Homeschooler Unleashes Creativity with Penmanship Posters

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Penmanship is the art or skill of writing by hand. And depending on where you are in the world, you may have learned to write cursive when you were in elementary school. And depending on how old you are, it was either absolutely essential, one of those things that was completely hammered in, or just one of many skills to work on. There's been different emphasis placed on it at different times, and as I said, in different parts of the world. As I was working on this episode, I went to do some reading about it.

And these days, there's actually some debate on whether it's critical for kids to learn to write in cursive or not. One study in the French language found that it doesn't actually improve speed or comprehension, but of course, plenty of other people still appreciate and enjoy it. So what does this have to do with today's story? Well, while homeschooling her twin daughters, the genetic analyst I'll tell you about goes in search of penmanship aids. And disappointed in what she finds, she ends up making her own.

I'll also offer some comments on why it might be helpful to offer a print option of a digital download. So if you have a digital download of something that is selling actively, you might wanna figure out how to offer a print option as well, even though of course that adds some complexity. But we're gonna talk about all of that. Homeschooler unleashes creativity with penmanship posters. That's the story.

It's coming up after this message from our sponsor. [Music]

Melissa Payton has loved fonts and design ever since she was a teenager. In high school and in college, she was the go-to person for designing flyers for different clubs and organizations. After she graduated, she got a job working as a front desk agent and over time worked her way up to become the online marketing manager. Melissa learned how to use Photoshop and eventually started making custom cards and invitations for coworkers.

While she enjoyed that job, once she had twins, she knew she needed to do something different. She quit her job in marketing and went back to work as a genetic results analyst. Critical fact, she could do this new job from home. The new job was a good fit and she liked the company she worked for. The only downfall was that she didn't get to be as creative as she was in her previous marketing career.

So she needed a project, a new one to unleash her creativity. Melissa started an Etsy shop called Honey Limeco in July of 2018. Using her skills from designing flyers, she created a few art prints. Customers could download them for just a few dollars. At that point, she didn't really have a plan.

It was just a good way to experiment. That same year, Melissa started homeschooling her twins who were now five years old. She looked for a writing sign to help her kids learn cursive. You know, that's that penmanship thing, writing cursive. Unfortunately, she couldn't find any she liked.

All the ones she found were bright and colorful and she wanted something more minimal. So she decided to make one herself. Her first chart was for cursive handwriting and she made it with three background options. All white, a black chalkboard and a green chalkboard. They were more minimalistic and aesthetically pleasing than all the others she could find.

With the encouragement of one of her friends, she decided to list them on her Etsy shop. Then she started to add more products like multiplication tables. And at her sister's request, a print writing chart. Turns out her sister hates cursive and wasn't going to make her kids do it. It also turned out that that sister was onto something because the print chart sold very well.

As time went on and Melissa continued to build out her shop, she started getting requests to offer print posters instead of just those digital downloads. So in January 2019, she got all of her listings to be printed and shipped by a print on demand company. This was a very inexpensive model because the only costs were Etsy's listing fees. Right now that fee is about 20 cents for every item listed. Melissa also had to pay the printer to create the posters, but she only had to do that when she made a sale.

Melissa also saved money by using the Affinity programs to create her designs rather than purchasing Adobe Creative Cloud. Now Adobe has great software of course, but it doesn't come cheap. In this case, she already owned the Affinity programs, but even if she purchased them, they're available for a one-time fee of just $50 each. Since then, Melissa has expanded her product line to include close to 30 different designs, including translations for Spanish, French, and even Greek. She also takes custom orders.

And most of the time, she's then able to add the custom order to her store as a general offering for anyone else later on. Most of those products for sale cost about $20. In 2019, when she was expanding her line, she made $9,200. Then in 2020, she's seen a big boost in her sales. With the increase in learning from home due to, well, you guessed it, once again, COVID-19, more people were looking to purchase Melissa's products.

By June of 2020, in fact, she'd already surpassed $10,000 in revenue. With the extra money, she's been able to buy even more homeschooling supplies for her twins, as well as pay off last year's taxes. Not only that, but Melissa's husband works for a large hospitality company. And as such, she's been on extended furlough. Melissa's regular job and her posters are paying the bills.

As time goes on, she hopes to build out her own e-commerce website to use alongside Etsy. She also plans to keep adding posters and other products like homeschool themed mugs and shirts to her store. [Music]

Now, why might it be important to offer that print option in addition to the digital download? Because if somebody can just download something, wouldn't they want to do that and not pay presumably quite a bit more for the actual poster? And to answer that, I went to look at Melissa's Etsy shop, which is really nice.

It's called Honey Lime Co. So if you're on Etsy, you can just search for that, but you can also go to honeylimeco.com and it will redirect you. And the shop looks really great. I mean, Melissa's done a really good job with this. There's a discount code at the top, like right with the welcome message.

It's like, welcome to Honey Lime Co. Here's a discount code for 10% off when you buy three or more posters. So it's like everybody can get that discount, but you have to buy three or more posters. She also has a notice about, you know, how long shipping times are taking and such, and then lots and lots of good reviews, which of course is wonderful. Now the posters that she's making, they look great.

And for me, I would always buy the poster. I would not buy a digital download because, you know, I want it to be printed well. And I've got a decent printer, but it's not going to print something really large. It's not gonna print it with really great quality. So I totally understand why people would want that.

And of course you could still offer the digital option for those who prefer. But I think if you have any kind of traction on Etsy or, you know, something similar, if you are selling the digital options, you should definitely consider having a print option as well. I think that's just better in lots of ways. So great project. Congratulations, Melissa.

Keep up the good work. I will leave you with that today, listeners. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to the Etsy shop, anything else I talked about in this episode, will be at sidehustleschool.com/1366. That's 1,366.

I'll be back tomorrow and I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.