Card making supplies

bilbodreams

I'd like to start making cards to earn a bit of extra money. I'd like to save 1000 pounds ( a bit ambitious I know!:0) Never done anything similar before.Can anyone help? What is the cheapest way to start? Where to get supplies/ideas? Do you know of any particularly good website that supplies materials? Thanks

soolin

bilbodreams wrote: »

I'd like to start making cards to earn a bit of extra money. I'd like to save 1000 pounds ( a bit ambitious I know!:0) Never done anything similar before.Can anyone help? What is the cheapest way to start? Where to get supplies/ideas? Do you know of any particularly good website that supplies materials? Thanks

A good website for supplies is Aliexpress, stuff comes from China so can take a few weeks but is very cheap. Just be careful to keep all purchases small (under £15 to avoid import changes.

I doubt it will make you any money though, the craze for cards started up about 12 years ago and everybody did it, and now you can barely cover costs. The only people I know that make a few pennies in the pound are those that have persuaded a shop to take their goods and display them on the counter- but the one s I know about will require you to prove you are a properly registered business (which you would need to be anyway) before they are interested.

I donate craft material to an adult day centre and they do have arrangements to sell their stock which includes cards, but as a charity. Even then with all the base materials being donated by outside people they only make enough to put a few pounds each year into their Christmas meal kitty.

Try and find a USP (Unique selling point) rather than make generic cards.

If you are considering selling online then you can easily make a loss, just put this in an ebay search 'handmade card' and check completed listings, hundreds and hundreds unsold at £1 (or even 5 for £2) .

bilbodreams

Hi Soolin, thank you for your reply, food for thought, I definitely have to find my very own USP, it's early days for me yet.
I run a small business with my partner so I think this new adventure could be run under the same umbrella, I need to double check with the tax man .
I'll have a look at the website thank you

Wizzbang

I have to agree with Soolin, handmade cards are so passe now and everyone is doing it. I wold advise you need to find a niche business / gap in the market (not in card making) to make a success. In my experience, there are very few sellers who do well at craft fairs, most people just go to look for inspiration and make the things themselves at home.

droopsnoot

For me, there seems to be a gap in the market. For example when I go to a card shop to find a card for either parent, I have a choice of chocolate-boxy-schmaltzy stuff, or incredibly rude stuff, and very little in between. I've ended up buying National Geographic cards with great photos of sleeping lions or gorillas for events like Mothers Day, which I hope are taken the right way.


So I think there's an opportunity for decent cards that are somewhere in-between the usual high street offerings. The only trouble is that I'd really want them from a high-street shop because I want to buy them when I need them, not when a craft fair happens to be on. And I'm not sure anyone else has the same problems finding a suitable card that I have, so maybe the reason they aren't there is because there's only two of us that want them.

emg

I once went to a craft fair where a cardmaker was also selling little cardmaking kits alongside her handmade cards. The kits certainly seemed popular and I think the previous poster is right about lots of crafters go to the fairs for ideas rather than to buy things but most of them can't resist a chance to top up their supplies!

Glumtree

To sell them/make money best to keep the cards very basic.
Things like small decorative bunting designs made with thread across card / paper flowers / button designs etc
Also, blank cards, so they can be used for any occasion.

bilbodreams

Craft fairs is definitely sthg to think of, I know it's all been done before, ( many times over;0) I just need to try this, it'll be a great way of gaining experience, getting out there, if nothing else