What the heck do you actually do?

Want to know what the number one question that people ask me? What do you do?

I obviously don’t explain it very well or show it to my readers’ oopps. So this post is all about me. I don’t like being the center of attention and that’s probably why people get confused because I don’t really share the ins and outs of my business and what the heck I actually do.

Work from Home Business

To really understand what I do I have to go back to the beginning. When my daughter Annabelle was born I decided I wanted to stay home. My twin sister just had a baby as well and wanted to work from home somehow too.

Enter in my first business, making handmade baby bedding. My sister and I ended up selling on Etsy together. To make this part of the story short Etsy sucks so we each started our own shops on Shopify. Mine was called Hudson Baby Company. We both did really good selling the bedding. 

Surface Pattern Designer

To further set my shop apart from the rest of them I started designing my own surface patterns. Which is just a fancy word for patterns. Patterns like you see on clothing or bedding. I create them and sell them for businesses or individuals to use.

I create the patterns and sell them to people all over the world but I also make a good chunk of my income selling them on Spoonflower. You can see my Spoonflower patterns here. I have over 500 different designs now and have been a top seller on their website.

The little man repeat design on the boppy cover above has been the top 10 on Spoonflower! Below is one of my current top-selling floral designs.

Having some of these unique designs in my baby bedding shop really helped it take off. After a while, other shops started buying the items on Spoonflower and asking me to create exclusive designs for them. 

Enter my main source of income! How I pay the bills.

But guess what comes with doing good with a handmade sewing business?

Sewing.

Hours and hours of sewing. I was literally connected to my sewing machine or serger all the time!

Between the cutting sewing packaging and shipping, I knew I had to get out of the game. Way too time-consuming. So I sold that business for a really good 5 figures. I was ecstatic no more sewing for me!

Hudson Farmhouse Blog

Hudson Farmhouse blog was born soon after that. I wanted to be able to still make additional income and decided to do it blogging. Making an actual full-time income from a blog is really almost impossible. To get to a substantial amount say monthly takes a lot of work. Blogs take years to really start making good money.

So how do you make money with blogging? Two main ways. Ad income and affiliate sales.

Ad income is generated when people scroll and click through my blog and see the ads. Each time someone scrolls by one it’s an impression. I get paid by impressions and make even more when people click on the ads.

Affiliate income is made when I share a link to an item and you decide to purchase said item. Usually, I get 5 to 10% of the sale. 

Each of these incomes is pennies on the dollar really. So to really make an income at blogging you need a lot of traffic. People visiting and sharing your blog items. 

That’s why it takes a really long time to make good money at blogging. You have to create and ton, and I mean a ton of content. Photos, posts, etc. And only a percentage of those items will actually be liked and send you traffic.

So I am constantly adding new stuff to my blog. Blog posts, photo galleries, and items I love in hopes my readers will like it and share it.

Selling Stock Photos

Another source of my income is selling stock photos. I sell them here in my shop and on Creative Market. It’s my second highest income revenue. I have created a decent following on there and it is a nice little passive income stream.

I don’t sell typical stock photos which is why I have a good grasp on the tiny market for people looking for rustic photos to use for their social media and businesses. I sell a lot of photos of just decor in my house and photos I took from my old baby bedding business.

Lightroom Presets

My newest item in the shop is presets or filters to apply to your photos to make them really pop and smooth skin tones. They have been a huge hit and I love seeing them in action. That’s me above hello!

I have a few different presets available in my shop and you can choose which type you prefer. Bright and airy or warmer options are the most popular ones. 

I created the presets because I was using my own for my Instagram photos and my blog. The unique thing about my presets is they are for both Lightroom mobile and desktop. Most preset sellers only offer one or the other. And not both together.

But I do! I wanted people like me who blog to have cohesive photos on their websites and their social media accounts. I am hoping these presets continue doing good, they are another great passive income stream for me!

Behind the Scenes

My desk and office space in our guest house is where most of the work is done. I work whenever I can and put in more hours than you would think! I still work full time. I pay for a

All in all, I do a lot of different things to make money. I want it to be like this so I don’t get burnt out on one thing like I did sewing. Every day I am doing something different and fun. I love creating new things like presets and taking photos!

Another question I am asked by my family and friends is how can I help you? Easy just share my content. Either on Pinterest or Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Just hitting like helps my account out tremendously. If I share a swipe up link in my stories please swipe up! you don’ have to buy anything just look swipe up and take a look.

That’s it. I would love for you to follow me on Pinterest and share some of my pins when you come across them. It would mean the world to me!

Take a look at some of my recent blog posts and poke around my shop to see what it’s all about. Thanks for stopping by and getting to know me a bit better. Hopefully, this was a little more clear.

Thanks friend, I appreciate it!