By Lori Wisniewski for Work-at-Home.org
I decided to stay home with my children after our first child passed away when he was only one month old. My husband and I believed that the most important thing was to nurture our children. I became pregnant with our second child shortly after our son died and quit my job at 20 weeks into the pregnancy. I work at home now and I’ve never looked back.
Print Design is just a fancy way to say that I create things on my computer and sell them. I have done flyers for our local “Community Day” celebration and do a lot of work for area churches. Mostly, I do business cards and greeting cards. I have some greeting card displays in stores throughout the community. But, I occasionally get jobs for picture reproduction and resumes, as well. I make laminated book marks and I make personalized self adhesive gift tags and small sheets of gift wrap (8 ½” X 14”). I love this work because I am a creative person, and it also allows me the freedom to be a stay at home mom and work from my home as well. How fortunate am I?
If you enjoy working on your computer, have the money to buy or already have the software, computer and printer, are a creative designer and can market your service to get customers, maybe this is the right business for you, too.
Start up for Print Design is a little pricey for most work at home moms but it quickly reimburses itself. The first step is to marry an accountant. (Just kidding.) But, since my husband is an accountant, I have a head-start in the bookkeeping department of the business.
We purchased a 2-gig computer with a huge memory capacity – this is vital when working with graphics of any kind. We also purchased a state of the art printer that also scans (vital to Print Design) and copies (vital to bookkeeping). The printer was very costly but I have found that I cannot work at home without the right equipment. I decided to do everything possible to make working at home fulfilling as well as convenient.
My customers come to my home to pick up their projects so I do not have to keep a formal office open. My home is my office. Also, I am hoping to start a web page soon to attract orders on-line, but I choose to keep my business small so that I can concentrate on my first job – taking care of my family.
I do some advertising. But advertising is costly so I keep it to a minimum. I only advertise if something special is coming up. Every year I send out a flyer to my usual customers before the “tri-fecta”. That is, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Other than that, I don’t advertise but I depend on word of mouth. You would be surprised to find that many people will go with a small home office run by a stay at home mom over larger companies because I am able to do everything people need in a time-frame that is convenient for them. I usually have a 24 hour turn-around. Larger companies are not able to turn projects around in a day because they are overwhelmed with orders.
The perfect job for moms is one that stays small. My company is small on purpose. I will not do jobs over 1500 pieces, however, I will do jobs as small as one piece. It’s my niche. Creating a niche is vital to the work at home mom. You need to find an area you can move into and be the only game in town. Obviously, you are not going to be able to stay at home with your children and run your own McDonald’s franchise. Likewise, you cannot stay at home and run McDonald's out of your own kitchen. But, you could stay at home and work on mini projects throughout the day. My business runs from 6:30 AM to 10:00 PM. That is, I can choose when I work and when I don’t anywhere between those hours. On Saturday I might even choose to stay open late!
Print Design might not be your idea of the perfect at home job. However, there are a lot of things you can do to work out of your home and spend quality time with your children. I would recommend finding your niche and going for it. I am completely content in all areas of my life because I nurture myself as well as my family.
Lori Wisniewski is a stay at home mom with two children. She runs Eavenwood Designs out of her home and has been working out of her home for two years. To order products from Eavenwood Designs, you can e-mail Lori at eavenwood@juno.com
Copyright 2007 Work-at-Home.org
I decided to stay home with my children after our first child passed away when he was only one month old. My husband and I believed that the most important thing was to nurture our children. I became pregnant with our second child shortly after our son died and quit my job at 20 weeks into the pregnancy. I work at home now and I’ve never looked back.
Print Design is just a fancy way to say that I create things on my computer and sell them. I have done flyers for our local “Community Day” celebration and do a lot of work for area churches. Mostly, I do business cards and greeting cards. I have some greeting card displays in stores throughout the community. But, I occasionally get jobs for picture reproduction and resumes, as well. I make laminated book marks and I make personalized self adhesive gift tags and small sheets of gift wrap (8 ½” X 14”). I love this work because I am a creative person, and it also allows me the freedom to be a stay at home mom and work from my home as well. How fortunate am I?
If you enjoy working on your computer, have the money to buy or already have the software, computer and printer, are a creative designer and can market your service to get customers, maybe this is the right business for you, too.
Start up for Print Design is a little pricey for most work at home moms but it quickly reimburses itself. The first step is to marry an accountant. (Just kidding.) But, since my husband is an accountant, I have a head-start in the bookkeeping department of the business.
We purchased a 2-gig computer with a huge memory capacity – this is vital when working with graphics of any kind. We also purchased a state of the art printer that also scans (vital to Print Design) and copies (vital to bookkeeping). The printer was very costly but I have found that I cannot work at home without the right equipment. I decided to do everything possible to make working at home fulfilling as well as convenient.
My customers come to my home to pick up their projects so I do not have to keep a formal office open. My home is my office. Also, I am hoping to start a web page soon to attract orders on-line, but I choose to keep my business small so that I can concentrate on my first job – taking care of my family.
I do some advertising. But advertising is costly so I keep it to a minimum. I only advertise if something special is coming up. Every year I send out a flyer to my usual customers before the “tri-fecta”. That is, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Other than that, I don’t advertise but I depend on word of mouth. You would be surprised to find that many people will go with a small home office run by a stay at home mom over larger companies because I am able to do everything people need in a time-frame that is convenient for them. I usually have a 24 hour turn-around. Larger companies are not able to turn projects around in a day because they are overwhelmed with orders.
The perfect job for moms is one that stays small. My company is small on purpose. I will not do jobs over 1500 pieces, however, I will do jobs as small as one piece. It’s my niche. Creating a niche is vital to the work at home mom. You need to find an area you can move into and be the only game in town. Obviously, you are not going to be able to stay at home with your children and run your own McDonald’s franchise. Likewise, you cannot stay at home and run McDonald's out of your own kitchen. But, you could stay at home and work on mini projects throughout the day. My business runs from 6:30 AM to 10:00 PM. That is, I can choose when I work and when I don’t anywhere between those hours. On Saturday I might even choose to stay open late!
Print Design might not be your idea of the perfect at home job. However, there are a lot of things you can do to work out of your home and spend quality time with your children. I would recommend finding your niche and going for it. I am completely content in all areas of my life because I nurture myself as well as my family.
Lori Wisniewski is a stay at home mom with two children. She runs Eavenwood Designs out of her home and has been working out of her home for two years. To order products from Eavenwood Designs, you can e-mail Lori at eavenwood@juno.com
Copyright 2007 Work-at-Home.org
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