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This is one story from the Ownprint print on demand seller community.
Lily was a youth minister in Tempe, Arizona. Parents kept asking her what to get their teens for confirmation. Since 2021, her answer has been her own print on demand Saint necklaces, sold on Etsy and made and shipped by Ownprint.
Meet Lily. She's from Tempe, Arizona, and she's been selling Saint necklaces on Etsy with Ownprint since about 2021. Her shop started in a parish, with a question she kept hearing. This is her story, in her own words.
Lily was a youth minister, working in a parish and preparing teens for the sacrament of confirmation. And parents kept coming up to her with the same question: what can I get my teen for confirmation? They wanted something modern, meaningful, and appropriate for the sacrament. She saw the problem up close, over and over.
She could also see the answer: modern, contemporary Saint designs. What she didn't have was a way to make them real. "I had the designs, I needed a printer," she says. So she Googled print on demand companies that could fulfill her designs, and she came across Ownprint.
There's a lesson tucked inside how Lily found her niche. She didn't research trends or dig through keyword tools. She looked at her own life, at a question people were already asking her, and realized the answer could be a product. Whatever you spend your days doing, whatever you're passionate about, other people care about it just as much, and some of them are looking for exactly what you could make.
Today Lily has around 2,000 orders in total, and her shop moves with the calendar of her niche: about two orders a day in the slow months, four to six in the busy ones. Busy means sacrament season in April and May, and gift-giving season in November and December.
The income follows the same curve: around $500 a month in the slow season, up to $2,000 a month when things pick up. It's a steady side income that rises exactly when her customers are shopping, and the seasons have added up: her Etsy shop's revenue has passed $91,000 across 1,903 orders.
We asked Lily what she loves about this, and she didn't mention the numbers. "I like the interactions with the customers," she says. "I like hearing about why they chose that Saint, what's important to them, what symbol they want." Then comes the designing, and the back and forth with the customer, "really getting something that's meaningful to them."
The process makes room for that because the production isn't on her plate: "I can design it, and Ownprint can print and ship it." She takes care of the customers and the designs. Ownprint handles everything after.
For anyone who's thinking about starting but hasn't yet, Lily's answer comes quickly.
Design your first personalized piece today. No inventory, no subscription, and you only pay when you sell.
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[00:00]Hi, I am Lily. I am from Tempe, Arizona. I sell Saint medal necklaces with Ownprint, and I've been doing it since about 2021.
[00:11]I was a youth minister. I was working in a parish, and parents would come up to me asking the question, what can I get my teen for confirmation? I was preparing teens for the sacrament of confirmation. They wanted something modern and meaningful and appropriate for the sacrament. This was a problem I saw. And then I thought of modern contemporary Saint medal designs, and I needed a printer. So I had the designs, I needed a printer.
[00:37]I was Googling print on demand companies that could fulfill my orders, could fulfill my designs for my parents, and I came across Ownprint.
[00:47]I have around 2,000 orders total. I get about two a day in slow season, and I can get about four to six a day in busy season. There's sacrament season, which is April, May, and then there's gift-giving season, Christmas, so November, December. So my orders can double or triple in busy seasons, or I say they average between two and six a day.
[01:13]Busy and slow season, I would say 500 a month slow, up to 2,000 during busy season.
[01:20]I like the interactions with the customers. I like hearing about why they chose that Saint, what's important to them, what symbol do they want, and then designing it, and then going back and forth with the customer and really getting something that's meaningful to them.
[01:36]I think it's so great because I can design it and then Ownprint can print and ship it.
[01:42]I would say just do it. It's super low risk. You don't need a lot of upfront costs. You don't need a lot of inventory. So the startup costs are very minimal, and the risk is very low. So I don't think you can lose much with trying.
[01:59]So yeah, do it.
Lily shared her story with Ownprint in August 2026. The numbers on this page are hers, from her own words and her shop's stats. Story pages like this one are published with each seller's consent.