How and why I became a licensed designer

I’ve been a working artist for three decades. I’ve experienced so many business perspectives and at some point I nailed down exactly what I wanted out of my career and life experience as a professional creative.

To make a living creating art, telling stories, and sharing experiences with others was always the end goal.

It took a bit to get here. Worth every tear, headache, and heartache!

My first era consisted of vending my handmade jewelry, pottery, and paper crafts, at concerts and eventually festivals. This was a great start but very unpredictable as far as income.

The second era was all about trade shows and sales reps. OMG. I thought this was what I wanted - to be able to brag about having my handmade items in stores all over the country.

I hated it. Why? Because my life consisted of mass producing the same items over and over. With my hands, in my house. In between making dinner and doing laundry. With two toddlers!

My husband and I didn’t even reach the point of hiring a staff because we knew we wanted off the path of selling our art wholesale. At one point we had two sales reps and 300 accounts all over the country. 

12 dozen handpainted magnets.

300 handpainted flower pots.

24 sets of clay earrings by next week.

I’m still traumatized by that time period!

The next era was my newspaper journey. I LOVED this, it was so exciting and it was a dream I had since high school: To work as a features reporter for The Arizona Republic and interview movie stars, musicians, local events. Aside from a weekly entertainment column, I also penned a national craft column for Gannett News Service, which led to launching my Crafty Chica brand.

A lot of time and energy went into my blog. 2001 was the year and so many colleagues told me to ditch my online site because “blogging is a fad.”

That little blog led to so many opportunities! While I adored my journalism gig, it barely paid $30K a year. I needed a bigger salary, my family deserved it. So I made a plan, and WENT FOR IT.

Getting my brand out there on a national level, accumulating press hits, showcasing my illustrations - even though they were far from perfect.

My first product line for Lowes (a kids wallpaper accessory collection), and ultimately end-caps in Michaels stores!

Granted, I knew nothing about licensing my designs, I took what I was offered and never questioned it. Big mistake! I forced myself to learn and advocate for myself,my work and time.

The goal on paper was to earn a six-figure living from making my crafts, passive income, royalties, workshops, and speaking gigs.

That is exactly what happened!

I’m a hyper-creative. Sticking with one lane just doesn’t jive with me, it never has. I don’t want to manufacture a product line. No warehouse or inventory, etc. I’d much rather work with a company who is already doing that, and sign on to license my designs for products. 

Some can say I’d make more money choosing and sticking to one category, but I’d rather live my life doing what truly makes me happy. And that is doing all the things.

So what exactly is a licensed designer?

It’s when you design products and illustrations, and an established company produces, pitches and gets them in stores. On my end, I have to come up with sketches for collections, trend research, and consistently improve my skills, negotiate my royalty rate, and then promote my products like crazy.

The pay is four times a year: January, April, July, and October. Can you imagine being paid only four times a year? It freaked me out at first, so I didn’t make the full-time leap until a few years ago. It’s not so hard, really. It does take planning though!

The more product lines, the more checks. Even though I never quite know how much they will be each quarter. I’ve had them as low as under ten dollars and as high as five digits. Luckily, it's mostly the latter!

So far my resume includes fabric, appliques, glues, markers, glitters, paints, papers, playing cards, wallpaper, T-shirt transfers, metal dies, pottery, greeting cards, journals, calendars, stencils, planners, list pads, charms, beads and more!

My ultimate dream goal is a giftware product line, as well as bedding and bath. Let’s see how that plays out!

It will be twenty years in 2027 since I became a licensed designer. 

It’s only one of the hats I wear in my business, and it is one of my favorites!