Welcome back to Creative Juggle Joy!
Today’s episode is packed with everything you need to know about entering the world of greeting card design.
Whether you’re looking to create a side hustle or a full-time business, greeting cards offer a fantastic entry point for creatives.
It’s one of those areas where you can get started without needing huge investments in equipment or a massive portfolio.
Here’s What We Talk About in Today’s Episode:
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How to Get Started with Greeting Cards
Kaylie and I talk about how to begin creating greeting cards, and why it's important to define your niche early on. Are you focusing on birthday cards, sympathy cards, or cards for special causes like mental health awareness? Once you decide on your niche, sketch out ideas and refine them digitally using tools like Procreate, Affinity Designer, or even Photoshop. -
Current Trends in Greeting Cards
We discuss what’s popular in the greeting card world right now. Humorous cards are always in demand, but there’s also a growing market for inclusive designs and mental health messages. I share how hand-drawn or imperfect designs are super hot right now and why these styles work so well for greeting cards. -
Selling Your Greeting Cards
We talk about two primary ways to sell your cards: licensing your designs to companies or self-publishing them on print-on-demand platforms like Etsy, Zazzle, or Card Isle. With platforms like these, you can sell your designs without the need for upfront costs, stock, or shipping responsibilities. -
Student Success Stories
I’m so proud of my students who’ve transitioned into the greeting card business. Lisa Martin, KeriAnne Hohener, and Michelle are just a few who’ve found incredible success with their designs, thanks to the 5 in 5 Greeting Card Challenge. These artists didn’t start with a massive following—they just focused on consistently creating and refining their designs, and it paid off. -
The Importance of Good Photography
We also discuss how important product photography is when selling greeting cards. High-quality photos or mockups are essential for showcasing your designs professionally. I’ve seen a significant difference in sales when artists invest in good product imagery.
Want to Start Creating Your Own Greeting Cards?
If you’re excited to start designing greeting cards, I highly recommend joining my 5 in 5 Greeting Card Challenge. This challenge is a perfect entry point into the world of greeting cards.
Whether you’re brand new to designing or want to refine your skills, this challenge walks you through everything you need to get started—from sketching and digitizing your designs to getting your cards ready for sale.
And with the VIP upgrade, you’ll get access to bonus materials, replays, and tons of assets to use in your card designs!
Don’t wait to get started—join the 5 in 5 Greeting Card Challenge today and begin turning your creative ideas into beautiful greeting cards that sell.
Links & Resources:
TRANSCRIPT:
Kaylie Edwards (00:05)
Welcome back everyone. I'm Kaylie Edwards, joined by my amazing co-host Delores Naskrent And today we've got a really exciting episode all about greeting cards, a perfect intersection of creativity and entrepreneurship. Delores, you've worked with so many artists in this space. Why do you think the greeting card world is such a great entry point for creatives?
Delores Naskrent (00:28)
Greeting cards are amazing because they're achievable even for beginners. They combine illustration design and text to create small but super meaningful pieces of Plus they're a wonderful way to tap into specific audiences like holidays, celebrations, niche markets. It's a perfect way for creative to start because it allows you to be both artistic and entrepreneurial.
without needing a massive upfront investment. One of the things I love about greeting cards is that you don't need a big portfolio or years of experience to get started. Unlike other forms of illustration or surface design, you can create just a single successful greeting card and start selling almost immediately. I have seen artists build entire businesses off just a handful of well-designed cards.
And if you're worried about not having enough ideas, remember, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Successful artists create variations of their bestselling designs. I do it all the time. Whether it's just swapping out the sentiments or changing colors or moving things around or adapting for, you know, different occasions.
Kaylie Edwards (01:45)
absolutely you don't need a huge budget or fancy equipment to get started. So let's dive right in to what's the first thing someone should focus on if they want to create greeting cards.
Delores Naskrent (01:59)
think the first step is to focus on planning your themes and understanding your audience. For example, are you targeting wedding invitations? Are you funny birthday cards, sympathy cards, or even niche markets like mental health awareness or LGBTQ plus inclusivity? I think once you've defined that niche, it's time to just start sketching your ideas out. This is where you could really have some fun.
After that, consider digitizing your designs using tools like Procreate or Photoshop. For those of you starting out, don't overcomplicate it. Try to keep your designs simple, impactful, and emotionally resonant. People want cards that make them feel something.
Kaylie Edwards (02:51)
Yes, absolutely, and once you've got your ideas down on paper, it's time to get them ready for the digital world. So, Delores, are there any current trends in the greeting card market that we should keep an eye on?
Delores Naskrent (03:05)
Yeah, for sure. Humor is always in demand. So people love to laugh and there's always room for funny birthday or celebration cards. You know, when you see a new one that you haven't seen before, that's just so clever. It's just it's so fun. You know, I love I love shopping for cards like that. We're also seeing a rise in cards celebrating inclusivity and mental health awareness, you know, so just
Kaylie Edwards (03:25)
Yeah.
Delores Naskrent (03:34)
cards to help people feel better or affirmations those are really strong as well. Hand-drawn or imperfect designs are super popular at the moment so this is a great time to jump in if that's the kind of work that you like to do. People really like that personal sort of authentic touch almost like it's handmade. That's why we're also seeing a rise in the photo greeting card market.
That's just something that seems to be going crazy right now. I know artists who make tens of thousands of dollars on photo cards, especially during the Christmas season, but also for occasions like graduation. Recently, I've also been seeing a lot more about eco-friendly or sustainable cards as people are becoming a lot more conscious of their environmental impact. So if you're thinking about what kind of card to create,
These are just some of the trends to consider.
Kaylie Edwards (04:35)
I love that. The idea of creating cards that truly connect with people is so special. Another trend I'm seeing is an increase in interactive cards. Designs that include stickers, small keepsakes, or even QR codes that link to personalized video messages. Digital integration is becoming more common, which is something to consider if you want to stand out as well. Now, let's talk about what happens once you've created your designs.
So someone has their designs ready, what's next?
Delores Naskrent (05:07)
I think for the most part you have two main options at this, you know, at the beginning. You can either license your designs to a greeting card company or you can self publish them and sell them online. Licensing means you submit your designs to a publisher or greeting card company that is taking submissions. That's kind of the trick. It's finding the ones that are taking submissions and then they handle all the production and distribution and sometimes the marketing.
A good example of this kind of company accepting submissions is the leaning tree. And I don't know if you're familiar with leaning tree, but almost every store you walk into, even convenience stores or hobby shops, anything like that will have, even if they have no other cards in the store, they'll have that one spinning rack at the front of the store. And quite often it's leaning tree.
Kaylie Edwards (05:43)
No.
Delores Naskrent (06:00)
Now, another option, of course, is to sell on a platform like Etsy. You can use print on demand sites like Zazzle, Card Isle Greeting Cards, and Thortful. So they're all a little bit different in the way they operate. But these platforms are great for selling your designs without you having to worry about the stock or shipping them. I see this as a real entry level for greeting card designers just starting out.
If you're not sure whether to license or sell independently, you can just experiment and start with print on demand. So I would suggest platforms like Card Isle in the UK, Thortful and I'm not even sure where Zazzle is from, but it's a great one. I've done lots of good sales on Zazzle before. And the great thing about those is none of them require an upfront cost.
and they allow you to test your designs on the market, which I think is a really important phase of your development as a greeting card designer. Once you see what resonates with customers, you'll have a much stronger pitch when approaching licensing opportunities. So it's just a really great way to know what sells. I mean, if you upload a few hundred cards and there are a handful, 20 or 30, that sell all the time, that tells you something right there.
Kaylie Edwards (07:23)
Yeah.
Delores Naskrent (07:24)
Just remember if you're trying to retail these yourself that good photography is essential. So greeting cards are small items and you need to make sure that the product photography really stands out to capture attention. And I personally use a lot of mockups. I'm always on the lookout for new mockups for greeting cards. And I've just recently learned how to create mockups of my own so that I don't have to spend so much money on them.
Kaylie Edwards (07:53)
Yeah, that's one thing I ended up doing when I had an Etsy shop. I spent so much on mockups.
That's a fantastic point. Photography is everything. You really need to show off your designs in its best light. If you want to make your card stand out, using high quality mockups is key. It's what helps potential buyers visualize the final product. You can find customizable greeting card mockups on places like Etsy, Creative Market, even Delores's shop, which are specifically designed for card creators to showcase their work professionally.
Some print-on-demand sites automatically create mock-ups for you, so that's a good way to see what I mean. So, Delores, do you have any examples of artists who've successfully ventured into greeting card creation?
Delores Naskrent (08:48)
Definitely. I've worked with some amazing students like Lisa Martin, who's been creating and uploading cards to Card Isle for over a year now. She took part in my live challenge in the spring of 2024. And since then, she has sold hundreds of her cards. It's so amazing to see her work getting out there. It just makes me feel so proud. Now, another student I have, Kerriann Hohener
went from having zero digital art experience to building a thriving product line of cards and custom gifts. So she's another success story. And then there's Michelle who joined the challenge last year and within six months had sold over 1000 cards on Card Isle What I love to hear about her story is that she didn't have a huge following. She just focused on consistently uploading and refining her designs based on what she was selling.
It's incredible really to see how far some of these people have come. And it really shows that anyone can get started in this industry with the right tools and guidance.
Kaylie Edwards (09:56)
Yes, I love seeing your like student success stories like when we did the challenge last year and seeing them come back to the challenge again in the fall and they've had this success and they'd sold cards and they were like waiting for their payments and things to come through from Card Isle and I thought oh it's really cool that they didn't know anything about it at the start but then through the year they've gone and done it it's just it yeah I found it so inspiring to know
Delores Naskrent (10:00)
Mm-hmm.
Kaylie Edwards (10:26)
that this is possible for anyone willing to put in the work. If you're interested in taking your first steps into greeting card creation, I highly recommend joining Delores's five in five greeting cards challenge. It's live twice a year, spring and fall, but you can still sign up and go through the training any time of the year. It's a great way to get started with everything from sketching and creation to listing your cards for sale.
Delores Naskrent (10:36)
Thank you.
Kaylie Edwards (10:51)
Even if you've never created a card before, this challenge walks you through everything, designing in Procreate or Affinity Designer or using traditional methods, adding text elements, and even preparing your files for print-on-demand platforms or licensing. Plus, the VIP upgrade she has includes exclusive resources like card templates, hand-lettering sentiments, real-life success strategies from past students and special guest speakers who make six figures with their businesses.
Delores Naskrent (11:20)
Exactly. When you sign up for the 5 in 5 greeting card challenge, you get two weeks of access as a free participant of video training and access to loads of free resources. We've got them all piled in there. Plus, there is the VIP upgrade that gives you additional lifetime access to all the past challenges, I mean, and replays and bonus materials.
Kaylie Edwards (11:35)
You
Delores Naskrent (11:47)
And there's lots and lots of assets. I can't even, I bet you there's 100, two, 300 different assets for making greeting cards. And we did it in both Procreate and Affinity Designer just to really give people options. And it's just a great way to just get started, to build your greeting card business from scratch and just get a real feel for the whole process.
Kaylie Edwards (12:15)
Yes, it's such a helpful challenge for getting those ideas down and turning them into actual products. Before we finish up today, here are a few card theme ideas to spark your creativity. Celebration cards. So you have birthday, wedding, baby shower cards. Inspirational cards. Uplifting messages for mental health awareness or general positivity. Sympathy cards. Delores has quite a bit of success in this one.
This is a category of cards that is always in demand. It's obviously a not very nice category, but... ...that's just life and, yeah, sympathy cards do really well. Funny cards, always popular and they never go out of style. Seasonal cards, Christmas, Valentine's Day... the list is endless. Pet-themed cards, cards for pet lovers featuring cute animals or funny pet sayings.
Delores Naskrent (12:53)
If needed. Yeah.
Kaylie Edwards (13:12)
yeah there's just so much to get your head around.
Delores Naskrent (13:15)
Yeah, those are fantastic ideas to get you started. think about the occasions and holidays that come up. I know for myself, my biggest quarter of sales is always the quarter that has Mother's Day and Father's Day, but that isn't the same for everyone. So I've had students who report that Christmas is definitely their season. We'd love to see your greeting card designs, so don't forget to share them on social and tag us.
Kaylie Edwards (13:46)
thanks very much for tuning in today. We hope this episode sparked your creativity and gave you the confidence to start designing your own greeting cards. Don't forget to check out Delores's 5 in 5 greeting card challenge. It's the perfect way to get started. And if you're still on the fence, challenge yourself. Set a goal to design at least one card this week, even if you don't list it for sale yet. The more you create, the easier it becomes to refine your style and start turning your designs into an income stream.
Delores Naskrent (14:17)
Thanks again for listening and that's exactly what I would say is set your goal at just one per week. You could spend tons of time designing that one card. At the end of the year, you'll have 52 cards uploaded. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes of this podcast and don't forget to share this with someone who could use some greeting card inspiration. Until next time, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.