Happy New Year’s Eve! As promised, I’m giving away 7 free cut files to ring in 2018. Today’s free cut file is Let Your Faith Be Bigger Than Your Fears.
The Long Road To The Etsy Shop
I have been creating graphics now for about 10 years. Back then, I was working on my website which I had for my candle supply business. I had been paying a web designer to do my graphics and my coding. Money got tight so I thought I could give it a try on my own. I needed a small edit on a graphic. So I opened the Paint program on my Windows computer and gave it a try. I sent it to my friend Leah of Digi Web Studio for her to check out.
Leah had been drawing clipart and designing graphics since the early 90’s so she was my resident expert. When she got it, she sent an email back to tell me I had done it correctly and then she said, “See?? You CAN do graphics.” I was hooked.
I started creating web graphics and then eventually websites for clients (I got tired of paying for my own coding so I learned how to do that, too). Most of my customers were people who sold clipart and printables. I started working with clipart and then creating digital scrap kits. And that eventually lead to creating cut files.
Leah kept encouraging me to open an Etsy shop, but I was afraid. My main fear was rejection. What if no one bought my stuff? What if it isn’t good enough?
So I took the “leap” -it only took me a year to finally do it- and opened the Etsy store. I put TWO files up for sale. That was mid-August. I didn’t bother to set a notification on my phone that would alert me when I got a sale because you know, I probably wasn’t going to sell any, anyway. About mid-September, I thought I should check and see my traffic stats. Imagine how shocked I was that I sold THREE files! In a month! I know $9 in sales doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider how big Etsy is and how hard it is to get noticed, it was pretty amazing.
Let Your Faith Be Bigger Than Your Fears
I took it as a sign from God to get moving and start adding all of those files I had been sitting on for a year. I added more files and I waited.
And guess what happened? With a minimal number of files (less than 40) and with no extra advertising, I sold more the next month and the month after that….and the month after that. And here we are four months later and I sold enough to pay for Christmas this year. (We don’t have extravagant Christmases around here, but I still appreciated the extra money.)
What would have happened if I would have allowed fear to win?
I would have never moved and been too afraid to follow my passion. I would have stayed stuck all the while looking at the hundreds of cut files I’d created. What a waste of time and resources that would have been!
You just have to take that first step in the journey. Let that step be in faith and let your faith be bigger than your fears!
So Why Do I Give Files Away For Free?
If I’m able to sell my cut files for a profit on Etsy, why would I give my files away for free?
- As I told you earlier, I do enjoy creating free cut files for you. I mentioned how I was in a depression after the death of my husband and crafting helped to pull me out that slump. Creating gives me purpose. I found joy in creating again. I believe getting in touch with your creative side can help put you on the road to happiness. It’s probably pretty cheap therapy minus the cost of all of those crafting supplies and tools. 😉
- I also have a lot of files! I’d probably spent two years learning and creating cut files before I started to sell them. As you can imagine, I have quite a collection. To be totally honest, uploading files to Etsy is t-e-d-i-o-u-s. I don’t mind busy work, but it’s much more fun to upload files here to the Resource Library knowing that I can give you something that helps you get in touch with your creative side! And the results are usually instant! I see you folks visiting my library to download the files. A crafter can only dream of getting such a response on Etsy.
- I’m building a tribe! You can never have too many friends and especially friends who “get’ what you’re doing. I don’t have a ton of crafty friends and when I explain blogging, creating cutting files or whatever craft project I’m working on, I get a lot of “Oh, that’s nice.” We all want to be understood! So keeping this in mind, I created a Facebook group for all of you Happy Crafters who would like to discuss your latest crafting project, ask some questions in a friendly environment, and pick up a few flash freebies I offer. I’d also love a space where you can all share the projects you’ve made with my files and even those projects made without my files! You can head over to my Happy Crafters Facebook group and request membership HERE.
How Do You Get This Free Cut File?
You just have to sign up for the password to my Free Resource Library. This blog is really only about a month old and for the entire month, I’ve been growing that library for you to use whenever you’d like. There are lots of free files in there and the list is growing weekly! It’s a great resource. You don’t want to miss out!
What will you do to Craft Your Happy, today?
If you like this cut file, would you consider pinning it to your Pinterest board?
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