Home Party Success Stories

These home party success stories are real life accounts from a few crafters I've come across. I hope they persuade you to have a go and that you pick up a few tips and ideas from them. And if you have a story of your own to share, please let me know!

Click here to read my story.

Click here to send me your home party success story.


Liza's Home Party Success Story

Although sales is my forte today, a few years ago I would never have believed you if you’d predicted that in my future! And it all started with party selling – I was young, single and looking to earn additional income, so I signed up to be a consultant selling cosmetics at home parties. I was nervous at first, but the consultant teaching me was fantastic, and soon I was having fun, meeting new people, and making money!

From being quite a shy person, I really came out of my shell – I was getting everyone I knew to host parties for me, then I was getting most of the people at those parties to host parties for me at their homes, and whenever I met someone new I wouldn’t hesitate to ask them to host a party too!

Fast forward a bit, and I’ve come a long way – today I work for myself selling handmade greeting cards to major retail chain stores, and I have a website where I share everything I know about turning your craft into a profitable home business.

Annabelle's Home Party Success Story

I do the occasional party with a card making friend. We have found it great fun and it brings in a few extra pounds so that's good! We mainly sell cards and bits of card making stuff - packs of cards, scrapbooking papers, packs of die cuts, etc.

I do the intro at the beginning, making sure that people know there is no obligation to buy, personalisation, ordering etc. We then do a raffle and the winner gets a card of their choice for free. The raffle is free as well.

My friend takes the money and I run mini workshops, usually in the kitchen or dining room (wherever there is a table and chairs basically!) We offer a minimum of two kits (one from each of us) and the kits are usually £1 each. We provide everything they need to make a card. They can purchase a kit and take it away to make at home if they wish or if they want to make another one after the party.

The hostess gets a crafty gift for having the party and another gift based on the total amount spent that evening.

The feedback has been very positive. With regard to the stock, we both bring along all our cards and then mix them together in the appropriate categories, eg men, kids, ladies, general, occasions (new baby, moving house, wedding, anniversary etc). The cards are then placed in little wicker baskets. Each card is in a plastic card bag which has a sticker on the back, identifying the maker, the price and a code. We have a table on a sheet of paper with our names at the top. When we sell a card, we write the code off the pack of the packaging and the price under the appropriate column. The next day, one of us will add up the totals, split the cost of the gifts and the raffle card.

We don't book too many in at one time, usually doing one a month. Although this doesn't sound much and I would LOVE to do more, making the stock is time consuming, especially the kits. We both work part time, have young children and I am also a part time student so free time is quite limited.

Helen's Home Party Success Story

I started doing card, gift & jewellery parties with my Mum in October & they have been very successful. I was terrified but it was fine.

Some of the comments that we have had from people have been that they thought the products would be more expensive but they were pleasantly suprised at how reasonable they were. It was nice to see things that they can't get in town & also that it was nice that we had a variety of different things to look at.

So far everything except the cards, we have bought in but I do want to start making my own jewellery & when I have time decorating my own picture frames & notebooks etc. My aim is to have more handmade items. Some of the things we sell other than cards & jewellery are picture frames, candles, mugs with sweets in (good sellers coming up to Easter), evening shawls/scarves sold really well leading up to Christmas, my handbag charms. Basically we just keep looking around & if we see something that we think people might be interested in we will give it a go. It could have been a complete flop but we seem to have chosen products that people like.

We don't do a presentation as such we just tell everyone that all cards can be personalised free, & if there's a card that says Happy Birthday & you want it to say thank you or in purple that can be arranged. Also that we do customised cards. Any cards needing to be personalised we do within 2 weeks unless needed before then & we give them back to the hostess to distribute.

I really enjoy doing them now but it does help that my Mum is there as well. We each sell our own products & make sure that we are not competing with each other over what we sell, so we each keep the money from what we sell.

We give the hostess 10% of the total sales from the party to be taken off whatever she wants to buy & me & Mum split the amount taken off in commission. She also gets a pre made up pack of six different cards just for having the party. In lots of ways it works the same as the other types of home parties but we don't offer a free gift if 2 people book a party like body shop etc do because sometimes that can put people off, but we do make sure that we say how much free stuff the hostess can have & also show the cards that she gets free. So far all the parties have been through friends except for one who came to a party & then had one herself because she could invite a different circle of friends. People can be quite reluctant to book parties, but having said that I have 3 friends who have either hosted or come to 3 parties & they have all bought something each time. And one of them is going to book a party before mother's day.

This is just my experience but I hope it will encourage people to have a go. For anyone who is thinking of doing it, I would say be brave & give it a go, it's fun, you can make a nice little bit of money & as far as I know there is no-one else in my area doing anything like this.

Don't forget to send me your home party success stories!