It was a fairly popular one at craft sales, so we knew it was a good [00:03:00] seller, but it was really cool because. That year for some reason, greeting card sales just snowballed for that particular artwork.

That's what I mean about the long game. Every product, every listing, every new skill is one more piece of the puzzle. Now, my five cards in Five Days Challenge came out of this idea. It was really. Centered around helping people get that very first small win, five finished cards in five days with tools and templates to help you actually finish, not just dream.

And if you're brand new, it's a great place to start. And if you've been making art for a while and you just need some structure or maybe some momentum, this challenge gives you that push without pressure. I will talk a little bit more about that in a minute. So I do get asked a lot, how do [00:04:00] I come up with my card designs?

And here's the truth. Most of the time I'm not even thinking about the cards. I sit down to make something pretty, a pattern, a flower. I use a layout, an affinity designer or procreate. That just feels good to draw. One of the things I do is I always keep things in layers, and that way later on I can rearrange everything.

I could move a flower over here or shift a bird to the left to make space for texts. That's exactly, what I wanted to talk to you about, 'cause it's a big mistake. I see new card designers make all the time. They finish their art and then they just plop the quote on top of it. It doesn't look integrated.

It looks like an afterthought. So I always. Encourage you to keep your work in layers and then make sure that when you are creating something like a greeting card, that you're taking the time to work the text [00:05:00] into the design. It really helps if you keep your work in layers, and that really in the end, makes a huge difference in how polished your cards will look.

And you know, once in a while when I get on a roll with a style, say I'm making something really soft or maybe painterly or bold and graphic, I try to make six or eight cards in that style. And that's something I encourage my students to do all the time, because without fail, by the time you get to the 10th one, your art has really improved.

Then what I do is I go back and I fix the first couple of them to match. I consider the first one or two just kind of practice, and then I'm starting to get into the swing of things. I'm starting to get the feel of it, and then the next few are really. A lot more polished looking, and then I find that [00:06:00] I have really caught the style and then that I go back and apply to the original cards.

That's how collections are built through repetition and that slow sharpening of your skill. Okay. Now in my five card challenge, which is completely free to join, by the way, each day I walk you through designing cards from start to finish.

This year, we're also going to be offering what I call the Card Creators toolkit. It will include a couple of bonus videos and some printable templates, some procreate brushes, maybe Affinity Designer Vector assets. And even a little mini guide that walks you through how to upload and sell your cards on places like Zazzle, Etsy, or Card Isle.

And we also do live Zoom calls. By the way there you can ask questions and share progress and hear from working artists who license [00:07:00] their card designs. These are people earning real income doing this. I want you to hear directly from them, not just me.

I wanna share a couple of stories with you, and one of my favorite stories is about a student named Lindy who took part in my five cards in five days challenge. She was about six months into listing her cards when she told me she had been just pretty much ready to give up. She'd only sold a handful of cards and she felt discouraged.

But I had been talking about sticking it out and. Really encouraging people to spend a whole year in the process of uploading cards, and really, she had to force herself at that point to keep uploading and get through that first year. So she stuck with it. And now Lindy sells hundreds of cards each [00:08:00] quarter, hundreds, and she's not the only one.

Our Facebook group is full of stories like this, people sharing wins, encouraging each other, and slowly building momentum. This is the kind of community I wanted when I started, not just a bunch of tutorials, but a place to grow with others, to talk about what's working and to stay inspired.

The other little story I wanted to share was about a craft sale that I once did in a small town where there was a car show going on. All of the craft show people were. In their booths inside a rink. And believe me, it was deader than doornail. We had nobody coming in to see the booths and to see our work, we were so discouraged.

But I had a couple come into my booth and they started to look really closely at my [00:09:00] work. And at first they would pick up a card and just kind of giggle and next they were. Comparing notes. At one point the lady was crying and they took the time to ask me questions about my work and what my motivation was.

Just all kinds of stuff. The kind of stuff when you're busy at a craft sale you can't do, but when it's not so busy, you do get a chance to do well. It turns out they asked me whether I had ever considered selling. At Hallmark? I know I've shared this story in the past, and honestly it's just been such a pivotal moment in my career.

Of course, I was flabbergasted and it turns out they own three Hallmark stores, two in the big city, and one actually in our local city here, [00:10:00] and. Next thing you knew, I had a very lucrative four year contract designing for gift shops that included Hallmark and these gift shops sold all over the world.

Who knew? Who knew that words could be so important? Alright, so here's what I wanna leave you with. If you are trying to build a creative business, greeting cards are a beautiful place to start. They're affordable to make. They're flexible in style, and they're incredibly personal.

You don't need a huge catalog or a perfect portfolio. They don't even really need to be in a collection at first. Just a few solid designs and the willingness to try it can take some time. It can take weeks and weeks to load a bunch of artwork [00:11:00] up onto a site like Card Isle, but it's so, so, so worth it In the long run.

There's not a quarter that goes by that. I don't sell three to 5,000 cards. And whether you wanna sell online, license your work to card companies, or just build confidence in putting your art out there. This challenge is a small, actionable way. To begin, I invite you to join the challenge, the five cards in five Days Greeting Card Challenge, and challenge yourself to start the process.

If you were to upload one card a week, you would have 50 cards at the end of the year, and if you were to do 10 cards a week, you'd have 500, and I have, I think 586 cards uploaded right now. This is a great time to start. Join the challenge and [00:12:00] check it out. Thanks again for tuning in everyone and remember, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.