Listening for the Quiet Answers
As artists and makers, we’re often overflowing with inspiration — a scribbled idea here, a half‑finished sketch there.
When I listened to Kaylie’s episode about choosing what to sell, I felt a deep sense of recognition.
I remember a time when my sketchbooks were filled with possibilities, yet I had no clear path forward.
Like Kaylie, I’ve learned that slowing down and listening to my real life is the first step toward sustainable creativity.
Embracing Fewer, Better Offers
Kaylie reminds us that not all income is created equal.
She outlines four types of creative revenue: active work (like commissions), repeatable products (greeting cards, print‑on‑demand and licensing), recurring income (memberships and subscriptions) and leveraged knowledge (workshops and tutorials).
These categories help us see where our energy is going and where it could be freed.
As someone who teaches surface pattern design, I’m particularly fond of repeatable products — one pattern can bloom across fabric, wallpapers and stationery.
A Gentle Filter for New Ideas
Before diving head‑first into a new project, Kaylie suggests pausing to ask:
- Does this fit my real life?
- Will it get easier with repetition?
- Is it dependent on social media algorithms?
- Will I still enjoy it two years from now?
I’ve found that parking ideas in a dedicated notebook allows me to return to them when life aligns. There’s no rush; creativity often grows best when given space.
Building a Sustainable Creative Ecosystem
Kaylie’s own journey shows the power of small, consistent steps. She’s experimenting with platforms like Spoonflower and greeting card sites such as Card Isle and Thortful, all while raising her young son and running Spellweaver Creative Studio.
She’s also bringing her old podcast drafts to life on her website and exploring the possibilities of Pinterest for long‑term discovery. Her courage to share the messy middle reminds us that sustainable businesses are built slowly, with intention.
A Final Encouragement
You don’t need to juggle fourteen income streams to be successful.
Choose one core offer, build one audience space you own (an email list is a beautiful thing) and pick one visibility platform that feels right.
Use templates and repeatable workflows to lighten your load.
Layer additional income streams gently over time.
Most importantly, give yourself permission to evolve. Our creative journeys are seldom linear, and that’s what makes them rich.
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Resources or Businesses Mentioned in This Episode
- Spellweaver Creative Studio & Spellweaver Creative Hub
- Affinity Designer software
- Canva Pro
- Card Isle – Greeting Card Company USA
- Thortful – Greeting Card Company UK
- Greeting Card Universe – Greeting Card Company USA
- You Said It - UK Greeting Card Company
- Spoonflower
- Power Sellers Academy (Erin Kendall)
- Artists mentioned: Vanessa Stoliova, Elinor Bomer, Lucy Tiffany, Lisa Dobbs (Wee Woolly Wonderfuls)
- Brands referenced: Next, Radley
Affiliate Disclaimer
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.
TRANSCRIPT:
Kaylie Edwards: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast, where we talk honestly about building a creative life and business without completely losing ourselves in the process. I'm Kaylie Edwards
How many unfinished ideas do you currently have sitting in notebooks, Canva folders, Pinterest boards, Google Docs, sketchbooks, or random notes on your phone right now? Because honestly, I have so many. One minute you're thinking maybe I should make printable planners, then maybe I should do Spoonflower, then maybe I could create a course, or maybe I should start a membership, or maybe I should do wall art, then suddenly it's 11:00 PM, you've researched 17 business models, watched six YouTube videos, opened Affinity Designer, closed Affinity Designer, questioned your entire life decision, and somehow [00:01:00] achieved absolutely nothing except emotional exhaustion.
And I think one of the biggest reasons creatives stay stuck isn't lack of talent. It's actually having too many ideas and no clear way to filter them into something sustainable. So in today's episode, I want to talk about how to choose what to sell, how to stop overwhelming yourself, how to think about creative income differently, and how to build offers that actually fit your real life instead of draining the life out of you.
And honestly, I'm very much in this stage myself right now yet again. For a long time, I focused heavily on the business marketing side of creativity, and a lot of you know I had my handmade candle business years ago, and since then I've obviously moved more into marketing, strategy, email marketing, courses, memberships, podcasting, all of that side [00:02:00] of things through the Spellweaver Creative Studio brand that I have, and all the client work that I do.
But lately I've slowly been bringing creativity back into my own life again because after having my son a lot of that kind of died out. I just didn't have the time for it or couldn't make the time for it. And not in this huge dramatic way I'm bringing it back. I'm not gonna become a full-time artist overnight kind of way, but in a quieter, slower, more intentional way.
I've started exploring greeting card design again, surface pattern design, and creating fantasy and nature inspired designs that I am starting to put on my own print on demand products again. I'm also going back to learning Affinity Designer software because I feel like it's just such a great software, and not just because Delores teaches it.
I don't have to [00:03:00] pay for Adobe subscriptions. It's now free on desktop, and I already have a Canva Pro account anyway, and the fact that it's attached to my Canva Pro account is just even better. So the workflows are starting to become a lot easier to use And then I've also opened a Spoonflower shop, I uploaded designs, but I never actually listed them on Spoonflower. But I've also joined the Power Sellers Academy through Erin Kendall because Delores and some of her students have spoke very highly of the membership, and, she focuses on Spoonflower and other ways to monetize your designs and your patterns.
And I think that's, right up my alley with repurposing and finding sustainable systems that you can put in place. And I've joined that, and I haven't done a huge amount with it yet, 'cause I'm slowly working my way through and creating some patterns that I can start listing on [00:04:00] Spoonflower again, and then repurposing them onto my new website that i'm currently in the middle of setting up and really defining the brand behind it and the audience I'm gonna be selling to. I joined two greeting card platforms. I started up with Card Isle.
There's also two in the UK. One, I haven't set up my creator account yet, but I will be doing that. So I will keep everybody posted once I can figure that one out. And honestly, I still feel very much in the beginning stages of this second creative business I'm restarting, and it's been on my to-do list for a while now.
And I think this is important to say as well. I don't really call myself an artist. I know that probably sounds a bit strange, being in creative spaces all the time, but I've [00:05:00] always personally identified more as a designer than an artist. Even as a kid I'd be sketching, I'd be painting, did oil paintings when I was a teenager.
When I was a kid, my parents would get me art supplies, canvases, Oil paintings, pastels, everything for Christmas and birthdays, and that's what I would spend a lot of my time doing. But even then I wouldn't consider myself an artist. But being in Delores's circle and being around other creatives and having other clients who are creatives and artists it's prompted me a lot more to really listen to that yearning I have to start that again, that creative side that I've been missing all along, for a long time since having my son back in 2022 I studied art and design, and I started in ceramics years ago with my first job, and I sketch sometimes when [00:06:00] inspiration hits, but it's not very often. I like doing the watercolors, but I do have a way to go, and I don't say I have a style yet myself because it's been so long since I really explored it.
And a lot of other artists say, you've got to explore use different mediums, use different styles, and see what kind of resonates." But I do tend to go for more of the fantasy nature themes, and I'm drawn very much to that and watercolors, botanicals, things like that.
So we'll see. I will keep everybody posted as I am starting to explore a lot more. But I think because I stepped away from creating for so long while building businesses and surviving burnout and motherhood and client work and all the rest of it, I'm relearning my own creativity again. And I think a lot of people listening are probably in that same weird middle space, not [00:07:00] complete beginners, but also not fully where they want to be yet And that's why I wanted to make this episode because I think the online business world makes creatives feel like they need to do everything, be everywhere, build six income streams immediately, become content creators, influencers, master AI, video, create courses, do Etsy, YouTube, do memberships, do a TikTok, all this, and honestly, it's so much.
And how are you supposed to keep up with everything? And another thing is why creatives get stuck is I think creatives are naturally idea people. We are collectors of inspiration. I take pictures of so many things. I've had to delete a lot of stuff off my phone because it's just a lot of inspiration from when I've been out on walks or when I've seen something and I think, "Oh, that'll make a really good pattern"
and yeah, we see possibilities everywhere. But what we're usually not taught is how to [00:08:00] simplify and actually have a focus and direction. And because the online business world changes so quickly now, it creates this constant panic feeling. And one person says, "Courses are dead." Another says, "You need a membership."
Then, "Etsy is too saturated," or, "You need passive income." And then, "Instagram is dead." And then, "Pinterest is back." And it's like trying to build a business while standing inside one of those money grab machines where paper is flying everywhere, and you can never quite get it all And I think a lot of creatives stay stuck in permanent research mode because choosing feels scary, and you're so overwhelmed by what's being said.
Because choosing one direction can feel like closing doors or wasting time, risking failure, letting go of ideas. But honestly, trying to build five businesses at once is usually what burns people out. And I know this so much firsthand. I have been trying to set [00:09:00] up my second business for so long.
I think I bought my website before Christmas. I bought four years worth of hosting in one go so I wouldn't have to think about having to pay for it whilst I kind of experiment and basically spend time on it in pockets of time whenever I can
And the four types of creative income, I wanted to simplify this a bit because I think this helps massively, is one, active income. This is like commissions, custom work, client work, handmade products and services. This is often where creatives start because it's the fastest path to money. It's why I got stuck in the cycle of just doing client work all the time and not actually spending a lot of time building sustainable business for myself.
But it's also usually the hardest physically and emotionally long term because your income is directly tied to your energy and your [00:10:00] time. And honestly, this is one reason I started rethinking things myself, because I realized I didn't want every single pound I earned to rely on constant output forever And then two is repeatable product income.
So this is where things start getting really interesting for creatives. It's things like greeting card designs on places like Card Isle and other places like Thortful which is a UK one, and there is Greeting Card Universe, and the one I've started on, which is called
I think it's called Who Said It.
I'll link it in the show notes anyway. You can take a look at that. And then also print on demand and licensing, digital downloads, patterns, templates. Basically you create it once and then the design can live in multiple places
And this is something we've seen from so many [00:11:00] creators we've talked about on the podcast and people I've researched recently too. For example, Vanessa Stoliova, who's been on the podcast a few times, talked about greeting cards and licensing, where artwork can exist across multiple products and collections instead of being used once and then disappearing.
And it's a way of monetizing in different avenues. Another lady called Elinor Bomer built income streams through licensing, wholesale, textiles, and collaborations with brands like Next and Radley. Then there's Lucy Tiffany combines murals, wallpaper licensing, home decor collections, and even more people like Lisa Dobbs mix physical products with digital patterns and subscription style offers.
And that's what I mean by a creative ecosystem, not relying on one thing. And I think this matters especially now because so many creatives are [00:12:00] physically exhausted. A repeatable product gives you that breathing room that you need, and I think this is where we need to start looking at things. Yes, focus on what works, but also start slowly spending a little bit of time adding these other income streams to your main core income stream.
And then there's three, recurring income, and this is like memberships, Patreon, subscription clubs, communities. And I think this works really well for creatives who enjoy teaching, encouraging people, sharing their process or building relationships. And obviously I'm re- rebuilding and relaunching my own membership right now, Spellweaver Creative Hub, because that is a big goal of mine, is to create more recurring income so then eventually can spend more time on doing a second business, being more creative and selling my [00:13:00] designs
But honestly, my whole philosophy with memberships has changed. I don't think people need more overwhelming content vaults, which was the direction I was seen to be going into, and that's why I'm relaunching it, 'cause I think people need support implementing the things and simplifying the systems that they need.
And then there's four, which is leveraged knowledge income. So this is things like workshops, mini classes, teaching, tutorials, guides. And something I really want creatives to understand is you do not need to be the world's leading expert to teach something helpful. Sometimes you just need to be a few steps ahead of somebody else for them to get value out of it
And honestly, I think I'm trying to intentionally build more of a hybrid model myself now, where I still do my client work and I still teach and run my membership, but I'm also slowly rebuilding my own creative practice again in a way that feels sustainable and adding income [00:14:00] streams even if they're only small to start off with, but they build over time.
So like card sales through Card Isle and pattern designs through Spoonflower, and then maybe eventually I'll get licensing deals. But I'm not holding my breath right now. That is a in-the-future thing for now. But I really want to do my website 'cause I kinda wanna build a brand around my designs that I want to do for like fantasy and nature lovers and people that love storytelling
So right now behind the scenes, I'm relearning creative rhythm. I'm trying to create consistency again, which is still difficult to do. Experimenting with my surface pattern design, planning products for Spoonflower, looking at home decor and stationery as well, and building out my second website, and learning Affinity Designer so everything isn't fully physical anymore.
And honestly, it's messy, it's slow, and it's not [00:15:00] perfectly polished, but I think that's important for people to hear too. Your creative business is allowed to evolve as your life evolves and as you transition into different phases 'cause nobody's life is a straight line .
Like my son, he goes through so many different phases as he's growing, and he'll have a certain way he'll do things for three, four months and then he'll transition into something else and you're having to change your routine again
So there's something I want you to think about, is a sustainable offer filter. So here are the questions I think creatives should start asking before jumping into another idea. And really, I think I've said this before in a different episode, is just create an idea bank. Get it out of your head and stick it an idea bank, whether it's paper or in a productivity app, or you have notes on your phone or on your computer.
Put it away. Park it. Park the idea and put it through this [00:16:00] filter first before you jump on it
So question one is, does this fit my real life? Not fantasy productivity life, not perfect routine life, real life, your energy, your family, your health, your schedule already. Question two: Can this become easier over time? This question changed a lot for me because if every product requires starting from scratch, constant customization, endless manual work, you eventually hit a wall, and you can't do it all the time.
If something happens, like somebody goes into hospital or you get sick or a deadline comes that was quicker than you thought, which happens a lot to me you can't always keep up with it. And some repurposing examples for you. One design could become a greeting card, wrapping paper, a print-on-demand product.
You could put it on a cushion or a blanket. Art prints. [00:17:00] It could go on fabric So selling it on Spoonflower, for instance. You could do it on notebooks or wallpaper. And that's why I'm personally becoming more interested in design ecosystems rather than isolated products, is how can I repurpose this?
Is there any other way I can make money from this?
And then question three, does this rely entirely on social media? Because honestly, relying completely on algorithms is bloody exhausting, which is why I'm personally focusing much more on Pinterest, email marketing, and searchable content, like my podcast. Now my new website is basically up and finally to a point where I'm happy with it, I actually took the plunge and started adding the podcast episodes.
I've had the blog posts. Every episode we do, I create a blog post draft, And there's been 90 [00:18:00] episodes that have been sitting in my Google Drive that have never been added to my website. So I'm creating a system with AI to actually be able to post them for me.
It posts them in draft format for me on my WordPress site, and I just go in and check them and then upload them. at the time of this recording, I'm up to four, so I've got a way to go. I hit my credit limit trying to test it out and figure it out, so I will be doing that again hopefully in the next month or so, I will have all the podcast episodes up, including other blog posts I have drafted that I've been sitting on my Google Drive as well.
And then I'm gonna start creating a load of pins for that and sending them out and hopefully focus on them, which is obviously a long-term discoverability plan. But rather trying to go viral every five minutes, I would rather start building that sustainable momentum And I think a lot of creatives forget to add that strategy in.
So you can still do Instagram, or you can [00:19:00] still do TikTok or YouTube or whatever, but YouTube is like Pinterest it's a searchable platform. It lives on there for years. People still get- people coming through to their videos for years and years
and it's the same with Pinterest, you get traffic from your pins for years and years So if you can commit to doing it, even if it's just once a week, it's something. And then question four: would I still enjoy this in two years' time? This one matters so much because some business models look exciting at first and look easy, there's plenty of people that make things look easy, and it's not, especially if you've got a different kind of life situation than them.
But become incredibly draining long term yes, I still love what I do with my client work and working with Delores and, we have such a good friendship, and working with other artists and handmade sellers as well. Don't get me wrong. But it is exhausting having to keep up with [00:20:00] deadlines and things for other people.
And I'm not saying I'm gonna , stop doing that anytime soon, but, I want to also have income coming in where I'm not having to focus on it all the time
And for overwhelmed creatives like myself if you're listening right now and feeling overwhelmed, here's honestly what I'd recommend, a simple framework. One, choose one core offer direction first. Two, choose one main visibility platform, so whether that's Pinterest or YouTube, or if you decide and you wanna go all in on Instagram, that is your choice if it works for you.
Three, build one audience space you own. So email list is the perfect one to be choosing Or a community that you've built on your own website that you have ownership of basically. [00:21:00] Focus on repeatability and sustainability. Can you repeat the process or the workflow every time as it gets quicker and easier for you to do?
Like using templates and things like that
Like Delores's templates that she has in the Affinity Designer Template Club that she's got for making patterns, it's such a game changer. You still have to think about it a bit. Especially some of her, patterns, that she creates are on the iPad, whereas I only have a laptop.
I don't actually have an iPad, which still another goal of mine to get. Which would makes things so much easier, but they're expensive, and it's just not in my budget at the moment
But templates just save so much time. Can you create a template, or a workflow? Let's say you create a handmade product. How can you simplify the workflow or simplify the process and boil it down to the essential parts? I don't want you to just completely take creativity out of it, [00:22:00] but how can you - be able to repeat it so it's easy for you to do, and it's not a chore if you have to do it when you're not well
And you do not need 14 income streams. Most successful creatives actually build one core thing, then layer additional income streams slowly over time once they have their core income stream. So if it's handmade work, once you've got repeatable systems in place or you have a certain process that you can repeat over and over or that you can have someone help you do, then layer the additional streams slowly over time.
Can you add a recurring income stream with subscriptions or something? Can you add a teaching model to it where you teach, even if you're just putting up short video classes, tutorials on Skillshare, or you're doing YouTube videos and you're trying to monetize them? And honestly, I think the biggest thing I want [00:23:00] creatives to hear right now is this: You are allowed to build differently.
You are allowed to slow down, simplify, evolve, pivot , learn new tools, become more digital, or create less but more intentionally, or rebuild your creativity slowly because sustainable creativity looks very different from hustle culture
If this episode resonated with you, I'd genuinely love to hear what kind of creative business or income stream you're trying to build right now. And if you're looking for support with simplifying your offers or building more sustainable systems and creating a creative business that actually works with your life instead of against it, that's exactly what I'm focusing on inside the relaunch of the Spellweaver Creative Hub membership thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Creative Juggle Joy, and remember, you do not need to have everything figured out to move forward creatively. Sometimes the next step is simply [00:24:00] choosing one thing and giving yourself permission to build it slowly.
Until next time, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the
process.
