How Handmade at Amazon became my primary source of revenue

Hello! I'm Jodi Lewis, owner of Lucylews Personalized Decor (Lucy was my cute yellow lab). I have always had a love for decorating and design, so when I found I could make a little money selling my crafts, I purchased a vinyl cutter to make decorated wood blocks for local craft shows. We sold hundreds of sets of blocks during the holidays for the first couple of years, but as the kids got older and more active in sports, the cutting, sanding, and painting of the blocks became too time-consuming. Especially since I worked full time as a registered nurse at the local VA.

My son always wanted me to be home during the day, so in 2011 I decided to start cutting and selling just the wall decals and listed them on Etsy to try to make enough money so I could work four days a week. After a few months our sales took off, and within the first year, I was a top seller on Etsy. We continued to grow through 2015 when there suddenly was a downturn. I am not sure if I was getting burned out and let things slip, or if something changed on the website. It was probably a combination of both. I continued to sell my decals, but I was exhausted. Eventually working 16- hour days gets to you! So, I kept the shop open but went back to work full time at the hospital, not really working on generating sells, or creating new designs, but still fulfilling whatever orders came in.

Subscribe to Handmade Seller Magazine to read the rest.