Michelle O'Leary's Story
I fell in love with cross stitch needlecraft when I was about twelve years old. As a hobby, it has been a joy and a wonderful way to express my creativity. Over the years, I bought and worked through progressively harder designs, sometimes giving them as gifts or creating other craftwork like pillows or blankets with the finished cross stitch projects. Then a family member gave me a computer software program where I could design my own cross stitch projects, firing my imagination and launching my craft business.
At first, I tried selling my cross stitch designs as finished products, to family, friends, and individuals by word of mouth. I also tried craft fairs and local art and craft stores, but the amount of effort it took to create each piece wasn’t equal to the profit I could reasonably attain from the end product. The materials themselves are cheap for cross stitch, which makes it a great, inexpensive hobby, but the time spent stitching each project was prohibitive. I decided to sell just the cross stitch designs or patterns that I created, but my efforts to garner interest from stitching magazines and other stitching venues met with little success.
Finally I turned to the Internet. Having learned how to build a basic website from previous endeavors with my writing, I spent some time creating a sister site called 'Jo’s Cross Stitch Designs'. At this site, I offer my cross stitch patterns and stitching instructions as downloads for purchase through Paypal. Customers can either use their own Paypal account or Paypal offers secure credit card use. To promote this site, I submitted it to all the major search engines, connected to other sites with links, joined webrings, and announced the opening of the site on many targeted forums.
The biggest obstacle to getting the site up and running was figuring out how to secure downloads, so that less ethical, tech-savvy visitors didn’t simply download without purchase. I discovered a php program called Linklok, which encrypts the link to my download files and has a time limit for those links. Combining Linklok with Paypal, I discovered a simple, secure method for selling my download cross stitch patterns on the internet.
I still spend a great deal of time making each pattern, but I find joy and satisfaction creating the designs, and placing them on the Internet means I can sell each design multiple times. In these economic times, I appreciate having not only an outlet for my creative energy, but also receiving compensation for my work. I’m still in love with cross stitch, but now it loves me back!
Michelle
Jo's Cross Stitch Designs
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