Every year, since this website began to earn money, I’ve been divulging how much money I make on this website and what charities I have given to. You can see sums of income and charitable donations of the past when you click on “About the Designer” in the main menu.
The scribbly-scrawls in today’s blog post are from the actual pages of my business ledger from the past year. You can even see the notes I took in my Creative Spark instructor’s course on the left side of the ledger journal.
The red oval encircles the amount of money ChellyWood LLC earned as a net profit, after expenses, during the first quarter.
And yes, you read that right. My profit for Quarter 1 (the first three months of 2022) was a whoppin’ five dollars and eighty-seven cents.
Why did I earn so little? Well if you look at my expenses, the biggest expense was my WordPress Business Account fee. You know all these patterns I give you for free? I’ve created so many of them, that I now have to pay about $500 per year, just to store them on this website.
After tallying up my expenses and profits for the first quarter, I was very careful during the second quarter to spend a whole lot less!
Among my expenses is a note that $400 was donated to Zoe Wood’s college fund after she graduated from high school. There’s more to that story, and if you’re curious, you can read about it right here.
But before I go on, I want to let you know more about Julia’s Choice, which is also mentioned among my expenses.
For the longest time, I really liked Julia’s Choice elastics, and I tried to connect with Julia personally, through Etsy’s messaging system, but for whatever reason, she dropped the conversation with me.
I guess when you send someone a message saying, “I’d like to help support your small business,” they automatically think you’re out to make money for yourself. Which wasn’t the case at all with Julia. I wanted to encourage all of you to purchase her elastics because I had been using them and found them to be of a high quality.
The little brown wrap she used to package her elastics gave her products a personal touch, too…
A couple more times I tried to contact her, hoping to interview her with questions and answers about her elastics that I could type into a blog post here — offering information that might help all of you to discriminate between the different types of elastic that are available. Then I was going to use an affiliate marketing link to her elastics, so all of you could find exactly what you needed for making your doll clothes.
It’s true that affiliate marketing would allow me to earn a small percentage (pennies) each time you purchased her products, but I was really hoping to drum up business for Julia while also connecting my followers to a product I believed in.
But when Julia didn’t respond to my emails, I decide it might be better to move on. I don’t want to recommend the product if the business owner is not easy to communicate with.
So I switched brands to Elastic by the Yard. Eventually, I’d like to get an interview from them somewhere down the road. But before I contact them for an interview, I’m going to use (and test) the Elastic by the Yard brand for a while. I want to see if it has the same longevity as Julia’s Choice elastics.
Lately I’ve been linking from my “Shop” page to Elastic by the Yard on Amazon. Truthfully, Amazon gives me a higher percentage for my affiliate marketing links anyway. So I wouldn’t have been profiting by helping Julia out. I’m actually profiting more by linking you to Elastic by the Yard, and they have a nice product too. Plus, they’re also a small business.
It’s so important to support small businesses!
I was really disappointed that Julia didn’t have time to work with me, but I get it. Running a business by yourself is incredibly taxing, and I’m right there with her, as you can see by my business ledgers.
So after expenses, ChellyWood LLC earned $1022.54, with over half my profits coming from the ads on this website. Here’s a breakdown of the money I earned, and where it came from, in 2022:
- 57% of profits from website ads
- 18% of profits from royalties from my Creative Spark courses (see the video below for more information)
- 10% of profits from ads on my YouTube channel
- 8.2% of profits from Amazon affiliate marketing
- 4.4% of profits from eBay affiliate marketing — when you buy vintage Barbies or vintage doll clothes patterns, using my links, I get a small chunk of change for linking you to eBay
- 1.8% of profits from Etsy — this includes affiliate marketing, plus the sales of my own digital planners in my Etsy store
- .7% of profits from Teachers Pay Teachers
Later on, I’d like to talk about my goals for ChellyWood LLC, my charitable donations, and how you can help keep my free doll clothes pattern website running.
But for now, this blog post is long enough, I think. I’ll end it by reminding you that I do have a new class available on the Creative Spark website, and you can learn more about it by watching this video and reading the text below:
Yes, my “How to Design Doll Pants Sewing Patterns” course has been released on the Creative Spark Online Learning platform. And here’s the exciting news:
It only costs $19.99 for the whole class!
Click here to see it on the Creative Spark website and learn all the details!
This new class teaches you how to design your own hand-drawn sewing patterns for different types of pants for dolls, using everyday tools most people have at home. This is what you’ll learn/what you’ll get out of my newest course:
- How to design pants patterns for 18 inch dolls
- How to design pants patterns for 15 inch dolls
- How to design pants patterns for baby dolls
- How to design pants patterns for small dolls
- How to design overalls for your dolls
- How to design leggings for your dolls
- A free pattern for 18 inch doll overalls!!!
- A brief overview of my doll pattern resizing formula
Are you worried you don’t have enough time for an online course? Well, for any class on Creative Spark, you don’t have to follow a schedule. Just sign up when you’re ready.
It’s a one-time fee for the course, and there’s no specific time limit to finish your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. So go check out my paid courses on Creative Spark, using this link.
As always, feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials. Here’s an image you’re welcome to share on social media:
To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.
Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:
*ChellyWood.com earns money by linking to Amazon, eBay, Michaels, Etsy, and other online affiliate programs. Links provided above may be affiliate links. For a full list of my affiliate programs, and to understand how cookies are used to help this website earn money, please see my “Privacy Policy” page.
The free printable PDF sewing patterns offered here on this website are the designs of Chelly Wood, and they are marked with a Creative Commons Attribution mark. Any similarity to other companies’ or other crafters’ projects of a similar nature is unintended.
Are you lovin’ all this free stuff from ChellyWood.com? Please show your support by telling people about ChellyWood.com. That’s what the “Creative Commons Attribution” mark on my patterns means: if you use my free patterns and tutorials, you should tell people where you got all this great free stuff!
- You can pin my patterns on Pinterest.
- You can post or like them on Facebook.
- You can tweet about them.
- Use any other form of social media that appeals to you!