Learn how to make a custom page for your business Instagram by following this easy link in bio tutorial. Canva tutorial for beginners.
With most social media accounts we only get space for one link to take our customers where they need to go. A way people have gotten around this is by creating a page with lots of links through a third party like Linktree.
The only problem with that is it’s very cookie cutter and not customizable to be specifically branded for your business.
In today’s tutorial I’m going to show you exactly how to make a custom, branded page that you can link in your bio’s on social media. Best of all, this is going to be absolutely free and won’t cost you a thing!
We are going to be using Canva ! I use Canva for every graphic design aspect of my business.
I use it to create business cards, printables, Etsy Photos, and newsletter photos. I highly recommend it to any business owner!
I pay annually for the pro version and will continue to pay for it for the life of my business. I consider Canva Pro my secret weapon for my business.
You do not need a Canva pro account to follow along with this link in bio tutorial.
Love video tutorials? Catch the detailed video tutorial of the process below!
Let’s go over how to create your site on Canva! I will take you step-by-step, sharing screenshots from Canva so you can follow along.
DIY Link In Bio Tutorial
Go to Canva.com and sign in or set up an account if you don’t have one already. I recommend doing this on Canva.com instead of inside the app.
Once you are logged in, click the search bar under “What will you design” and search the phrase “Bio Link”.
This page will pop up!
The templates with the small gold crowns on the bottom right corner are for Canva pro only, but don’t worry there are good free templates!
Scroll through all the options and try finding one that is closest to your style and aesthetic, that way you will have less customizing to do in the next steps.
Once you find the one you would like to use, click it and you will be taken to a page that looks like this-
Here is where we can customize it, change colors, add photos, all that fun stuff!
First change is the photo. You will want to use the same photo you use as your Instagram Profile Photo.
To upload a photo, on the left-hand side you will see a menu. 3rd option down is “uploads”. Click Uploads, and it will take you to this screen. Click the purple “Upload Files” button to add your photo.
Once your photo is uploaded, you will click the image and drag it over to your template where you want to place your photo. (In this template it is the circle at the top) The image should appear in the section you drag it to.
Next, we are going to change the wording under the photo and the “buttons”. They can say whatever you want!
Click on the textbox and erase the words that are there and write in what you want it to say.
Once your wording is changed to what you would like, let’s add some icons to the bottom to share your other social media platforms.
To add icons we are going to click the “elements” tab on the left-hand side (same area you found “uploads”)
Use the search bar and type “Facebook”.
If there is a little crown that means those photos are only for Canva pro users. If there is no crown, you are free to use the image!
Click on the one you want to use, and it will appear on your template. You can click the icon and drag it to the area you want, and you can also click to resize it to make it bigger, or smaller.
Repeat this for all the platforms you are on, like Tiktok, Youtube, etc. Search them under elements, and add the logo to the bottom of your template.
Once you have all your logos on the bottom, we want to line them up evenly.
To do that, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, and click on each logo. Then go to “Positions” in the upper right-hand corner and select “horizontally”. Then drag the group of logos to the center of the page. (You will get a red line once you are in the middle)
Next up in this link in bio tutorial… customization!
If you click on the “Style” button on the left-hand side menu, this is where you can find brand colors and fonts! (This is a Pro feature.)
If you have your brand colors and fonts already set up, you can click on them and it will change the colors on the template to your brand colors. You can keep clicking to shuffle through the color combinations.
If you do not have Canva Pro and want to change the color of things, no worries you can still do that! Click on the area/element you want to change the color of, go to the little square box toward the upper left corner and your color options will pop up.
Here we have the gray circle around the photo selected. You can change it to whatever color you want!
If you want to remove things in the background, like in this template it has little leaves, you select the section and hit backspace/delete.
You can also add things to be in the background. If you go back to the “elements” menu, you can search for anything. I like to use little dots and hexagons.
Once you start adding elements to the background, you might run into an issue where your element is covering/on top of your words.
To push the element to the background you can click “position” in the upper right corner and click “backward”.
If you want the element to be a little faded or transparent you can click the checkered square right next to the “position” tab to change the transparency of your element.
Play around with the colors, fonts, and elements until it looks how you would like!
Once you have everything how you would like it, we are going to add links your items!
To add a link to the buttons we made, click the first one. (Mine is “Shop”) Go to the little chain link icon in the upper right corner next to the transparency tab. Enter your link there, hit enter.
Your text is now linked!
Repeat that for all the buttons you created, adding a link to each one.
You can also add links to those social media icons we added to the bottom!
Click on the icon, and add your link to that platform. Make sure it’s your specific URL profile, so when people click on that icon it will go directly to your page.
Last thing we want to do before adding this to our “link in bio” section, is change the name of this file on Canva.
You can find the title of it in the blue/purple bar at the top of the page, near the right corner. I changed mine to “A Crafty Concept Bio Link”. We want to do this because when people click our link in bio, they will be able to see the title of this page.
Now to turn this into a website!
Click the share button in the upper right-hand corner.
Select “more”. Click “website”.
Use the dropdown menu to select “scrolling”.
Click the purple “Open Website” button, to see how it will look and work!
Test out the buttons and make sure they go to the correct link!
Now all you have to do is copy the URL, and paste it wherever you want to share this. Add it to your Instagram, Tiktok, etc.
There are so MANY ways to customize these, so spend some time playing around on Canva and see what you can come up with!
Learn all the fun things you can add and change. You can really make these your own and make them stand out!
I hope you all found this link in bio tutorial helpful! If you have questions, never hesitate to reach out!
A business podcast just for crochet business owners where we learn how to grow your crochet business and set it up for success!
Press play to listen to episode 8!
Inside this Episode
Below is a breakdown of each section in this episode. Feel free to skip ahead to the parts that interest you most. Each section has the timestamp beside it so you know exactly when the subject starts and ends.
Welcome [0:00- 0:07]
How do you keep track of all your expenses or income for the year? [0:08- 8:07]
What to do when you are burnt out, just had surgery and can’t crochet [8:08- 16:29]
How did you transition to your personal Instagram to your business one? [16:30- 19:16]
If you were to do a craft fair, how much merch should you make a sell? [19:17- 24:06]
It’s so hard to narrow down your product selection when it is so fun to make different things. How do you slim down your product selection? [24:07- 26:49]
Do you recommend having a website for your business? [26:50-36:11]
Happy Tuesday!! Hello, hello, and welcome back to another Tuesday Talks!
How do you keep track of all your expenses or income for the year?
Very good question! My first piece of advice is- have an Etsy shop. Etsy will keep track of all of your income in one spot.
If you do not have an Etsy shop and you sell handmade things and you do not have your own website I would highly suggest opening an Etsy shop. I have a 3 part video series of Youtube showing step by step how to set up an Etsy shop ( you can find that here!) This video also has my 40 free listings in it, so you can start listing things in your shop and it will cost you zero dollars!
Having an Etsy organizes all your income because everything is in one spot. If you have an Etsy shop but you are taking orders from text messages, social media messages, and comments, and you are taking orders from all these different areas but you have an Etsy shop- my best advice is to start funneling everyone over to your Etsy shop!
If you get a text like “Hey sister, I hear that you make these cute crochet hats! Can I buy one in blue?” you will say yeah absolutely, here is a link to the blue hat in my Etsy shop, just go ahead and place your order there so I can stay organized.
If they ask to pay cash, you can say sorry I have to keep all my orders in the same spot to help me stay organized and for tax purposes. If you say for tax purposes, they don’t want to mess with that! I haven’t had any issues with this method.
I have had people say they don’t want to pay for shipping because they are local and would rather pick it up. I tell those people they can do that, just use the code “local pick up” during checkout and it will take off the shipping cost. I created a coupon code within Etsy that will take off the cost of shipping when locals use that code.
I highly recommend starting funneling everyone to your Etsy shop. Just start today! Even if you have to make a custom order, ask the customer to send you a message on Etsy so that you can create them a custom listing. You can create a custom listing from a conversation within Etsy and you won’t get charged the .20 cent listing fee UNTIL they pay for it and the listings are private which is awesome!
In the conversation area in Etsy, there will be a button that says “make a custom order” you build their order right there within the conversation, you type in exactly what it is that they are getting just like you would if it was a brand new listing. What size, color, etc. Put the total and hit submit. Then they can buy it straight from there. Etsy will send them a notification once you finished creating their custom listing.
So send them all through Etsy if you are not doing that already! If you have your own shop, send everyone through your own shop.
Other than that, for expenses, I download my monthly bank statements (digitally) save them on my computer. I use numbers (excel) and add all my expenses. Then I highlight the entire spreadsheet and go to format at the top of the screen and then select “conditional highlighting”.
Select the “text” option and type the word “hobby lobby” (or whatever store you shop at for your business) and set it to turn all those to turn green.
So any text in your spreadsheet that says that store name you typed in will be highlighted green. I am pretty sure any techy things can be written off as a business expense, like computers, headphones, etc.
Or you can go through every week/month and manually highlight all your business expenses and then total them up.
I highly suggest having a tax guy!
Other things you can do- open a new business account at your bank and only use that account for business things. Get a credit card like Discover and put all your business expenses on that. That is what I have been doing this year in 2021 is putting all my business expenses on my credit card, especially all the recurring charges. Reasons I do this is 1, you will get a little percentage back for each purchase and 2, everything is in one place.
Those are my best tips for staying organized financially.
What to do when you are burnt out, just had surgery and can’t crochet
To me, these sound like two different questions. When it comes to being burnt out, I mean everyone goes through it.
I have been going through it recently because of the move, and because people have been going outside and enjoying themselves (which is great!) social media algorithms have been weird and I haven’t been getting a lot of interaction, so it’s been hard to keep putting a lot of work into posting.
It’s springtime, almost summertime. This is the slowest time of the year for a lot of businesses. So it’s really hard not to feel burnt out right now, and when you are getting very little interaction coming back at you. So I totally understand where you are coming from.
Here are my tips:
Listen to a podcast that pumps you up, inspires you, encourages you!
Be aware of what you are putting into your body. Whether that is through the things you see, hear, or eat! Whatever you put into your body will affect you in different ways.
So if you are listening to horrible things on a regular basis that is going to seep into you as a person and it’s going to affect you emotionally and mentally.
Do not surround yourself with people who are always complaining.
If you are seeing or listening to people complain on a regular basis that will seep into you. It is like poison. Be around people, or follow people online that encourage you, uplift you, and inspire you!
Make sure you are putting good in, and you will get good out! That is how it works! If you eat good healthy food you feel good. If you eat junk food, you feel like junk. Same goes for the things you put into your ears and eyes.
Another thing- drink plenty of water, and move every day! Doesn’t matter if you go for a walk, dance, doing Zumba, whatever.
Now if you aren’t able to crochet, maybe now is a great time to pick up a different hobby! A hobby to do for fun, not for business. Maybe you can do needlepoint, or get an Addi machine and do knit beanies. Take advantage of this time, because it’s not time that you would normally have.
Give your body time to rest, especially if you just had surgery. Give your body time to rest and to heal. Enjoy this time, and this gives you an excuse to try something new 😉
How did you transition from your personal Instagram to your business one?
I was recently going through my Instagram and looking at my old posts, I got lost in looking at little baby Ava! There are a lot of pictures of Ava on there!
But if you want to start transitioning from a personal page to a business page you can change your account in your Instagram setting to a “business account”. Do your research on this, see what you prefer.
I am a business account but Jasmin Star does not have a business account.
Business accounts on Instagram get analytics and a swipe up at 10k, so I like being a business account but you are going to want to do your own research.
Another thing you want to start doing is talking directly to your ideal customer in your posts. That is going to let your audience know that things are changing. Once you do this, you will lose followers but that is OKAY!
Just last week I lost a ton of followers, and some of those were bot accounts but that was okay because if those people that left aren’t getting value from my content so there is no reason for them to follow me because they are clearly not my ideal customer.
Having your account full of followers that don’t engage with your content because you are not serving them is not good for your account.
If you were to do a craft fair, how much merch should you make a sell?
If you are trying to build a business, you want everything in your booth to serve your ideal customer. Think of the craft fair as a way to find your ideal customer and turn them into a true fan of your business and brand.
If I had a booth set up just for boho baby girl things and I sold 10 different products of boho baby girl things- when my ideal customer walks by my booth she is going to stop and say “oh dang this is where I belong!” or when a friend of my ideal customer walks by my booth they will say “OO so, and so needs that! I have to buy that for her”. They are going to know immediately who I serve through my products.
When you go to a store like Target or Walmart, you see a rack of clothes. One shirt in 5 different colors in all the different sizes, right. You don’t see one shirt in every color possible.
So I would suggest picking 10 maximum colors for your products. You don’t want to have too many choices because that will overwhelm people. So my advice would be a few color options and multiples in each color like 2 or 3 for each color. You can always make extras of your most popular colors!
If you are NOT trying to build a business and you just enjoy crocheting do whatever you want to do 😉 Whatever brings you joy I say go for it! This info is for people trying to grow their crochet businesses!
It’s so hard to narrow down your product selection when it is so fun to make different things. How do you slim down your product selection?
Yes, it is! Especially for creatives, because we like to make all of the things!
The best thing to do is write down all the things you like to make, and for each item write what person that item would serve and then write down why it would serve them.
My list would be Bitty Boho bibs, Rainbow Rattles, Mommy and Me Hats, Bitty Boho Bags.
I have the hats because my ideal customer loves to match with her daughter. So that is how I am serving her with this product, I keep them warm while letting them match! The colors that I offer are for boho-loving folks so the hats are going to match their clothes.
My bitty Boho bibs are made with 100% cotton and come in those same colors that I know my ideal customer likes. The bibs are cute so they will match her daughter’s outfits!
So those are some examples of how my products are serving my ideal customer. You want one product line that will serve one person really well.
Do you recommend having a website for your business?
I do recommend having a website if it is in your business plan to have one.
If you have no desire to have a website, I say don’t do it.
If you are in a position in your business or personal life where you have time to build and work on a website, I think it’s awesome!
I think any business can have a blog and it be successful. I think you can serve your ideal customer through a blog, and I think it’s a great tool!
If you want to build your own website and put your own e-commerce on there, I say go for it. I always suggest starting on Etsy just because it’s easier. I will always be on Etsy as a handmade seller, even if Wild Grace takes off and I build my own website and I am getting lots of sales there too I would still get sales from Etsy.
Etsy has a search platform, it has millions of users on there every single day! So our ideal customer is already hanging out over there! It’s like Google for people who like to buy handmade things.
If you see that you are directing over 50% of your traffic to your Etsy shop, that tells me you have enough of an audience to open your own shop and start paying less in fees.
For a Shopify account, it’s like $40 a month no matter how many sales you get it will always be $40 plus any transaction fees. With Etsy, you don’t pay anything until you make a sale. You will have to pay a listing fee of .20 cents once you use up your free 40 listings.
I would say you can have your own website and pay less in overall fees once you build your audience. If you are just starting out, build on Etsy then migrate to your own shop once things get going for you.
Etsy also has something called “Pattern sites” not to be confused with crochet patterns, but you can pay $15 a month where you do NOT have to pay the .20 cent listing fee or the 5% Etsy fee, you would just pay the monthly $15 and the transaction fees.
I have a pattern site and everything that I promote I link to that site because it’s cheaper for me to sell on the pattern site than my Etsy shop.
I still get a lot of sales through my Etsy shop because people go to etsy.com and search and search my business name but I also get a lot of strangers who come across my patterns while they are searching something like “crochet stocking”. This is why I will always use Etsy! You will have to stay organized because you will have to check your orders from both Etsy and the Pattern site.
If you have a website, I would highly suggest adding a blog section to that because can serve your ideal customers through a blog! You can include links, videos, and pictures! Blogs are awesome and once you start building up your audience on your blog you can start making money through ads! I make most of my money through ads on my blog!
This is my best example, I know you might be tired of hearing it- but say you sell crochet baskets. You can make a blog post titled “10 ways to decorate your home with baskets” then you take pictures of your crochet baskets doing 10 different things.
In this post you are going to link to your basket so they can buy your baskets, and if you have ads you will make money just from people reading your post. It’s really good to have money coming in from the background while you are still selling your stuff.
Blogs do take a lot of time. Especially at the beginning to build it. To upkeep it, I would post something at least once a week. If you enjoy writing a blog is for you, if you enjoy reading a blog is for you.
I don’t enjoy either of those things but I do enjoy teaching people how to crochet and teaching people how to build businesses- so that Is what my blog is for 🙂
Make sure your blog is set up to serve your ideal customer, and that will lead to more sales in your shop.
Thank you for hanging out! See you in the next Tuesday Talk!
You’ve created an email list for your crochet business buthow do you get people to sign up?
Welcome to part 3 of my Email Mini-Series where I discuss all things relating to using an email list for your crochet business!
If you missed part one and part two of the series, I discussed why I believe having an email strategy is crucial in having a successful crochet business and what email provider is best for beginners.
In this post, I am going to answer that burning question “but how do I get people to sign up to my email list?” I have a handful of tips and ideas you can implement in your email strategy today.
Aright y’all, let’s dive into part three!
If you prefer to listen to the YouTube video that corresponds to this blog post, you can give this short video a listen.
So, how do I get them to give me their email?
Let’s be real, people can be so finicky with their emails! No one wants an inbox full of junk mail.
This is why you need to keep your ideal customer in mind with what you offer!
A helpful tool is to use lead magnets to attract your customers to sign up for your email list.
A lead magnet is something like “sign up and I will give you XYZ.” Lead magnets can be coupon codes, freebies, printables, etc.
Mailchimp makes this easy to do! You can even use Mailchimp’s tools to check how many times your lead magnet is being utilized.
Coupon codes are great to offer if you sell finished products. For example, you can offer 10% off for signing up to your email list. The customer receives something of value and you’ll be able to continue your communication with them in a new way other than social media.
I offer a PDF adoption certificate freebie as an incentive to sign up for my email list for both the Ava Bunny and Mia Moo Moo Cow patterns.
Click below to see what a landing page looks like!
You’ve decided an email list is essential to your crochet business but who is the best email provider for beginners?
Welcome to part 2 my new Email Mini-Series where I discuss all things relating to using an email list for your crochet business!
If you missed part one of the series, I discussed why I believe having an email strategy is crucial in having a successful crochet business or any business.
For part 2, I am going to talk about the email provider I use for my business including all the things I like and some of the things that aren’t my favorite.
If you prefer to listen to the YouTube video that corresponds to this blog post, you can give this short video a listen.
What platform to use to make your own email list?
There are several different email services out there but I use Mailchimp. Mailchimp is beginner-friendly, free up to 2000 subscribers and allows me to create everything I need for A Crafty Concept.
Even if you don’t have a blog, Mailchimp is still the best way to connect with your customers! If you remember from part 1, I talked about not putting all your eggs in the social media basket. You can easily use Mailchimp to connect with your customers.
Mailchimp offers unlimited landing pages which I use for the freebies and resources that you will find throughout my blog posts. If a reader wants the freebie, they can sign up for my email list and receive it!
Segment lists are another feature available that I haven’t dived into completely. But, it allows you to divide your email list into smaller groups to target them specifically.
Mailchimp has their own app where you can track email open rates, subscribers, clicks, etc.
You can view statistics of how your emails are performing and see who unsubscribed and why. The truth is, they just may not be your ideal customer and that’s okay!
If subscribers aren’t opening your emails, it’s only hurting you. Every 3 months, I clean out subscribers who have’t opened any emails so my emails aren’t marked as spam.
Their support team is also free and very helpful. I once sent out an email for Wrap Label Wednesday with the wrong file link and support was able to swap out the file without having to resend the entire email!
The one thing I do not like about Mailchimp is that if someone is already subscribed to my email list, they will not be able to receive the freebies they see in future blog posts that are connected to the landing pages I create for those freebies. The subscriber will have to message me directly and ask for it and then I have to manually send it to them.
That’s the only limitation I have found with Mailchimp that I have trouble with. Otherwise, Mailchimp has my seal of approval and is a great email provider for beginners.
Well ya’ll, that’s it for part 2! Now you know all about Mailchimp and how I utilize it for my business.
If Mailchimp sounds like something you would like to try today, you can use this referral link to get started!
Be sure to check out part 3 where I discuss how to get subscribers for your email list once you have one and part 4 where I will be giving you lots of ideas for what to send to your email list after building it!
Learn how to set your Etsy shop up for success from one of Etsy’s top 1% selling shops! This guide will walk you through the steps to Etsy shop success!
Welcome to part 3 of the A Crafty Concept Etsy Shop Mini-Series where you will learn what branding and business elements to add to your Etsy shop to make it successful!
In part 1 of the series, I shared my Etsy journey, pros and cons of being an Etsy seller, how my shop went viral, and all of the things you need to open a shop on Etsy.
If you missed out or want a quick refresher on part 1, you can listen on YouTube or read the blog post.
In part 2 of the series, I walked through step by step how to get started opening an Etsy shop. I showed how to make your first listing, and how to set up shipping profiles.
How to add a compelling story about your business that will add a human component to your shop.
How to fill out your owner bio and about story.
What policies you need as an Etsy seller.
Thank you for watching! That completes part 3 of the Etsy-Mini Series!
Well guys, this is it for our little Etsy Mini-Series. I hope you found these videos helpful, informative and easy to follow.
If you would like to see more Etsy videos in the future, leave a comment and tell me what kind of Etsy questions and topics you would like to see covered.
Also, be sure to sign up for the IG crash course, a free 3 page PDF that lists the do’s and don’ts for how to be successful on Instagram. You may be doing things on your Instagram right now that’s actually hurting you in the eyes of the dreaded algorithm.
Welcome to part 2 of the A Crafty Concept Etsy shop Mini-Series where you will learn how to start selling your crochet pieces on Etsy TODAY!
In this part of the series, I walk you through step by step how to get started opening an Etsy shop. We will talk about how to make your first listing, and how to set up shipping profiles to make shipping your Etsy orders a breeze!
In part 1 of the series, I shared my Etsy journey, pros and cons of being an Etsy seller, how my shop went viral, and all of the things you need to open a shop on Etsy.
If you missed out or want a quick refresher on part 1, you can listen on YouTube or read the blog post.
All caught up and ready to party? Lets start building your Etsy shop!
This part of the series will include a step by step video tutorial of the opening of my new shop, Wild Grace.
I’ll be walking you through key steps including:
Setting up shop preferences.
Naming your shop.
Creating your first listing.
Billing and payment setup.
Thank you for watching! That completes part 2 of the Etsy-Mini Series!
Congrats on opening your brand new Etsy shop and starting a new venture within your business. I’m so honored to get to play a teensy tiny little role in your business journey.
Have fun creating listings, sections, and shipping profiles in your shops. I will catch you guys back here for part 3 where we will go over the not-so-sexy but still important aspects of opening up an Etsy shop, like writing our policies and giving our shops a little on brand face lift!
You can crochet your own Rainbow Baby Rattle as featured in the video tutorial here!
January is the perfect time to look at your entire year, at a glance, and begin to “pre-plan” the content for your crochet business.
Pre-planning your year will help you stay focused and organized all year long and prevent you from forgetting things you wished you would remember. You know, like National Pizza Day, when pizza amigurumis are your best seller!
I have started “pre-planning” for my 2020 already and thought I would share with you how I planned my content and give you some tips for planning your own.
I still have a long way to go, but I have started lol. It’s all about baby steps!
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I may recieve a small commission from purchases made.
Here are some things you can pre-plan for your crochet business
Social media posts and pictures
Blog posts
Newsletter emails
Sales and promotions
Products to promote each month
It’s important to keep your brand and target audience in mind when you look at the list of all the quirky social media holidays. You won’t want to celebrate every. single. one. Just the ones that make sense for your business, your brand, and your target audience.
For example. It wouldn’t make sense for me to do something big and exciting for May 4th, aka Star Wars day, because I am not a Star Wars fan.
I never reference it in my content, I don’t have any Star Wars themed crochet patterns and I don’t talk to my audience about how much I love Star Wars (because I’ve never seen it).
But if you and/or your target audience are Star Wars fans, you talk about it, your products are inspired by it etc. Then you should totally do something fun on that day!
You better believe I will be celebrating National Cereal Day and National Cow Appreciation Day!
Once you gather those three resources, you can begin to write down the dates you want to be sure to remember.
I bought a desk calendar from Office Depot and began penciling in some of the social media holidays that make sense for me, my brand and my target audience to celebrate.
So for January 13th, clean off your desk day, I made a note on my calendar that said IG: Clean off your desk day.
My brain automatically thought of a picture and caption idea for that post so I took a sticky note, wrote down my post ideas, and stuck it right on top of that square on my calendar.
I have ordered colorful, mini sticky notes and when they come in im going to color code everything. Instagram posts will be a color, blog posts will be a color, emails will be a color, you get the idea.
Now when I go to plan (not pre-plan) my Instagram content for the month (or week), I can look at all the IG sticky notes, organize a photoshoot day to take all the pre-planned pictures, and batch write captions!
This will help me provide better quality content for my audience and save some time, who couldn’t use a few extra hours in a day am I right?
I decided my goal for 2020 is to publish 2 blog posts per month. I will write a blog post topic (or crochet pattern) on a sticky note, and place it on the correct month.
2 blog posts a month is only 24 for the entire year! Thinking of it like that will help me prioritize which posts/patterns I want to publish and putting them on the calendar will help me make sure each post goes live at the seasonally appropriate time.
You can do the same thing for newsletter emails! If you want to send at least 1 email a month to your newsletter, that’s 12 seasonally topics you can brainstorm and plan around.
Just remember to take your audience’s schedule into consideration. For example if you want to encourage them to purchase Christmas gifts in October, to give you plenty of time to make and ship them, then waiting till December to send your Holiday Gift Guide email wouldn’t be very beneficial.
If you can always put serving your audience first, your content will be gold!
I hope this post was helpful and you feel more confident about planning out your 2020! Make sure you sign up for the newsletter and grab your freebie. I will be sending out monthly emails all centered around helping you start and grow your crochet business.
Building strong brand awareness can do wonders for your crochet business.
A well-built brand can help you attract your target audience, be memorable to your customers, streamline the decision-making process, and cut down on a lot of wasted time (raise your hand if you could use more hours in a day).
I have created this simple Branding 101 download for you guys, absolutely free, to give you a little information on what a “brand” even is and how to start creating one for your specific business.
The download also includes a worksheet exercise designed to guide you through thinking about your brand in a new way and to help you start building your brand at the foundation.
The 6th and Final Post in the Business on a Budget Series
In this day and age, everyone takes credit cards. If you are a small business and are not currently accepting credit card payments, you are probably missing out on a bunch of sales.
This post may contain affiliate links meaning I may receive a small commission from purchases made. See my Disclosures page for more info.
The good news is, Paypal makes taking credit card payments super easy, and affordable!
When I first started my business, I was taking orders primarily through Facebook. Someone would message me and say hey how much for a snowman hat? I would tell them $15 (my prices were pretty low at this point) and that id have it ready in a couple days.
Usually, at this point, I would finish the beanie and the customer would never message me back and I would keep the newly made custom beanie forever. This would leave anyone feeling very discouraged, but especially someone who is just starting out!
Benefits of using Paypal
Makes you look more professional and your business more legit.
Allows you to take payment at the time the order is placed.
Helps keep you organized.
Allows you to take credit card payments for in-person sales (like at a craft fair).
If you request a PayPal debit card, you can have instant access to your funds.
Paypal.me links to make making online purchases easy and convenient for your customers. (The can also include their shipping address here which is good for orders you will need to ship)
From what I can tell, there are a couple different ways you can use PayPal for your business but we are only going to talk about two.
The Paypal Here App– This is the best solution for taking in-person payments like at a festival, pop up shop, or craft fair. You can take credit cards, cash or check and run them all through the same app. You can also send invoices through the PayPal here app.
You will need a Paypal business account to sign up for a Paypal Here account.
Paypal.me Link- Paypal’s way of giving you a URL you can easily share for receiving payments.
The Paypal Here App
The Paypal Here appis amazing. It’s basically a Point Of Sale system right on your mobile device. With in the Paypal Here app you can
List Items- Listing all your items is a great way to stay organized. Whenever you need to make a sale you can search by category or by title, choose the correct product, and finish out the sale. It also comes in handy if you have a helper at your market, they can be confident they are using the right prices for your items.
See sales reports by date- This is great if you want to compare your sales from two different markets, see your sales history by month and also at the end of the year when you are trying to get everything ready for tax season.
Charge tax or apply discounts as needed- You can set your PayPal Here app to automatically charge the sales tax required by your area. You can also apply a discount code if you wanted to give a customer a discount or if you are running a sale.
Link it to your bank account and/or request a Paypal business debit card. Having a Paypal Business Debit Card is super convenient because you can have immediate access to your funds!
Set your own return policy and custom thank you message to be sent to your customers after a purchase. The thank you message is a great way to show off your good customer service skills.
Calculate change-due with cash transactions- so you don’t look like me, counting on my fingers ????
The first thing you need to do is make a Paypal Business account, then download the app. Get the Paypal here app in the Apple Store or Google Play Store.
It’s been a couple weeks since I downloaded the app, but if I’m remembering correctly, I had to wait a few days before I was approved.
Once you’re approved, log into the Paypal Here app, and it will ask you if you want to get a card reader. You are going to want to get one because the fees are cheaper when you physically swipe a card vs manually typing in the numbers.
Now you can start setting up shop!
I will be going through the process on my Iphone 8+, it may look different on an android device, or an Ipad.
Tap the 3 lines in the upper left corner, this will open up a menu where you can navigate to all parts of the app!
If you tap on your business name, you will be taken to the Business Info page where you can add/edit any information you want to be saved.
This is also where you can add a return policy and create a custom thank you message.
Directly below your business name is the “New Sale” tab. This will take you back to the first screen you saw. You have three options for this screen
The number pad- where you can start typing in the price of the product that’s being purchased or type in the item name.
The calculator- where you can start typing in and adding up multiple items.
The list- where you can search by your listed products
Directly under “New Sale” is the “Sales Activity” tab. On this page you can
See your Paypal Balance
Transfer Funds to your linked bank account
View your sales history
View your sales reports- You can choose Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly or Specify Date
Recent Activity- If you click on an email under recent activity you can see all the information about that order.
Next down the list is “Item Catalog”. You will see two choices, Item, and Options.
On my iPad, I have three choices- Item, Categories, and Options. I’m not sure why Categories isn’t showing up on my phone’s app. I also have the categories option on the desktop version.
“Items” is where all your products are listed. “Categories” divides all your products up by which categories you put them in (like beanies, patterns etc.). “Options” is where your add-ons will be. For me, it’s my Southern Style Bow.
Click on “items” to see your products and click on the “+” in the top right corner to add a new product.
How to add a new product
Tip: If you prefer to work on a desktop vs a mobile device, you can add items to your Paypal here account through the desktop version of paypal. Log into your paypal business account on your desktop, hover over tools at the top, then click Paypal Here from the drop down menu.
After you click the “+” in the top right corner, you will be taken to this page.
You can add a photo of your product, product name, price, type of price (I’m not sure what the other options are for, I just use fixed price), tax, variations, options, and if you scroll down you should see a spot to add a barcode.
Both Variations and Options let you set custom prices.
Let’s say someone ordered a child size Claire Bun Beanie (both my adult and child sizes are the same price but let’s just say, for the sake of the example, they’re different) with a matching Southern Style Bow.
I would set 2 variations, an adult size at $25.00 and a child size at $20.00.
Then when a customer wants to purchase a Claire Bun Beanie I can select the appropriate size, and the price will be automatically adjusted.
I would add the bow add-on, for $5.00, under the options section.
Now when I go to check out my customer, I will choose Claire Bun Beanie from my items list, select child size in the variations and add the bow in the options. My total will automatically be calculated to $25.00.
After “Item Catalog”, the next tab is “Card Readers”
Here you will find video tutorials showing you how to set up the different card reader options, read some Frequently Asked Questions about card readers and order any additional card readers you may want.
You will go to this tab when you are ready to connect your card reader. Just plug it in, click “find and connect to reader”, then select “Paypal Audio Reader ” from the options list (my list just had the one card reader option available)
I had to do this part on my iPad because my card reader is the kind that goes into a headphone jack and my iPhone 8+ doesn’t have the headphone jack. I would need to get an adapter to use the card reader on my iPhone.
Next on the tabs list is “Settings”
This is where you can
Set the tax percentage for your area
Turn on/off the option to add a tip
Turn the option to offer a discount code off/on
Add a printer or cash drawer
Choose if you want to require a customer signature for purchases under $50 (Paypal automatically requires purchases of $50 or more to need a customer signature)
Set up any User Management accounts – If you have employees you can give each one a unique login and password to make sales through the app.
The last two tabs are “Support and Help” where you can contact customer service, send feedback, Learn more about Paypal here and view the Legal Agreement and the “Have a new reader” tab where you can connect your card reader.
How to take a payment
Click on the “New Sale” tab, select your product from the items list, set the quantity and choose any variations or options, then click done.
Repeat for multiple items.
Click “Charge” at the top of the screen when all products being purchased have been added.
Then you will see something like this.
If you have a card reader connected it will say “Swipe card when ready”
If you select cash, it will take you to a screen to input the amount of cash received and then automatically calculate the change due. – I personally love that bit ????.
If you click check, it will ask you to record the check number. Then last, if you click Invoice, you can email the customer an invoice so they can pay it later.
Now let’s talk fees.
Paypal does not charge any monthly fee or membership fee for using the app. Here is a breakdown of their “Clear, simple pricing “
Here is an example of each type of payment processing for comparison. This is how much money you would make after each type of fee was taking for a $100.00 purchase.
You can see, physically swiping the card is the cheapest option.
Paypal.me
A PayPal.me link is Paypal’s way of giving you a URL you can easily share for receiving payments.
In my opinion, creating and sending invoices to your customers would be more professional than sending them to your Paypal.me link.
It’s perfect for more informal orders (like close friends and family) though!
To create your Paypal.me link visit Paypal.me. Click on “create Paypal.me link” then log into your Paypal business account when prompted.
You do not have to have a Paypal business account to create a Paypal.me link.
Ideally, you will be able to make your Paypal.me link paypal.me/yourbusienssname. If that is taken already, try to think of something that will be easy to remember, easy to say and easy to spell.
You want to create as little confusion as possible so your customers can easily send you payment!
Once you have created your link, if you go to the Paypal.me website and click My Paypal.me, in the top right corner, you can edit your link profile.
Here you can add an image for your profile, location, personal message and a cover photo.
450px by 250px works great for cover photo dimensions.
If you need help setting up your Paypal.me link, here is a great YouTube tutorial by Techademics.
If you are interested in learning more ways to utilize Paypal for your business, I would definitely play around on the Paypal website and read about all the different business tools PayPal provides.
One of the tools I am constantly using Paypal for is the shipping label tool! I have this post from last year, How to Ship from Home Using Paypal, showing you how to print shipping labels through paypal.
While researching for this post, I found that you can also get to the shipping label page directly from your activity page of your business account!
Here is an easy tutorial for how to print shipping labels from your account activity.
As I learn more about using Paypal for a small business, I will add more tutorial posts to my blog! Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you won’t miss a post!
Good luck using the Paypal Here App to organize your business finances and also start taking credit card payments! Please leave any questions in the comments or shoot me an email, I am more than happy to help!
PART TWO OF THE HOW TO RUN A HANDMADE BUSINESS ON A BUDGET SERIES.
If you are running a small business, or thinking of running a small business, you have probably needed graphics at some point. Maybe you needed a graphic for your Facebook cover photo, for your YouTube video thumbnail photo, or to advertise your new coupon code. Maybe you need to design some business cards, or inserts to go with your orders. Maybe you want to design your own logo and start making your business more branded. All of these things and so much more, you can design yourself, in Canva.
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I may recieve a small commission from items purchased at no extra cost to you.
I am a big advocate for outsourcing when necessary/possible, if graphic design and computers aren’t your “cup of tea”, maybe it’s worth it to you to hire someone to make them for you. But if you are just starting out, trying to save money where ever you can, designing your own graphics is going to be way more cost efficient.
If you would rather listen to this post instead of read it, you can watch the YouTube video here.
[mv_video key=”gnwvg4z11atocshllg57″ title=”Using Canva for your Business” thumbnail=”https://mediavine-res.cloudinary.com/video/upload/gnwvg4z11atocshllg57.jpg” volume=”70″ doNotOptimizePlacement=”false” doNotAutoplayNorOptimizePlacement=”false” ratio=””]
Canva is a super user-friendly, FREE online design program. You don’t have to download anything to your computer and you don’t need any sort of techy techy knowledge to start creating graphics. Canva makes it very easy!
The best thing about Canva is all the free templates that are available for you to use. They are already sized for different things, like Facebook cover photos, newsletter banners, Instagram posts, flyers, YouTube thumbnails etc., so that takes out a lot of the guess work right there. To find the templates you just click “Find templates” on the left hand side of the screen.
You will see the giant list of all the templates Canva has to offer there on the left.
Let’s click on Web Banners, then select Facebook Covers.
Choose one that you think matches your brand (or what you would like for your brand to look like). Don’t worry about the specific image, font or colors being used, we can customize almost every aspect of the template! I’m going to choose “Grand Makeup Sale”. Then click “Use this Template” in the top right corner.
Now you are on the design page. You can click on the wording to change the words, font, font size, font color, or word placement.
Let’s change the name and tagline but keep the font the same. If you wanted to change the font just click where it says Selima (that’s the name of the font currently being used) and there will be a bunch of options that drop down for you to choose from.
Let’s change the background color to something a little more branded for Ash Creates. If you click on the background color (pink), you will see the color square pop up in the top left corner of the page.
Click on the square and more color options will pop up. The first three squares you see are all the colors that are being used in this design. The third square is kinda hard to see, but it’s the light cream color behind “Ash Creates”. You can either click one of the provided colors, or click the plus sign (+) to add a new color.
This will take you to the Color Picker. Click and drag on the two dots until you find the color and shade you like. You can see the HEX color code at the bottom of the color picker window. This will come in handy when you are trying to match the other in other designs or when using other programs.
Now I like our Facebook cover, but I feel like it’s missing some texture. Let’s copy our color hex number so it’s saved to our clipboard, then click on the background tab and add a fun textured background instead of just a solid color.
Scroll until you see a background you like. I really like this Magenta Gradient Background! Quick Tip: If you click on the three dots in the corner of an image it will tell you the images name. This is also good to know for when you want to create multiple designs using the same background image (aka be on brand)
USE COUPON CODE- ACRAFTYCONCEPT -FOR 10% OFF!
Now click the color square, then the plus sign, highlight the hex number at the bottom of the window, and paste your color’s hex number.
It still feels like it’s missing something, let’s add some graphics! Click on the elements button on the left-hand side.
Use the search bar at the top to search for a type of graphic you would like. I’m gonna search yarn. There isn’t a lot of free yarn images, but I really love the first one that popped up. If you wanted to search just graphic type images you can click the “graphics” tab at the top, “photos” tap for photography type photos, and just keep it at “all” to see everything that’s offered. Each image will either say FREE in the bottom left corner or show a price. If there is a crown nex to the price, that means if you upgrade to Canva for Work (12.95/month) you would get those images included as well.
USE COUPON CODE- CRAFTY25 -TO SAVE $25.OO!
Click on the yarn image and it will appear on your design. I’m going to use the corner dots to adjust the size of the yarn to be as wide as the cream box behind our words. Then double click on the image to crop it and use the dots to size the image down to be the same width as the cream box. So essentially I am adjusting the yarn image to be the same size as the cream box.
Click on the image, then click the “Position” button and click “Backward” until the yarn image is behind the text on our banner. This looks pretty good, but now the words are hard to see.
Click the gradient-looking button to the right of the “Position” button. This will adjust the transparency of the image we have selected. You can do this same thing for words as well. I’m going to drag the button down to 40% transparency.
I still feel like the words don’t stand out enough, so I’m going to click and highlight the letters and change the color to black instead of dark gray. I’m going to do the same thing for the tagline.
This looks much better, but I kinda think it needs a picture of my face on it.
I’m going to click on “Uploads” on the left-hand side. Then select “Upload Image” at the top. I’m going to choose a photo from my computer that I like by double-clicking, then it will begin to upload in the uploads window.
Just click and drag your photo from the uploads onto your design wherever you would like for it to go.
Quick Tip: I removed the background of my image using another program and the skills I learned during the Debrosse MasterClass.
Now I REALLY like our Facebook cover, but since I added the picture of my face, I’m not really feeling the colors of the background anymore. I’m going to change the color to be more like the pink color in my hat.
Tada! Our brand new Facebook Cover image! To download this image to your computer, click the arrow that looks like it’s pointing down, at the top right-hand side of your screen. Choose your preferred file type, then click download.
Now you have a custom made, branded Facebook Cover you can upload to your business’s facebook page. If you create other things using the same fonts, colors, backgrounds and images you will start to develop your brand. You don’t have to use ALL the same components on ALL the designs you make, just pick and choose some, while adding new ones, and soon you will have a pool of design attributes to pull from.
This tutorial was created to introduce Canva to you and familiarize yourself with the program. There is so much more you can do than what we just went over. You can save and upload images from online (just make sure they’re not copyrighted) or upload digital files you may have purchased or created using other design programs. If you purchase Canva for Work you get even more options (like being able to save images with transparent backgrounds).
Do your research. Look at the type of graphics that are catching your eye and figure out what is making them stand out to you. Are they using a calligraphy font and a bold sans serif font together? How many colors are in their color palette? Start picking apart all the aspect of things you like and put them all together, like a puzzle, to define your own unique brand.
I highly recommend the Pretty Pinnable Pics Made Easy online course by Taylor at Taylor-Lynn Crochet. She goes over step by step how to create an account on Canva, use and modify templates, and specific instructions on how to make pinnable pics for pinterest. Even if you don’t have a blog yet you could still make a pretty pinnable pic for your newest creation and link it to your business Facebook, Etsy shop, Ravelry shop etc. Use coupon code ACRAFTYCONCEPT to save 10% !
I hope you guys liked this post and found it helpful! Nice, branded graphics can really give your business a step up, and when making them is free, why wouldn’t you? Good Luck learning Canva!!
