For many years, greeting cards sat naturally alongside the other things my daughter Ché and I sold at in-person markets. We did not begin with a grand plan for cards to become an important part of my creative life. We listened to customers, watched what people picked up and noticed what stayed untouched.
At first, I even made art cards with one of our popular magnets temporarily attached to the front. The recipient could enjoy the card and then move the magnet to a refrigerator or filing cabinet. It was a simple response to what customers asked for, but it taught us to see a card as both artwork and a product with a purpose.
Over time, that small addition led to wholesale orders through Canadian gift shops, an early licensing experience with Russ after Hallmark store owners in my region discovered my work, and eventually tens of thousands of card sales through Card Isle.
Helpful boundaries for a beginning artist
A greeting card is small, but its boundaries can be very helpful. It has an occasion, a recipient and an emotion to communicate. Instead of feeling that you must create an entire licensing portfolio, you can begin with a birthday card, a thank-you card, a new-baby card or something encouraging for a friend.
That clear purpose begins to teach commercial thinking. You start asking who the design is for, what customers may be searching for and whether the artwork needs lettering. You may notice missing recipient categories when you shop or begin studying why certain cards connect with you.
This does not make the work less heartfelt. Greeting cards help one human being communicate with another. I save cards myself because the artwork and the thought behind them become part of my surroundings.
A different product can change the connection
One artist in our community had worked diligently for several years to build a Spoonflower portfolio, yet experienced very little success. She eventually tried greeting cards and, in one December, sold 22,000.
Her years of work had not been wasted. She had developed her skills, learned to prepare commercial artwork and practised the many small tasks that sit behind a portfolio. When she applied those abilities to a different product, her artwork connected with customers in a new way.
That story does not promise the same result for every artist. It reminds us that a quiet marketplace response does not always mean the artwork is the problem. We may not yet have found the right product, marketplace, customer or moment.
Building beyond the first card
One card might become three cards for related occasions. Its motifs might become a coordinating pattern for wrapping paper, fabric or stationery. Several pieces could become a collection that you are ready to show someone.
This is how isolated artwork begins to become intellectual property and a portfolio. The skills we learn in illustration, colour, composition, lettering and surface pattern design are not separate. A greeting card gives us a small, purposeful place to let them work together.
Last month, Nicole Mauloni of iPad Calligraphy taught lettering in one of our Working Artist Studio Sessions. I immediately thought about greeting cards. Hand lettering can become part of the art and help a message feel personal rather than dependent on finding the perfect font.
The catalogue behind the number
Michelle, one of my students, recently shared that she now has more than 500 cards and has reached more than 35,000 sales through Card Isle. It is tempting to look only at that large number, but behind it are hundreds of decisions to create, upload, experiment and continue.
Her sales began with five or ten cards. We celebrate those beginnings in our community because they are evidence that the work has reached a real customer.
Building a catalogue usually matters far more than expecting one perfect card to change everything. You reach card number 500 by making card number one.
Learning together through the messy middle
Community makes the greeting-card industry more human and accessible. Artists share what size worked, where they submitted, which category they chose and how long the process took. They also share rejected files, confusing templates, wrong exports and products that did not sell.
Our recent work with Giftettes in the UK has been a valuable example. Members volunteered to test the marketplace, upload cards and give feedback about sizing, categories and the uploading experience. Our contact listened and made changes. The artists learned what happens on the other side of a marketplace, and the company learned what designers need.
Nobody has to know everything. Sometimes I am teaching, sometimes a guest or community member has the answer, and sometimes we are all working it out together.
Your smaller doorway
Our next Five Cards in Five Days Challenge begins on 21 September 2026. We will make five cards—not fifty—and learn together as we go. Finishing those five may be everything you want from the experience, and that is enough. Or one card may spark a collection or an opportunity that you cannot see yet.
You do not need to wait until you feel professional. Begin with a recipient, an occasion and one small rectangle. Make card number one, then see what it teaches you.
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Listener Support Note
Thank you for listening and creating alongside us. You can support the show here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2397445/support
Resources or Businesses Mentioned in This Episode
• Five Cards in Five Days Challenge
• DeloresArt greeting-card classes - these can be found under all classes - search for card
• DeloresArt membership and Thrive meetings —Membership Sales Page 2026 | Delores Naskrent/DeloresArt School
• Hallmark — Greeting Cards, Christmas Ornaments, and Gifts
• Russ — Russ teddy Bears - The Russ Berrie Story
• Card Isle — Greeting Cards for Ecommerce | Card Isle
• 1-800-Flowers — Flowers, Flower Delivery, Fresh Flowers Online – 1-800-Flowers.com
• Spoonflower — Spoonflower – Design & Shop Custom Fabric, Wallpaper, Home Décor
• Greeting Card Universe — Greeting Card Universe | Paper Cards, Invitations & Announcements
• Giftettes — Giftettes-Small Gifts, Big Impact
• Procreate — Procreate — Creative apps designed for iPad
• Affinity Designer — Affinity | Professional Creative Software, Free for Everyone
• Nicole Mauloni / iPad Calligraphy — About - iPad Calligraphy
• Working Artist Studio Sessions — https://learn.deloresart.ca/p/the-working-artist-live-workshop-series
Some links in this post may be affiliate links, which means either Kaylie or Delores may receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you). We only share tools or products we genuinely love and use ourselves.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Hey there. Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Delores Naskrent, and today I want to talk about something that has become a much bigger part of my creative life than I ever expected, and that's greeting cards. More specifically, I want to talk about how something as small and seemingly simple as a five by seven piece of artwork can become an entry point into the commercial art world.
Over the last few years, through the card challenges we've done and classes I've done, the guests that we've brought in, the things we've learned together in our membership, and especially through watching the members of our community, I've seen this happen again and again. Somebody makes a card, then they make another one, and somewhere along the way, they start to wonder, "Could I actually sell these?"
Before long, they're researching [00:01:00] marketplaces, they're building collections, they're uploading artwork, they're thinking about art licensing, they're learning all about trends and occasions, recipients, and really starting to see themselves a little bit differently They're not just someone who likes making art anymore.
They're beginning to think like a working artist. And that's really what I want to talk to you about today because greeting cards have turned out to be a surprisingly powerful doorway into commercial art for many of the artists that I've worked with, and I've worked with a lot now. I think I've surpassed the 90,000 students mark at this point.
So why greeting cards? Personally, I think greeting cards are one of the most approachable ways to start thinking about your artwork commercially because a greeting card is small, it has a distinct purpose, it has a recipient, [00:02:00] and it gives you some boundaries to work within. Those boundaries can actually be really helpful when you're learning.
So instead of sitting in front of your iPad thinking, "Ugh, I need to create an entire licensing portfolio and somehow get an art director to notice me," you're just thinking, "I'm gonna make a birthday card, or a Christmas card, or a thank you card, or something for a new baby, or a friend who's having a hard time, a grandma, a teacher, or maybe even your sister."
Suddenly you have a reason for the artwork, and I think that's a really important shift. One of the things I've learned through teaching artists for so many years is that too much information at the beginning can be absolutely paralyzing. You don't need to know everything about licensing, or manufacturing, or royalties, or portfolios, or agents, and contracts, print on demand, [00:03:00] marketplaces, wholesale, retail, trends, and everything else before you create that first piece of commercial artwork.
Sometimes you just need to make that first thing and learn what you need to know next. That's one of the reasons I love greeting cards so much. They give us somewhere manageable to begin, but they also teach us an enormous amount about creative artwork for an actual customer. I'll tell you a little bit about my greeting card journey I've been selling greeting cards for many years.
I used to do a lot of in-person markets, and one of the things that happened to me very early on was that I was discovered, if you will, by the owners of Hallmark stores in my region. particular couple owned three Hallmark stores, [00:04:00] and they took me on really early. This was my very first experience becoming licensed, and I worked through Russ, the teddy bear people, and had a five-year contract with them where I produced artwork that they used on numerous items.
I personally have sold thousands of cards also just, like I said, at in-person sales. We created a greeting card line that we added to. Years and years of work went into it, and we learned a lot. And when I say we, I'm talking about myself and my daughter, Ché, who was my partner in the craft sale business.
We learned what kind of things sell. We learned what people wanted. People would specifically ask us for certain things, and that really gave me a good [00:05:00] overall idea of what kind of cards I needed to create for a line. Now, I've sold tens of thousands of cards through Card Isle, and some of those cards have reached customers through companies like 1-800-Flowers, who have now bought out Card Isle It still amazes me when I think about it because I didn't start with some grand master plan where I knew exactly how all of this was going to unfold.
Honestly, greeting cards, because I was getting just 20 cents or so on each one, really seemed like a long shot as far as a way to create a good income. But honestly, it's rare, that's rarely how a creative business works anyways. You try things, you learn. You notice what works, you make another piece, and you improve on the next one.
You learn something about the customer [00:06:00] that you didn't know before, and gradually
individual pieces begin to form a body of work, right? We didn't know all that we were gonna sell throughout the 10 years or so that we did these in-person markets. We had no idea. It was by people telling us and by literally watching what things were flying off the shelf and what things barely ever got touched.
That's how we learned. We literally learned by observing all of that. Eventually, we picked up wholesale orders through several gift shops in Canada, and the orders themselves would be how we would learn what things were selling. We started to recognize that maybe this isn't just a card or artwork that I created.
Maybe it's the beginning of something that I can [00:07:00] build on. That experience eventually became one of the reasons I started teaching the five cards in five days challenges. I was teaching about greeting cards already. I had some classes on greeting cards, but the idea was really wonderfully simple. I wanted to create a challenge, let's make five cards.
Not 50. Not an enormous licensing portfolio and not an entire product line. Let's just take five days, make something every day, learn some new techniques, think a little bit more intentionally about who might buy these cards, and see where that takes us. What I couldn't have predicted when we started all of this was where it would take some people in my community We've now done multiple card challenges, and every time we do one, I'm reminded that the finished cards are really only part of what's happening.
Yes, of course, people learn new design [00:08:00] techniques. They learn more about Procreate or Affinity Designer. I give them a bunch of assets to play with. I give them templates. I give them ideas. But sometimes something else starts happening at the same time. Participants start noticing greeting cards when they're out shopping.
They start looking at categories and thinking about what kinds of cards might be missing. They begin to wonder why certain cards work, who produced them, and where they could potentially submit their own work. They start researching things like print on demand, and they start thinking about the customer rather than just simply thinking about the artwork they're producing.
So that is the beginning of commercial thinking. And I don't mean commercial thinking in a cold or calculating kind of a way. In fact, greeting cards are probably one of the most emotional products we can design, right? Someone chooses your [00:09:00] artwork because they want to communicate something to another human being.
It might be happy birthday. It might be I love you. It could be I'm proud of you, or I'm thinking about you. I'm sorry, or congratulations. And of course, things like thank you. Sometimes a card helps someone say something that they can't find the words to say themselves. And there's something so lovely about knowing that your artwork can become part of that exchange.
Are you like me? I save greeting cards. I am surrounded by greeting cards. Artwork can be so beautiful on them. And a lot of times it's the thought or the motivation that card has relayed to me that I love to look at on a daily basis. They become part of my surroundings. So there's one story in particular that has stayed with me, and I really want to share it [00:10:00] because I think it says something important about creative careers and about how unpredictable they can be.
I may have talked about this before. I know that we've talked about the increase in sales a lot of members have found since 1-800-Flowers purchased Card Isle. But one of my students wrote me a really heartfelt letter after one of our greeting card experiences, and what made her story particularly meaningful was that she was absolutely not new to commercial art.
She had been at this for years. She had been diligently creating artwork and uploading patterns to Spoonflower for several years, putting in the work and trying to build some momentum there. But she had experienced very little success. I think a lot of you artists listening will understand exactly [00:11:00] how discouraging that can be, especially when all you hear out there is about how successful people are.
Three years is a long time to keep showing up, creating artwork, preparing files, uploading them, writing descriptions, adding keywords, all those invisible little jobs that go along with trying to build a commercial art business, especially when the results don't seem to reflect the amount of work you're putting in.
Eventually, she decided to jump on the greeting card bandwagon with us. She was reluctant, but she started what she knew as an artist and applying it to this different kind of product, and something clicked. Last Christmas, she had what I could only describe as viral success. In that month of December alone, she sold...
Are you ready for it? [00:12:00] She sold 22,000 greeting cards. 22,000 cards in one month. I remember reading her letter and being so touched by it, not because I felt I could somehow take credit for what she had accomplished. I absolutely couldn't. She had already spent years developing her skills and doing the work and learning the commercial art game.
But what struck me was that sometimes we can be working incredibly hard and assume that because one avenue isn't producing the results we hoped for, our artwork has to be the problem.
sometimes it isn't the artwork at all. Sometimes we just haven't found the right product, the right marketplace, the right customer, or the right moment yet. All of those years she spent developing her skills hadn't been wasted. The fact that Spoonflower hadn't taken off for her in the way she'd hoped [00:13:00] didn't mean she had failed.
She was building skills, she was developing artwork, and learning how to work as a commercial artist. When she moved into greeting cards, I'm sure she had no idea what was gonna happen. Just like all of us, she just wanted to try it out, and she brought all of that experience that she had with her. And suddenly, she found a place where her artwork connected with customers in a completely different way.
This is such an important lesson for any artist trying to build a commercial art business. Your first avenue doesn't have to be your forever avenue. You might think you're gonna become a fabric designer and discover that your artwork is fantastic on greeting cards or products. Who knows? You might start with greeting cards and then discover that those same illustrations could go onto some giftware or [00:14:00] anything really.
You might create a card that becomes the seed for an entire surface pattern design collection. None of these paths have to be mutually exclusive. Absolutely not. Sometimes the thing that looks like a detour is actually the doorway. Did I know cards were gonna sell when I started? Absolutely not. We were doing lots of other things that we were selling really well as well.
We did magnets, which were our top sellers, and we just added the greeting cards on because of a customer request. And at first, I was just producing art cards that could have the magnet temporarily glued onto the front for people to purchase so they could give it as a card, but where the recipient could take the magnet off and then put it on their fridge or filing cabinet or whatever.
Personally, I [00:15:00] find that one of the most rewarding parts has been watching what happens after people try something new. Some people finish their five cards and simply feel proud that they finished them, and that's enough. But other people catch the bug. We talk about it a lot through the challenge, and five cards becomes 10, 10 becomes 20, and then they start uploading.
We have people who have built steady uploads to their catalogs within a year, have built up a stable of anywhere from 200 to 500 cards for sale on Card Isle or whatever site that they choose. We have several members who are actively working with Greeting Card Universe. They build a catalog, they experiment with different occasions and recipient categories, and eventually they're the ones [00:16:00] answering questions for the person who has just made one card.
So we help each other. That's
Where the community piece becomes incredibly important. We've had members build substantial catalogs on greeting card marketplaces and make sales. We've had many who receive recognition, win prizes, and discover opportunities they wouldn't necessarily have known existed if they had been working alone.
Every one of those journeys becomes something the rest of us can learn from
Very recently, one of my students, Michelle, told me that she now has more than 500 cards and has reached sales of more than 35,000 on Card Isle. When you hear a number like 35,000, it's easy to focus on the big result, but I always think about what is behind that number. It isn't one perfect card that magically [00:17:00] changed everything.
It represents hundreds of decisions to keep creating, keep uploading, and keep experimenting, and of course, to keep going. Did she sell that many cards in one week? No, she did not. It started out with sales of five or 10 cards, and we celebrate that in our community and at our Thrive meetings.
One sale is enough to get everyone clapping. It's so exciting. What we value is the persistence. Persistence is something we see repeatedly in our community, and when one person discovers something, it doesn't tend to stay with that one person. Someone posts, "Hey, look what happened," and suddenly everybody's asking questions.
How did you do that? Where did you submit? What size did they need? What category did you use? Did you change the artwork? How long did it take? Man, [00:18:00] those conversations become part of everyone's education. You really do not have to figure this all out alone. I think one of the hardest things about trying to build an art career on your own is that you simply don't know what you don't know, right?
You can Google things. You can watch YouTube videos. You can read articles. You can get lots of advice. There's something completely different, though, about hearing from someone you know who says, "I tried this, and look what happened." We've had that happen over and over in our community, and we've also been fortunate to bring people into our world who can help us understand the greeting card industry from different angles.
We've had so many guest speakers through the years in the Greeting Card Challenge. We've also talked about Card Isle and print-on-demand and marketplaces, so we're not just zeroing in on one method alone. We're talking [00:19:00] about collections and licensing. We've talked about what happens when cards move beyond simply sitting on your computer and actually start reaching customers.
We've talked about the reality that building a catalog usually matters far more than expecting one piece of artwork to somehow change everything Very recently, we've had a fascinating opportunity to work with a company called Giftettes in the UK. What I love about that experience is that our artists haven't simply been told, "Here's a platform.
Go upload your work." Members of our community have actually been involved in the process. Yes, in the process. They have volunteered to test it. They've uploaded cards. They've discovered things that were confusing. They've given feedback. They've asked questions, and they've helped identify issues around things like sizing and categories and the whole uploading experience.[00:20:00]
Our contact at Giftettes has listened to that feedback and made changes, and I think this is an incredible learning experience for an artist
Because you're learning to see the other side of the marketplace. You're realizing that companies are figuring things out too. They need artists and they need artwork, but they also need to understand what designers need and what customers are searching for. it's a partnership. It really is.
Suddenly that enormous and mysterious greeting card industry starts to look a little more human and a lot more accessible
Opportunities often come through people, and this is something I wish more artists understood earlier. We tend to imagine that opportunities arrive through some official doorway or some secret passage. You submit the perfect portfolio, an art director discovers you, and then you receive the magical email that changes everything.[00:21:00]
Yes, of course, those things can happen and do happen, but so many opportunities actually come through relationships. Someone mentions a company, someone shares a submission call, maybe a marketplace needs more Christmas cards, or someone notices their particular recipient category is being underrepresented.
A fellow artist might say, "I think your style might be perfect for this," and suddenly you're looking at an opportunity that wasn't even on your radar two weeks earlier. That's one of the things I love about creative communities, and that's why mine has become so important to me. It isn't just a place to post a pretty picture and have someone tell you they love it, although we do plenty of that, I'll tell you.
It's also an information network. It's encouragement when you're discouraged.
When you're discouraged. It's troubleshooting when something doesn't work. It's somebody celebrating [00:22:00] when you get your first sale, and somebody telling you about an opportunity that you might have otherwise missed. It's also incredibly valuable to see that messy middle. You discover that other artists have files rejected, or they upload the wrong size, or they misunderstand a template, or they create something that doesn't sell, or put their work into the wrong category.
They don't know how to export. They don't know how to specifically fulfill the needs of the customer. But hey, they learn. They adjust, and they just keep going. Sometimes I think seeing that is even more valuable than seeing the successes, because it helps us understand that mistakes are really just part of doing that commercial work.
And from what I've been told by absolutely everyone involved in the commercial art industry, is that it needs more than just beautiful [00:23:00] art. The industry needs more. Our card challenges have taught us that the greeting card industry isn't simply illustration. You're really solving a design problem. Who's it for?
What's the occasion? What emotion does it need to communicate? Does it actually need words? Could lettering become part of the artwork? Is it funny or sentimental or elegant or playful, or is it traditional or is it modern? That's why I think all the different things we learn as artists begin to connect here.
Last month, we had Nicole Mauloni from iPad Calligraphy teach one of our working artist studio sessions on lettering, and immediately, of course, my brain goes to greeting cards. Lettering gives you another tool. Your artwork doesn't have to [00:24:00] depend on finding the perfect font because you can create something that feels personal, handmade.
You can combine words and illustration and create a message that becomes part of the art itself. I love that. The same thing happens when we study surface pattern design or illustration or color or composition or collections. None of these are isolated skills. They begin to stack on top of one another, and greeting cards give us this wonderful little playground where we can use all of them while creating something with a very clear purpose.
So please don't wait until you feel professional. I know there'll be somebody listening who's thinking, sure, this all sounds great, Delores, but those people are real designers. I'm not there yet." Please don't make that your starting requirement. Nobody starts as an [00:25:00] experienced greeting card designer, and nobody starts with 500 cards.
You get to that 500 by making card number one, then card number two, then card number three. Along the way, you learn what works and what you enjoy. Maybe you discover that you love Christmas cards, or children's birthday cards give you so much satisfaction. Maybe your quirky and weird sense of humor turns out to be exactly what makes your cards different.
Maybe hand lettering becomes your feature, or your florals finally find their home. Maybe cards are just the beginning, and eventually you realize these same motifs could become all kinds of different things like fabric or wrapping paper or stationery. You simply don't know when you're starting out, and I think that's actually one of the exciting things about it.
One card can eventually become a collection. This is [00:26:00] another shift that I love seeing in our students. At first, they create a card, but eventually they start to think about creating collections, and that's a completely different way of approaching the artwork. Instead of making just the one greeting card, you might begin wondering whether that illustration could become three birthday cards, or could that be a gift bag?
Could it be a thank you card? Could you pull out some of the motifs and create a coordinating pattern? Could that pattern work on wrapping paper? Can you make a second pattern and turn all of this into a little collection you could actually show someone? Now you're not making just isolated artwork.
You're building intellectual property, you're developing a portfolio, and you're creating something that could potentially work harder for you. And all of that might have begun with one 5 by 7 card, and that's why I jokingly think [00:27:00] of this as the little card that could. The power of doing it together is what our Five Card Challenge is all about.
It's coming up again soon, towards the end of September. September 21st is the first day of it, and I've been thinking a lot about why I continue doing these challenges. It really isn't because the world desperately needs another online challenge, right? It's because I personally have seen what happens when people create together.
There's a momentum that develops when hundreds of other people are working on the same thing. Someone posts a card and it gives you an idea, not to copy, of course, what they've done, but it makes you think differently. Someone asks a question you were afraid to ask, someone shares a breakthrough, or someone posts something they aren't completely confident about, and suddenly you feel brave enough to post yours, too.
By the end of those five days, you can actually look back and say, [00:28:00] "Hey, I did it. I made my five finished cards." Maybe that's all you wanted, and that's wonderful. But maybe one of those five cards sparks something else. Maybe you want to make another one or start wondering where you could yourself be selling them besides the places I suggest.
Maybe six months from now, you're the person in our community posting, "Guess what happened?" This is the part I can't predict, and it's the part that I love the most.
I really think that's all I wanted to share today. I was just taking a little a moment to think about it. I've been doing this long enough to know that when sometimes the smallest creative decision has a domino effect that could not be planned. One challenge leads to five cards, those five to a collection, and so on.
Breaking into the greeting card industry doesn't necessarily start with breaking down some enormous locked door. [00:29:00] Sometimes there's a much smaller door standing right in front of you, and all you have to do is start by making a card, then another one, and then another one. I've watched people in our community do exactly that, and it's one of the things I am the proudest of.
Not because I somehow created their success, but because together we've created an environment where people can learn from one another, encourage one another, and discover possibilities together. Sometimes I'm the teacher, sometimes one of the guests is the teacher, sometimes one of our numbers... our members know the answer.
Sometimes we're all figuring it out alone. I actually think that's what a creative community should look like. Believe you me, I am learning as well. I have people in the community who are teaching me. It's amazing. Nobody has to know everything. We just have to keep sharing what we learn [00:30:00] and helping each other to take that next step.
So whether you're joining us for the Five Card Challenge, maybe you're gonna skip this one. Who knows? Maybe you already have hundreds of cards in your portfolio, or you've never designed a greeting card in your life. I just hope that today's episode has made you think and look at that little five by seven rectangle a little bit differently.
It isn't just a card. It could be your first piece of commercial artwork, the beginning of a collection, or your introduction to licensing. It could connect you with a customer somewhere you've never been, or lead you to an opportunity you can't see yet. Or maybe it just gives you a really joyful afternoon making something and reminding you why you wanted to be an artist in the first place And I think that's a pretty wonderful place to start.
Thanks for joining me on The Creative Juggle [00:31:00] Joy. Keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process. I'll talk to you again soon
