Making a Sale: Success or Defeat?

Last week, I made my first doormat and I very excited to see that it turned out better than I could have hoped for. I gifted it to my friend and she was so excited to receive it and was shocked I had made it myself! However, the time has come to truly begin answering the question that has driven my genius hour: How can I use my Cricut to create projects that people would like to purchase?

Ever since I had purchased my Cricut, my friends and family have encouraged me to start making and selling items. Now that I have perfect a few different projects and I am confident in my skills, I had to begin thinking about how to promote my projects. I began this week by posting photos on Facebook Market Place and I also used CANVA to create some "ad-like" infographics to post on my instagram story. I also had to calculate the price I needed to charge for the mats and based on similar products I had seen and factoring in the $7 for the mat, approximately $3 worth of paint and few cents worth of freezer paper, as well as my time, I narrowed the price down to $25. Some mats go for more on Facebook Marketplace, but as a beginner I did not want to price myself out of getting any sales. I used the same method to determine prices for other items such as wine glasses and Starbucks cups. 

Here are some examples of the photos I used for Facebook Marketplace and Instagram: 

I am happy to report that on my first day of posting, I got an order for 2 mats. A friend of a friend wanted to gift 2 mats to her sister for her birthday. She requested that they be two different designs: one that included paws into the design to represent their love for dogs and that one mat included the family's last name. I got to work designing and these are the designs I came up with: 

The customer loved the designs and approved of my $25/mat cost. I got to work creating the mats and they turned out great once again. I did run into some hiccups such as wasting a sheet of freezer paper because I cut it too small for the size of the design, as well as the spray paint nozzle getting jammed. While these issues were frustrating, I took a little break and got back to work and ended up with another 2 mats that turned out great. Here is a photo of them in their new home:

The customer was over the moon and told us that she could not wait to order more mats in the future! I will say that these two mats took 1.5 hours and if I did not have time for my "genius hour" already scheduled, it may be difficult to work in time to make multiple projects. However, I cam so happy with how they turned out and I can't believe I made my first sale! Stay tuned for next week to see a couple new projects and my final thoughts as I wrap up my genius hour project!