How to Host a Workshop with Your Silhouette Cameo

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I’ve written a few posts about ways to make money with your Silhouette Cameo that don’t include selling products online. These ideas include selling digital designs to other crafters and working with local businesses. Another trendy way to make money with your Silhouette or Cricut is to host a workshop where you teach others how to complete a project using the Silhouette or Cricut. The idea is that they sign up for the class, show up with nothing, and leave with a completed project. You may be familiar with this style of workshop is you’ve attended a painting or pottery night out.

What You’ll Need to Plan to Host a Workshop

Location – You’ll need to have a place to offer the workshop. The number of people in the workshop will determine how large of a space that you’ll need.

• Hold the workshop in your home – a great option if you know the participants.
• Rent a space for an evening from a church, local small business, virtual office, or conference room at a local hotel.
• Lease a space and set up a permanent workshop storefront.

Supplies – As the host, you’ll need to provide all the supplies for each participant to complete their project. You will also need to provide a workspace for each participant. When hosting my own classes (an aside: do you know that I used to teach crafting classes at Michaels Arts and Crafts stores?), I used these tables and put two to three crafters at each table. Your supplies will vary depending on the project, but could include precut wood, basic power tools, vinyl, cardstock, measuring tapes, weeding tools, paint, paint supplies, aprons for participants, and basic art supplies like scissors, measuring tapes, and pencils.

Project Ideas – Pinterest is a great source of project ideas! Here is my list of projects that lend themselves well to workshops:

• Wooden home decor – You can either choose to have the wood sanded and painted, or you can invest in power tools and have the participants cut and/or sand the wood before painting it. You can then distribute precut vinyl designs to each participant and they can weed and apply it after you teach the technique. If participants are painting their own wood, you need to account for drying time and may have to do a two part workshop.
• Floating frames – The participants choose a design before arriving and you have it precut and ready to weed. After weeding the design, participants are shown how to apply the design to their frame and they apply it.
• Anything holiday related – Classes that are related to the closest upcoming holiday are always popular. For example, consider teaching how to make vinyled Christmas ornaments in December, a football themed project in the fall, or a gift for their sweetheart in February.
• T-Shirts – T-shirts are quick and easy projects to demonstrate during workshops. You’ll need to be sure to have at least one heat press for participants to use.

Class Day and Length – You’ll need to consider the length of the class when choosing projects. Most people have various commitments, so I’d suggest limiting the time to between an hour or two on a weekday evening.

Sign Up and Payments – Generally, when you advertise the class, you’ll advertise for a specific project and you’ll offer between 2 and 4 different design options. The participant signing up for the class will choose their design when they pay for the class. If you have more than 4 people attending the workshop, I would precut the designs using your die cutter before they arrive (or invest in several die cutting machines.) Otherwise, waiting for the machine to cut each design becomes quite time consuming. All participants should prepay for the workshop before attending. A reasonable workshop price is between $30 and $60. To determine your price you’ll need to take into account the cost of the space, all project materials, wear and tear on your machines, and the cost of your time – including set up and clean up.

Finally, at the end of the workshop, be sure to give participants information on the next workshop. Then, take photos of the participants with their projects. You can use these for future advertising and social media! If you aren’t ready to find a space to hold workshops with your Silhouette or Cricut, have you considered hosting in-home parties? We will look at that tomorrow on Cutting for Business.

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Since 2015, Christine Schinagl has been helping crafters start and run craft businesses through her blog, Cutting for Business. As a Silhouette and Cricut crafter herself, she has a unique take on what works and what doesn’t work in the craft business world. She also enjoys teaching other crafters how to create digital SVG designs, available through the Design with Me series.

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