Part 1: Designing Greeting Cards That Actually Sell – With Vanessa Stoilova

In this episode of Creative Juggle Joy, Delores sits down with artist, YouTuber, and creative business coach Vanessa Stoilova from Art Business With Ness for a deep dive into one of the most approachable—and profitable—art formats: greeting cards!

They chat about:

✨ Why greeting cards are a great entry point for artists
 🎯 What retailers and art directors actually look for in a card line
🧠 How to balance your unique style with market trends
🎨 Evergreen card themes that consistently sell
🛍️ The difference between art licensing and selling on POD sites like Card Isle or Etsy
📦 How Vanessa and Delores have each built card-selling strategies that fit their life and goals

Plus, they share smart first steps if you want to get your card designs into the world this season!

👋 Vanessa will also be a guest speaker in Delores’s upcoming Five Cards in Five Days Challenge, running September 22–26. Get ready to level up your card design skills and learn from TWO seasoned creatives.

🎁 Sign up for the FREE challenge or upgrade to the VIP Creator’s Pack (so worth it!) 

Vanessa Stoilova is a licensing artist, illustrator, and educator behind Art Business with Ness. She helps artists build thriving creative careers through licensing, surface design, and business strategy. Vanessa’s YouTube channel, Art Business with Ness  is a go-to hub for illustrators wanting to learn about licensing, portfolios, and selling art commercially. She’s also the creator of the Art Business Bootcamp a 12-month mentorship that reopens each September.
🎁 Grab her free guide: 6 Essentials for Your Surface Design Portfolio
🖥️ Explore her offers & courses: www.artbusinesswithness.com/links

Transcript

Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Canadian artist and educator, Delores Naskrent, as you know, and today I'm here. With a very special guest, my friend and collaborator, Vanessa from Art Business with Ness.

You may know her from the Profitable Artist Summit that we co-hosted earlier this year, or from her incredible tips on licensing and building a career as an illustrator through her YouTube channel, which is massive. She has tons of information there. If you're joining my five cards and five days challenge, you'll get to hear from her even more 'cause she's gonna be the guest speaker on.

Day four, which is September 25th at two o'clock central time. And then she's gonna tell us all about art licensing. Today we've decided we're gonna blend our worlds right here on the podcast to talk about [00:01:00] designing cards that actually sell. So I'm gonna have a bunch of questions for you, my dear. Ness let's start with why cards are such a great entry point, for me. Yes. Was it? Yeah, for me totally. Was just that it was. I found it easy. It was immediate. I could just design a single card, I could just upload it, and then I could see sales almost right away. But you've also seen cards as a path into bigger licensing opportunities, so I'm super interested in that.

Why do you think greeting cards are often the first step for artists? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yes. Well, hi Delores. Thank you so much for having me. So absolutely, I completely agree that greeting cards are such a great place to start. Most illustrators, we come to this from the illustration side. A single illustration is much easier to make technically than a repeating pattern with a repeating pattern.

You know, we have to figure out some stuff. There's differences in some softwares. There's pattern [00:02:00] preview, and there's. Templates and there's pattern checkers online and some methods you have to do some math to figure it out. So. It's not that hard once you figure it out, but it, it is an extra step, whereas a greeting card, you can just get started right away.

It's also a product that we are all very familiar with. It's a simple product. It's a simple surface, and we have tons of examples. We can just go to the drugstore and, and take a bunch of photos. I, I do that all the time. I take photos of all my favorite ones because it inspires me so much. So. It's very accessible, but as you said, it can be a springboard to some bigger things.

I often start my collections with greeting cards as the focal point, and then I add some patterns that match and go well with, and then it creates a very well-rounded collection that is very flexible and can work for many different market. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, so you have a little bit more experience with this than I do.

And I'd like to ask you, [00:03:00] when you're talking with retailers or studios, what do you think makes a card line stand out to them? Like what do they, what are they looking for specifically? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Right. So a retailer or an art director that is contacting you on behalf of a retailer, they always have a very specific mandate.

They're shopping for a specific product for a specific product line. Maybe they're needing something for their Christmas card line and they need exactly this. They, they have specific themes and topics that they're looking for, or color palettes, or. Very specific things. And so it's very important to show them relevant things to what they're looking at at first.

You know, you can just ask them what they're looking for, pick some stuff out of their portfolio. If you don't have anything, you can create something. I'll get right back to you with some samples and you create something. That's what I used to do all the time at first, or offer to create it for them.

Custom, but [00:04:00] when we don't know yet what they're going to be shopping for, at what time, then we can be really safe by going for themes that always sell. So evergreen themes, classics like, you know, Christmas florals, 

right? And 

Santa that's always going to do well, or birthday cakes, things like that. Think about designs or themes that would have mass market appeal because retailers.

Want to sell a card that many, many, many, many people are going to enjoy. It's a little bit different when you upload the sites like Card Isle because some people, they like to go there when they haven't found what they were looking for at the drugstore. Mm-hmm. So it. Yeah, but retailers, you know, American Greetings and these, these places that sell for drug stores, they're really looking for the mass market appeal.

So very traditional things like candles, birthday cakes, those are the things that, that they are really looking for. 

Delores Naskrent: That's great. It's good information for students [00:05:00] because I do get that question a lot. And then I also hear, from students in the card challenge, a lot of the students that I also have in my membership is how they should balance their own style with what they see that's trending.

Like, I do exactly what you do. I'll go right into the stores and I'm like, Ooh, that's pretty. And you know, like, certain colors seem to be standing out or, you know, they'll, they'll be a. Period of time where everything is really white and just really fine little line drawings on it. It's, it's hard to kind of know.

It's hard to put sort of a finger on it. They don't know exactly what to do. They don't want to copy what's what they're seeing because they have their own style, but they do want their cards to sell. So how do you guide, you know, students into finding that balance? 

Vanessa Stoilova: This is very difficult to do.

I struggle with this too. I'm sure you do as well. It's not ever something that we completely figure it out, although we do get better. Some [00:06:00] collections we miss. 

Yeah, it 

happens all the time. So if you're listening to this and you're struggling with this, it's normal that you're struggling with this. It's difficult.

Yeah. So something that's. Really important is yes, do a trend, put your own spin on it. It's also not. Necessary to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes we try to go too far in making it unique. I was guilty of that in the beginning. I remember I created an Easter collection that was really dark. It was like a dark green, very like woodsy, and it didn't sell at all because for Easter, we're looking for light pastels and happy hopping bunnies, you know?

But I was, I was trying to be so edgy and different sometimes. You wanna be so different that you just completely missed the mark for what people want, 

right? 

So it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel, like birthday cakes. Just do one in your style with, [00:07:00] with fun decorations. You can mix trends as something that I love to do.

I look at what things are trendy. Oh, bows are trendy. I'm gonna put some bows on the cake and, you know, I dunno. Capibara's as are trendy. I'm gonna put a little Capibara on it. Like whatever. Just have fun and, and just decorate it in in a different way. But it doesn't mean that you have to, to create this like really dark, gothic horror birthday cake for it to be different.

You know? It doesn't have to be that unique, it's something that I noticed that is very important is colors. Yeah. There are specific colors that sell for specific themes. So if you wanna create a Christmas collection and to be different, you decide to go with orange and purple. That's not going to feel like Christmas to people, so they're not going to buy it.

And for Easter it's multicolor, pastels. For Halloween, we know it's like these, like orange, black, purple, these kinds of colors. Birthday, it's very bright, [00:08:00] multicolor red, yellow, green, blue, these kinds of colors. So if you stay within that color palette, it still gives you so much opportunity to do things a little bit in your way.

Yeah, and I notice in my agency that when we get submission calls, the call is the same for everyone. You know it, it could be like a feminine birthday cake and everyone does a cake that looks completely different still. There's still so many possibilities. 

Delores Naskrent: Right. Right. And then there's all the evergreen occasions, like, , obviously birthdays, thank you cards, sympathy cards, those are all pretty big.

But are there seasonal or special occasions that you personally seek consistently doing really well? Like something we should be really focusing on? What do you think? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Mm-hmm. This is something that I really didn't know about before I joined my agency. I just kind of did kind of all the themes that I could think of just so I had variety in my portfolio.

Now that I'm with my agency, I, I see a lot [00:09:00] of requests that come back over and over again, and my agency calls it our core themes, and these are the themes that they tell us, do as much as you want. We're, we're selling them as fast as you can draw them. Just you can never do enough. And these are new baby, wedding, mother's Day, Christmas and everyday Florals. So other occasions like Halloween for example, they sell once in a while, but it's not as, as big of a category or St. Patrick's or things like that. They sell every once in a while, but they're not the biggest sellers. 

Delores Naskrent: Right. I guess, you know, it's, finding the way to do that in your style that makes it really great exercise for everyone. If you can, like you said, you and 10 other people from the same agency are doing the same thing. It's finding the way that it looks good for your style. So I know you do lots of [00:10:00] watercolor. Another artist might be doing gouche or might be doing inking or whatever. So I can see where you could still.

Try to get into those evergreen sort of themes and yet still be able to do it quite uniquely. Yours. If that makes sense. Absolutely. 

Vanessa Stoilova: I mean, even if we were to all start with the exact same sketch, like you said, someone does it in watercolor, someone does it in vector, someone does it with line art.

Without line art, a bit more like dainty with fine little lines and details, or bold and cute and rounded juvenile. So there's really many different flavors that we can put in so that it looks a little bit different and then the art director will pick depending on what they're looking for at that moment.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And it's interesting because that's so different in a way than than my side of it where I am selling, you know? So this is a good time to segue into the [00:11:00] selling. Because I sell through Card Isle mainly, and that's now part of 1-800-FLOWERS and Bloom Net. And I, I looked it up and there's about 10 different, you know, they have like a chocolate company and a basket company and a whole bunch of different places that they, sell our cards through. So even though it was Card Isle, now it's really more 1-800-FLOWERS, and it functions a little bit like print on demand, but people we're not like, I'm not printing a card, or somebody's not ordering it from me, and then it's being shipped directly to them. What it is, is it's an upsell.

Usually the card is an upsell at the end of their purchase. So they're buying a bouquet of flowers to send to somebody. And then the upsell at the end is, is my greeting card. I also sell on Etsy and on Zazzle and places like that too, which function a little bit differently than somebody like Card Isle or 1-800-FLOWERS.

But, it's interesting because [00:12:00] it's different than art licensing. From your perspective, what's the difference do you think, between selling individual cards and building a licensing career? I do. I do have an opinion on this, but I wanna hear yours. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yes. And I mean, we're the two ideal people to be talking about this because we both do greeting cards, but we've taken such different paths and when I hear you talk about Card Isle, I'm like, oh, I wanna try that.

That sounds cool, especially seeing how much success you've had with it. With licensing, it is completely different. We're not selling direct to customer, so we're dealing with the company and what they think. Is going to work. Sometimes that's not quite the same thing as what the customer wants.

Sometimes the, the company is trying to make a trend happen that happens, or, you know, the company is very trend forward. They really have their feelers out. They, they're the ones that decide, you know, this color is gonna be big this year because they're the ones that order the stuff. Right. When you're [00:13:00] selling direct to customer, however, you have to sell a lot of cards to make money because you make just, a few dollar, well, maybe, maybe a dollar per card.

I don't know exactly, but you make a small amount per product, so you have to sell a large volume in order to make a good income. When doing a licensing deal, you're just. Giving them the copyrights of your artwork, and you're like, good luck. And sometimes there are some royalty deals, so you get a percentage and then the better they do at selling, the better you do.

Right. But sometimes they just give you money and they go Right. And then no matter how well they do, that's not your problem. Right, 

Delores Naskrent: right, right. And I remember that as advice that, or I was so excited about the, the deal that I got with the company that ended up. That was the supplier for places like Hallmark.

So I had met the owners of three Hallmark stores. They placed some big orders with me, but they set me up [00:14:00] with their gift manufacturer so that they could mass produce my work. And so I know right. And it was huge and I've talked about it a hundred times before. So everybody's heard this whole thing, but, I was shocked.

At the difference. 'cause I would do craft sales and I would be like super excited if I made, you know, three or $4,000 on a weekend. And when you think about that, that's, that is huge. A lot of people at craft sales make a few hundred dollars only. We would do these big craft sales and we'd make this, you know, pretty good sizable amount of money.

We'd pay a thousand dollars to be in the show, but we would make several thousand dollars. But then I got my first royalty cheque, Vanessa and I almost dropped to my knees because that cheque was for $16,000. So, wow, what a difference. Because you're right. All I did was hand over the artwork. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah. 

Delores Naskrent: And then [00:15:00] they did the rest.

And I remember the guy say, I had been excited before I knew it, and he said, nothing happens until it sells. So if it doesn't sell, you're not gonna be making anything at all. But if it sells, and of course they have the big network, you know, they can make the sales everywhere. Hundreds of shops, thousands of shops mm-hmm.

Who are selling my staff. So that is kind of different. It's, it's very different. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Absolutely, and that's the thing with royalties. You never know exactly what's going to happen, and royalty deals can be extremely good or extremely bad. If you work with a very small company that are maybe going to sell 20, it is not worth it.

It's not worth it at all. 

Delores Naskrent: I have a se I have a $7 cheque in my wallet, $7, so I got real peace from, from an well, this is from the agent that I'm not working with anymore. And it's just, we just weren't a good fit. And you know, a $7 cheque. Well, like, I mean, I'm not even gonna bother. I don't think I'll even put it in the bank.

It's just funny. I think I'm gonna keep it 

Vanessa Stoilova: a [00:16:00] $7 cheque. Feels more insulting than anything. It's like you shouldn't have bothered me. They made no effort. 

Delores Naskrent: They made no effort whatsoever. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah. So, and $16,000, that's amazing. I've never gotten a royalty cheque that big, but it's. A definite possibility, especially when you start working with these big retailers, you know, target, et cetera.

Your art is going to be everywhere in every target, and then the sales, they really add up. And so sometimes when the, it's when the distribution is larger. When it's really mass market, sometimes you have a smaller royalty percentage, like maybe it's 2%, whereas the standard is kind of five, 5%. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. 

Vanessa Stoilova: But 2% out of a product that is in Walmart.

Take it. 

Delores Naskrent: Oh, right when you think about it. 16. Oh yeah. If, if it was $16,000 worth my payment and I was getting 5%, I mean, do the math, it, it sold a lot. Like it, it sold well. Mm-hmm. And that was the whole point. And you know, it was a continual deal. It was a deal that went on for [00:17:00] five year, it was a five year contract and.

It was like I was their house artist, which was really fantastic. So that's the way I, I hadn't even heard of art licensing before that, Vanessa. So, you know, that's, that's one of the things that I find so interesting is that you can go through art school and never even hear about art licensing. So that's one of the reasons we're putting this information out there is because we want people to know all of the different ways that they can make money with their art.

And for someone listening who's on the fence. What would you suggest as the one small step that they could take this week to move closer to actually selling a card design? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Absolutely. Well, it, it's so true that we can go through, you know, years without knowing that's a thing. It's the same thing that happened to me.

I was in art school and I studied animation that I was an animator in a studio. Then I quit that. I was a picture book illustrator. I did all sorts of things, and it's years [00:18:00] and years into my career that I found out about art licensing and my brain just about exploded. Right? Like, what is this? I love this.

I want to do this. It's amazing, but it's not necessarily something that we know about from the get go. It's not like a common knowledge sort of thing. 

Mm-hmm. 

And so when we wanna get started, we're also not sure where to get started sites like Card Isle or even freelancing platforms like Upwork and things like that, those are things that we have more visibility on.

We, we know, oh, I could do this, I could do that. But when you want to get your art into target, where do you even start with that? You know? 

Yeah. And. 

We, there's no set path. You really have to email someone. You have to find their contact information, you have to contact them. You basically have to create your own opportunity, and that can be very scary.

But the very first step is finding a company that you want to contact. You don't have to start with Target. Sometimes smaller companies can be easier to find their contact [00:19:00] information. Something that I love to do is just, you know, go in a store. Look at all the cute products. I take photos of the tags of, of the barcodes.

It, it has the information on what company that is. Sometimes even the address. You can use this information to do a little bit of Googling and find out more about the company. So once you have a, a company that you wanna reach out to, that's your first step. 

Delores Naskrent: You know what, that sounds fantastic. And for me it was, I didn't know.

I didn't know about this and this is the kind of thing that I'm gonna learn from you. So I'm excited about your courses, because I had the opposite experience where somebody came to me once that was over, I was lost and I really, you know, took a little, little bit of time to find somebody to represent me and I ended up.

Not doing the kind of work that I really want and love to do. And I think, i've changed over time as to what I enjoy doing the most. So I've got, I've got lots to learn, but I [00:20:00] can't wait. So I'm so thankful you were here today. This has been so much fun Ness, and I'm glad we're doing another episode too because art licensing I think is something that a lot of people have a lot of questions about.

I love how you and I, both of our. Perspectives overlap. It really shows that there are multiple ways to get your workout into the world, right? Mm-hmm. If you're listening and you wanna go deeper on the business side, Vanessa's Art Business Bootcamp reopens, September the first. Right? September 1st, and I think you should definitely check that out.

I definitely will be. So I think this is something fun that we could all do together. And if you're itching to dive into card design right now, just remember the five cards in five days challenge is happening starting September the 22nd. I have the link to the wait list in the show notes, and I'll put your stuff in the show notes.

To Vanessa so people can connect right, right from the show. And it's [00:21:00] free for the card challenge, but you can upgrade to the VIP creator's pack, which I've been working so hard on. There's so many goodies in there. Oh my gosh. I will be, I 

Vanessa Stoilova: can't wait. I'm so happy I'm. 

Delores Naskrent: Oh yeah. I'm so glad you're gonna be there.

I, I'm gonna be doing a bunch of extra lessons and resources are gonna be like, tons of resources in it. And I've been having really a lot of fun making it. Plus I've been working on a card line that I'm gonna be, you know, kind of doing in class in during that week. And, I'm gonna have, of course, Vanessa here as a guest that week for just.

Talking about this stuff a a little bit further, you could ask her questions. So you definitely wanna show up for that. Ness thanks again for being here. I can't wait to do this again.. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Thank you for having me, and I'm going to be designing cards with y'all in September. I can't wait, and I, I'm so glad that now you invited me to also speak.

I was gonna show up anyway as an attendee, but now I'm gonna come in with the, [00:22:00] with the licensing tips at the end of the challenge, and that's gonna be really fun. 

Delores Naskrent: Oh, I, I love that because I really wanna focus more on that. My previous card challenges have focused so much on POD, and, this is just the, that other, that other way you can make money.

So I think it'll be fun for everyone to learn more, and I can't think of anybody better to teach that. So keep juggling everybody, keep creating, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.