We continue to build our every-growing list of Over 100 Ways to Earn Extra Income. One of our questions to you was to share with us any business ideas you believe should be on the list. Not only do we have a new business idea to share with you and add to our list, but even more a success story how a wife and mother quit her corporate job of nine years to come home and enjoy her passion – calligraphy!
About seven years ago, Jennifer started her calligraphy studio, Graceful Expressions. She knew even from a young age that she had a love of writing and always loved art classes and well, everything art! What is amazing is she was able to take her hobby and transform it into her own business.
So you may be asking what a calligrapher does. Our answer from everything we have ever seen is a person that creates visual art. Jennifer mentions that she is able to make a sizable income on home addressing wedding invitations, place cards, and even corporate work. You can get an idea of what a calligrapher does by exploring her amazing gallery samples. And like every business opportunity its great to think outside the box. She also provides marriage proposals, Bible inscriptions, specialty items and more!
Are you interested in art? Do you have beautiful handwriting? Are you just one of those artistic types that love expressing yourself creatively? This could definitely be an option for you. Jennifer mentions she is self-taught and has never taken a professional course in her life. But you can tell from her gallery, her story and her site as a whole that she loves what she does. From attending a bridal show just seven years ago and displaying some of her work, her business grew from one client into many, one envelope turned into thousands and she is still loving every minute!
Don’t think you need to spend thousands of dollars to get started in this business. Jennifer mentions she was able to get started for under $100. She runs her own website and when she is doing the projects the client supplies the items so there is no need to purchase products beforehand other than her ink which lasts forever! She also mentions that she participates in several bridal shows per year which takes care of her business. Even now she has already booked many brides for 2012!
We love her success story. If you have the time, we really encourage you to read her full story she shares on her website. She didn’t think initially that her love and true passion would produce an income but through persistence, gaining experience and even overcoming adversity she has been able to just this past week quit her full-time position and pursue her passion – and not only that but also bringing in just as much income as she did originally. This has also allowed her to be a full-time mom and taking her two year old son out of day care which means another cut in expenses in her family’s budget. Her little guy sits next to her as she reads aloud the addresses and cities, states, and zip codes and colors! What a great teaching resource!
But remember the purpose of this post is to give you ideas how to make some extra income to meet your every financial goal! We are not trying to insinuate that you need to quit your full-time job but rather encouraging possible ideas how you can take your calligraphy hobby (you can expand this and apply to any hobby as well) and turn it into even a part time additional income.
Here’s some resources (some free) that could be of benefit to you if you’re trying to learn more about calligraphy:
- Check out other businesses to gain ideas on the types of products they offer
- Search online for free resources! We found many sites and youtube videos demonstrating and teaching the art of Calligraphy.
- Find books that will help you hone your skills. We found Learn Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering and Design as one such book that could really be a valuable resource! As you read through you online resources be watching for other books they recommend.
- Just do it! If you remember, we mentioned Jennifer taught herself. The more she practiced and just did the more experience she gained and added to her skillset. Please don’t get me wrong, there is a place for formalized training. But it seems we have been so ingrained of its necessity that we forget that many trades and skills can be developed by passion and practice put into motion!
We would love to continue hearing more from you all with similar stories you might have of hobbies that you have turned into extra income for you and your family. Please contact us and let us know what other success stories (and even stories lacking success to help us learn from your well-earned bruises) so we can build our ideas on how to maximize your opportunities for earning extra income to meet all of your family’s financial goals!
See our previous post Ways to Earn Extra Income: Over 100 and Counting. We would love for you to make suggestions to help us continue expanding our ever growing list of ways to make money to help your every financial goal!
Connie Lipa
I am a retired art teacher and oil painter. I have always had good hand-writing. Won an award in 1st grade!
My friend has a vintage clothing boutique in the small town we live in, outside of Chicago and she does wedding invitations.
Would it be best to tell her that I would like to start a calligraphy biz, also, or just do it and not advertise online too widely.
She is not that close of a friend, but I still don’t want to upset her.
rajni
hello,
i am a homemaker and an educated and experienced person. i have a great passion in beautiful handwriting with a great flow and styles, wud like to start my own calligraphy studio, how can i get business to start with, pls advcie..is there any website where we can have seekers who need writers..pls advcie..
than n rgds
Cheryl
don’t want to be a stick in the mud. I love calligraphy and used to do a lot of it. When the kids were young I did calligraphy on certificates, for free, for the music school they went to – hundreds a year. When we moved to another city, they found someone who just did it all on the computer and everybody said they couldn’t tell the difference. Kind of a bummer! So I suspect the market for hand written calligraphy may not be what it once was.
elle
Calligraphy learn has links to porn sites!
Cassie
ACK! I just checked it too. I wonder if their site was hacked as they are not very active on it. I’ve deleted the link and will let them know! Thank you for letting us know!
Olivia
Now everyone has the opportunity to open their own business, but alas, not everyone wants to be responsible for the quality of their services. In the field of financial services, the consumer is waiting for many more tricky questions, disputes and conflict situations than in any other field of service provision. Often, the consumer is not provided with complete, accessible and timely information about the services, they impose additional services or artificially restrict the consumer in choosing the performer of a particular service. Companies like PissedConsumer help protect themselves from such situations
Kelly
The idea of turning a hobby into a stable source of income is very popular. After all, if you do what you like, you will definitely come to success. The main thing is to do it competently and correctly prioritize. Systems such as – https://www.akveo.com/templates/insights-delivery-dashboard, quickly manage delivery and process up to 100% of orders on time.
Polly
Marketing methods of product promotion are extremely important for all types of businesses – both online and offline. If the campaign is successful, more customers will be attracted to the company. They will spend money on its products and services, continue reading about handling bad reviews here. The most important step is to choose the online platforms that you will focus on in your campaign.
Veronika
Starting a business of this kind during a pandemic is quite risky. It seems to me that more relevant solutions, such as the production of health supplements, will be more in demand and successful. In addition, in this case, it is much easier to take care of development by cooperating with private label supplement manufacturers
David
There are many good ideas to help you make money. In addition, you can already at the start understand whether your project will be successful in the future. I recommend you read more about it here https://deepinspire.com/discovery-phase .
Ada
As in almost every business, it is important to think ahead and automate your business processes. This will help you work more efficiently and be ready for a lot of work and clients. My company began to use the document automation platform https://axdraft.com/ and began to work more efficiently
Adam
Thanks for your advice. I just decided to scale the business and cover new countries. For this, I am preparing a team, and I even use arabic lessons for business, since one of the countries will be Arabic. I think this will help to better prepare all processes and open new branches faster and more efficiently
Adam Miller
This is a good solution, I think the easiest thing you can do is to create a website or a web product that will help you achieve what you need. Also, you can hire react js developer to help you