Sara Tams « oh my! handmade goodness

Sara Tams

Making a House a Home with Handmade Art

Saturday, May 5, 2012

My husband and I recently sold our 1920s bungalow that we’ve called home for the past 11 years. The process of selling our house and shopping for a new one has been really stressful, but one of the things that I’m most looking forward to, once we get settled into our new house, is the process of making it a home.

I’ve been thinking of our new house as a blank canvas, and I’m eager to make it our own and fill the rooms with handmade touches. This morning I took a break from packing to browse my favorite Etsy shops, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the items I bookmarked.

Above is a burlap bunting made by Heather Mattos, available in her shop, CMhandmade. I’ll never be as crafty as Heather, so I love that she’s sharing her handmade creations through her Etsy shop!

I love everything from Kiki & Polly, but the art print above, called The Swimmers, is my current favorite. Something about it takes me right back to carefree summers spent at the neighborhood pool when I was a kid.

I’ve recently become more and more enamored with fun throw pillows, and this Flowers Pillow Cover by Sukan Art is one of my favorites. I think it’s perfect for brightening up a room in spring and summer.

I’ve had my eye on the distressed picture frames from The Sprig Framing Co. for a little while now – I just need to figure out where they’ll go in the new house so I can pick the right color – there are so many great options!

These Vintage Wedding Script Ampersands made from recycled wood by Oh Dier are another item I’ve had my eye on for a little while. I think one would be fun in my office since the name of my company is sarah + abraham, which is what I always think of when I see a decorative ampersand (I started out using an ampersand and then later changed it to a plus sign).

I also like these ceramic owl soap dish trays from Fruit Fly. It seems like such a fun little item to have around the house – completely unnecessary but beautiful and unique.

Please feel free to share your latest Etsy finds in the Comments section – I’d love to see what you have your eye on this spring!

Some thoughts on product pricing

Friday, March 9, 2012

by Sara Tams, sarah + abraham

It seems like it’s been a while since we last talked about product pricing here at OMHG. Setting prices is something that I get asked about a lot by friends who are starting up small businesses. This is my advice…

First, take a good look at the cost of the supplies that go into a product. Make sure you don’t leave anything out. If you order supplies online, be sure to include the costs you pay for shipping and taxes when calculating the cost of supplies per order.

Next, estimate the time that it takes you to complete an order from start to finish and multiply that by an hourly rate that you’d be happy to earn or that you would need to pay someone to fill orders for you (be sure to include payroll taxes and payroll processing fees if you’ll be paying an employee or if you might in the future). For example, my payroll taxes and ADP fees add up to about 21% of the hourly rate that I pay my part-time employee.

Once you’ve determined the cost of supplies and labor, you’ll need to add in an amount for profit. I think most people generally double their costs for a 50% profit margin. This step is important for a couple of reasons. First, you’re going to have overhead costs that will come out of this profit margin (ex. computer equipment, office supplies, tax preparation fees, etc.) Second, if you don’t have a healthy profit margin, you’ll never be able to offer special discounts to boost sales when needed, or if you do, you’ll be losing money on those orders.

Next, you’ll want to determine what your costs of selling will be, for example, Etsy fees and/or PayPal fees. These are usually a fixed percentage and easy to calculate. This will help you determine what your actual profit will be after you’ve sold the item.

Finally, you’ll want to take a look at how the price you’ve come up with compares with the prices of similar products being sold by your competitors and what the customers in your target demographic will expect to pay for the product you’re offering. If your price is much lower than your competitors’ prices, customers may get the impression that your product is inferior in some way. If your price is much higher, you may need to take a closer look at the cost of your supplies, how efficient your order fulfillment process is, or the options that you’re offering.

DO NOT simply lower your price to match your competitors’ prices without finding ways to lower your costs. If you sell your products at too low a price you won’t earn enough income to sustain your business.

As an example, let’s take a look at what the pricing might be for a set of note cards:

Card stock/ink ($0.70) + Envelopes ($1.95) + Cello Sleeve ($0.05) + Labor ($5.00) = $7.70

If you set the price at $19.50, the PayPal fee will be $1.20, and your profit will be $10.85 (56%).

If you’re having a slow month and you decide to offer a 25% discount to boost sales, the discounted price will be $14.63, and you’ll still have a profit of $6.21 (42%).

As for shipping, when I started selling on Etsy I packaged and weighed all of the products that I offered and calculated what the shipping costs would be, and that’s what I charged. Over time I was able to calculate an average shipping cost per order, so now I charge a flat shipping rate ($4.95 per order) that covers my postage costs, packaging materials, and occasional trips to the post office or UPS.

This method of pricing has sometimes resulted in product prices that seem way too high to me, but the products have sold really well. Or sometimes I wonder if the price is too low, but I have a healthy profit margin and the product is selling well, so I leave it. It’s not an exact science – the true test of your pricing will be how your customers respond to it and whether your business provides income that you’re happy with.

If you have any differing thoughts on pricing strategy, if you’d like to share anything that I’ve left out, or if you have any questions, please leave a comment below!

love-ly handmade finds

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

I was recently browsing through my Etsy favorites and other items that I’ve bookmarked over the past year or so, and I noticed that a lot of the items I’ve been coveting seem to share a common theme. With Valentine’s Day coming up soon I thought it would be fun to share these handmade finds. Please leave a comment to share links to your favorite love-themed items, too!

Custom Heart Portrait Print by Rifle Paper Co.

4-Ever Personalized Art Print by Silhouette Blue

Personalized Sweetheart Tree and Bird Pair by Star House

Meeting to Feed Birds limited edition print by Matte Stephens

Custom Family Tree by cozyblue

Lovebirds Vase by Red Hot Pottery

Mr and Mrs Recycled Wood Signs by Oh Dier

Forest of Love canvas print by Name Your Design

Tree Print Pillow Cover by cozyblue

What are your favorite love themed items? Be sure to share a link to your own work too!

my marketing resolutions for the new year

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

On December 13th Liz Gumbinner, editor-in-chief of Cool Mom Picks, included my personalized placemats in a Today Show segment featuring last-minute personalized gifts that could still be ordered in time for Christmas. Within 24 hours I received more than 550 orders including more than 900 placemats, which we print and laminate in-house.

My employee, Jen, and I are used to getting about 30-35 orders per day during the holiday season, which keeps us both busy working full-time. Even though I knew the week before that there was a good chance our placemats would be included in the segment, we were completely overwhelmed and unprepared for such a huge number of orders, all of which needed to be shipped within seven days so they’d arrive in time for Christmas.

For the next week we both spent almost all of our waking hours working at a frenzied pace. My husband took two days off of work to help out, and several other friends and family members pitched in as well. Miraculously we had all of the orders shipped within a week. I was thrilled with our accomplishment, but my celebration was short-lived.

(read more…)

A Favorite Holiday Tradition: Delivering Christmas Cookies to Friends

Friday, December 2, 2011

Holiday House mini print by Rachael Novak of Shore Society

A few years ago my husband and I noticed that our kids (then ages 3 & 5) were becoming waaaay too focused on their Christmas wishlists. It seemed like, to them, Christmas was ALL about presents. So we decided to shift the focus as much as possible away from toys and gifts to other holiday traditions. Since then, each year we’ve attended the Nutcracker or a Christmas-themed play; enjoyed lots of Christmas movies and stories together; decorated each of their bedrooms with their own miniature Christmas trees, lights, and nativity scenes; “adopted” a needy family to shop for; and baked and delivered Christmas cookies to friends and family. Now they really look forward to each of these activities, and we feel like their concept of what Christmas is all about has gotten so much bigger than just presents. It’s made the Christmas season so much more enjoyable for all of us! Their favorite activity, by far, is baking, decorating, and delivering Christmas cookies to neighbors, friends, and family. We all sit down together to decide what cookies we’ll make, put together a list of who we’ll deliver them to, and map out our route. I buy melamine holiday plates from Target (only about $1 each) or sturdy paper plates, and of course I print some sarah + abraham gift labels to top our wrapped plates of cookies. We usually pick the Saturday before Christmas and devote the entire day to baking, decorating, packaging, and then the best part – delivering! Last year the kids’ favorite recipe was one that I found in Parents Magazine: Red-Nosed Reindeer cookies. They were so easy and looked so cute! I’d love hear about your family traditions – please share in the comments!

a couple of tips for surviving the holiday rush

Friday, November 11, 2011

I generally don’t like discounting and try to stay away from it as much as possible. But during the holidays, which can be overwhelmingly busy compared with the rest of the year, I’ve found that offering a couple of strategically planned promotions can help somewhat to lessen the burden of the holiday rush and maximize sales during this busy time of year.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I love analyzing my sales data and using it to help me plan my time and make business decisions. Over the past few years, I’ve found that my weekly sales in the second half of November are 3 times an average week during the rest of the year. In an effort to spread out those sales a little bit and encourage customers to place their orders during the first week of November, I offer a Shop Early + Save promotion, discounting holiday items, teacher gifts, and calendars.

This year I also offered free shipping in the US (discounted shipping everywhere else) through 11/4, which was really well received.

I’ve also noticed that sales slow down in December as customers stop shopping online for personalized gifts and do more shopping in brick and mortar stores. So that’s when I offer a free gift with purchase to my Facebook fans and mailing list subscribers. Of course it’s also a nice way to say thank you to my loyal customers and something that I enjoy doing during this time of year.

If anyone has any other tips for surviving the holiday rush, please leave a comment – I’d love to hear them!

the Mayi Carles collection at sarah + abraham

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

When I wrote a blog post in March about some of the collaborations I’ve been a part of over the past few years, I had no idea that another one was right around the corner. I wasn’t looking for any new illustrations, but when I saw Jessika’s interview a few weeks later with Sherryl of lizzie, izzie + james, I was completely smitten with the illustrations that Mayi Carles did for their product packaging.

I contacted Mayi to see if she’d be interested in a royalty-based arrangement similar to the one I have with Meg at olliegraphic. It took us a few weeks to work out all of the details and then several months for Mayi to create a collection of illustrations for sarah + abraham and for me to print samples, photograph everything, and prepare the website listings.

But it was well worth the effort! On September 12^th I launched the Mayi Carles collection, and we’ve both received a lot of positive feedback. My customers are enjoying the new collection which complements my silhouette and olliegraphic collections nicely, and Mayi’s fans are now able to purchase all kinds of new products featuring her whimsical illustrations.

On a personal level, it’s been great to make another new online friend, and Mayi has been amazing to work with. In addition to her artistic talent, she’s also an expert at branding and running a creative business. So it’s been really great to collaborate with her on every step of bringing this new collection to fruition.

Have you collaborated with any other small business owners? I’d love to hear about your experiences. Please leave a comment and share with us!

Top 10 Best Business Decisions I’ve Made So Far

Friday, September 2, 2011

The idea for sarah + abraham came about in July 2007. I was a stay-at-home mom looking for a creative outlet a few hours a week. Today running sarah + abraham is a full-time job for me, I have a part-time employee, and I outsource production of several of my products. Every day I feel so incredibly blessed to have a job that I love and that helps to provide for my family.

For this month’s post I spent some time thinking about how my business has grown over the past four years and the best decisions I’ve made so far that have had the biggest impact on where my business is today.

INCORPORATING. Not knowing what sarah + abraham would become I was reluctant to spend money on incorporating, purchasing business insurance, purchasing Quickbooks, and working with an accountant. But my husband insisted that I get these things in place from the very beginning, and once my business started to take off I was so glad that I had.
OPENING AN ETSY SHOP. One of the first things I did once I had an idea for a business was spend a lot of time surfing the web to see what the competition was up to. I came across several websites I loved that were designed by Arianne at Aeolidia. I contacted her to ask her about building a website for me, and she suggested that I start with an Etsy shop. Etsy was really great for testing new products, and I got so much valuable feedback from customers sending me convos – something that shoppers seem much more likely to do on Etsy than traditional ecommerce websites.
STARTING A BLOG. I started a blog in the hopes of getting more feedback on my new product ideas and to let my customers know a little more about me, but the best (and completely unexpected) result of having a blog has been the local friends I’ve made who came across my blog and contacted me to suggest getting together in person. These friendships have been such an amazing gift.
HIRING AEOLIDIA. Arianne was right – starting out with an Esty shop was absolutely the way to go. But after a year, I was ready for my own website, and I’m so glad I hired Aeolidia to build it for me. They were really great to work with, and they’ve continued to help me out with website enhancements from time to time since then.
HIRING A PART-TIME EMPLOYEE. For the longest time I felt like I was working too much but couldn’t possibly delegate anything. In 2009 my husband convinced me to advertise on Monster.com to see if I could find someone to help me out. I had no idea I’d be contacted by so many amazing women. I interviewed several of them, and wanted to hire them all. I hired a woman named Jen, and delegating to her ended up being way easier than I ever could have imagined. Today I don’t know what I’d do without her.
CULTIVATING A VALUABLE MAILING LIST. One of Jen’s first suggestions when she started was that I take a serious look at my mailing list. Up until then I only had a few hundred people who had signed up for my mailing list, and I had never looked at who they were. A quick comparison of my mailing list to my customer database revealed that hardly any of my subscribers were actually customers. So I added a form on the checkout page of my website asking if customers would like to be added to my mailing list, and most of them opt in. Since then my mailing list has become an extremely valuable marketing tool.
USING LICENSED ARTWORK. Also in 2009 I came across Meg’s etsy shop and fell in love with her illustrations. I noticed that she was only offering printables, so I contacted her to see if she’d consider licensing her illustrations to me so I could offer them to my customers in a printed format. Neither of us had any idea how well the collection would be received. Today olliegraphic items account for about half of all of my sales!
EQUIPPING JEN TO WORK FROM A HOME OFFICE. Jen started out coming to my house three days a week with a half-hour commute each way. Once we were both comfortable working together, we decided that it would be better for her to work from a home office. On days when she’s working we communicate mostly using instant messenger, and it has really worked out beautifully.
BEFRIENDING COMPETITORS. In addition to the local entrepreneurs who I mentioned above, I’ve also been really fortunate to develop online friendships with several women who run websites that are similar to mine. It’s been amazing to me how much information they’re willing to share, and it has truly made a huge difference in the growth of my business. Dacia at Lima Bean Kids shared her water bottle vendor with me; Kelli at The Hootie Coo Card Company taught me how to make notepads; Caroline at Little Cupcakes Co. encouraged me to begin offering plates and bowls, which have become a top-selling product; and Laurie at Laurie’s Lagniappe encouraged me to sell placemats, which have also become a top selling item for me.
OUTSOURCING PRODUCTION. When I started out I wanted to keep all of my production in-house. I wanted to have complete control over quality and turnaround time. But over time I’ve gotten more and more comfortable with outsourcing production of non-paper products, and I’m so glad I have! In the past year, outsourced products (ex. pillows, banners, plates/bowls) have accounted for more than a third of my sales, and those items get way more publicity than paper goods. Plus they’re really fun products to offer, and a great fit with my paper goods.

I hope these insights will be helpful for those of you who are thinking of starting a business or just starting out. If you have any questions for me, please leave a comment!

vintage-modern / retro-modern finds

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

When I heard that the theme at OMHG this month would be “handmade heritage”, I immediately thought about how my products are created for modern families, but they all have either a vintage feel (like my silhouette collection pictured above) or a retro feel (like my olliegraphic collection pictured below). And the more I thought about it, I realized just how much I’m drawn to products that combine vintage-modern or retro-modern elements.

Whether it’s printing modern designs using an old-fashioned method such as letterpress or giving vintage or retro designs a modern twist, I can’t get enough of it! Here are some of my favorite examples of this design aesthetic…

Art prints by milk and cookies:

Art prints and stationery by Silhouette Blue:

Art prints and stationery by Rifle Paper Co.:

Greeting cards and posters by Egg Press:

Stamps and letterpress note cards by INK + WIT:

Stationery and art prints by Darling Clementine:

Art Prints by Isa Form:

Letterpress stationery and greeting cards by Penelope’s Press:

Growth charts by Giraffes n Stuff:

I’m sure there are a lot more talented artists and designers who I don’t know about yet… please leave a comment to share your favorites!

work + kids + making time for fun

Saturday, July 2, 2011

by Sara Tams of sarah + abraham

As any work-at-home-mom of school age children knows, summer vacation can be an especially challenging time, balancing work and spending time with your kids. So this summer I’ve been looking for fun ways to involve my kids in some of the things I need to do for work.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I needed to photograph a new product, a personalized name banner. I could have easily photographed it in the backyard or in my daughter’s bedroom. But it was a nice day, and I was caught up on orders, so I suggested to my kids that we go to their favorite park to take the photos. On the way we stopped at a coffee shop for pastries and stopped at the grocery store to pick up some helium balloons.

When we were at the park they had a great time running around and suggesting spots that they thought would be good places to take photos. It ended up being a really fun morning, and I love how the photos turned out.

They especially loved being able to release the balloons when we were done and watch them fly away.

Last week we went to a candy store and a bakery in search of some fun props so I could photograph my new party favor tags. They loved helping me pick out treats and were happy to help me photograph them knowing that when we were done they would get to eat everything and share their bounty with their friends!

Of course it’s not always possible to involve my kids in what I’m doing for work. There are plenty of summer days, when they don’t have camps or other activities scheduled, when they need to entertain themselves for most of the day, and we only have an hour or two to do something fun at the end of the day. But as much as possible I’m trying to do anything on my to-do list that could be turned into a fun activity while they’re home and save the more tedious in-front-of-the-computer-all-day tasks for when they’re back in school.

I’d love to hear how other WAHMs involve their kids in their businesses – please leave a comment and share your ideas!