Recommended Business Tools & Resources for Handmade Artists

QuickBooks Online

What I use it for: Tracking income, expenses, reports, business categories, and year-end organization.

Why I recommend it: It saves me hundreds of hours because many reports and tracking features are automated once the system is set up correctly.

PaytonDavis Business Services

What I use them for: Quarterly sales tax filing, bookkeeping support, expense questions, and business guidance.

Why I recommend them: Professional, responsive, and helpful for small business owners who need support with sales tax and bookkeeping.

Mailchimp

What I use it for: Monthly customer emails, art show updates, newsletter signups, welcome emails, and audience management.

Why I recommend it: Email marketing has been one of the most valuable investments I've made in my business. While social media platforms and algorithms change constantly, an email list gives me a direct way to stay connected with customers who genuinely want to hear from me. It allows me to share new work, upcoming events, behind-the-scenes stories, and important business updates. Over the years, many of my returning customers have come through my newsletter, making it much more than a marketing tool—it's an important part of building long-term relationships and a sustainable handmade business.

Shopify

What I use it for: My online store, blog content, product listings, inventory, checkout, reporting, and SEO foundation.

Why I recommend it: Shopify is user friendly, has helpful reporting, works well for ecommerce, and the POS system has been reliable for in-person sales.

Blinc Design

What I use them for: Shopify custom website development, backend code, advanced app integrations, and custom theme support.

Why I recommend them: Excellent customer service, quick response time, professional communication, and quality work.

Google Search Console

What I use it for: Checking search performance, indexing, search queries, page visibility, and website issues reported by Google.

Bing Webmaster Tools

What I use it for: Reviewing Bing search visibility, keyword performance, indexing, and technical website feedback.

Google Analytics

What I use it for: Understanding website traffic, visitor behavior, top pages, and how people discover MONOLISA online.

Why I recommend these tools: Search engines can be a significant source of long-term traffic. These tools help me understand how people find my website, identify opportunities for improvement, and monitor overall website performance.

Screaming Frog

What I use it for: Website scans, SEO audits, broken links, redirects, page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, and technical website reviews.

Why I recommend it: It helps me quickly identify technical SEO and website issues that would be difficult and time-consuming to find manually.

Carbonite

What I use it for: Backing up important business files, product photos, website images, documents, and creative work.

Why I recommend it: Having automatic backups gives me peace of mind knowing years of business files, customer records, photos, and creative work are protected.

ChatGPT

What I use it for: Writing support, grammar help, organizing ideas, editing content, customer emails, SEO wording, and breaking large projects into smaller steps.

Why I recommend it: As someone with learning differences and slower processing speed, ChatGPT helps me organize my thoughts, communicate more clearly, and keep up with the many responsibilities of running a business. It has also helped me better understand HTML, SEO, and how websites function behind the scenes, allowing me to become more involved in managing and improving my own website. I still spend time editing and refining the content to reflect my own voice and experiences, but it helps me work more efficiently and turn ideas into finished projects.

Adobe Photoshop

What I use it for: Product photography, image editing, website graphics, marketing materials, color correction, background cleanup, and preparing images for both print and online use.

Why I recommend it: Photoshop gives me complete control over my images and branding. While there is a learning curve, it remains one of the most powerful tools available for creating professional-quality photography and visual content.

Pixelcut

What I use it for: Quickly removing backgrounds, creating clean product photos, resizing images, and streamlining my product photography workflow.

Why I recommend it: Pixelcut saves me a tremendous amount of time when preparing images for my website, newsletters, and social media. It allows me to create polished product photography without spending hours editing every image manually.

VideoGrade

What I use it for: Creating high-quality still photos from video footage directly on my phone.

Why I recommend it: It helps me quickly pull usable images from videos, especially for products, art shows, and behind-the-scenes content.

Adobe Premiere Pro

What I use it for: Video editing, marketing videos, product demonstrations, social media clips, and website content.

Why I recommend it: Premiere Pro provides professional-level control for video editing, color correction, audio, and content creation. While there is a learning curve, it offers the flexibility to create everything from simple social media clips to more advanced marketing and educational videos.

Learning how to make jewelry has been one of the biggest parts of building MONOLISA. I have learned through books, online classes, YouTube videos, professional instructors, jewelry supply companies, and years of hands-on studio practice.

Some of the teachers and resources that helped me include Jeanette K. Caines and Jewelry Arts Inc., Andrew Berry of At The Bench, Jessica Rose and Jewellers Academy, Rio Grande Jewelry Supply, Jewelry Arts Tool Shop, and gemstone education books such as Jewellers' Quick Reference Guide to Working with Gemstones.

• Soldering and metalsmithing education
• Stone setting tools and techniques
• Gemstone safety and handling
• Jewelry business education
• Studio tools, equipment, and ongoing practice

Learning leather craft and handbag making has been a long process of research, online training, studio practice, testing tools, experimenting with patterns, and making plenty of mistakes along the way.

Some of the resources and tools that helped me include Leather Craft Master Class, Weaver Leather Supply, Tandy Leather, TechSew sewing machine resources, Juki sewing machine groups, Barry King mallets, Olfa cutting tools, Makers Cabinet tools, Metallic Elephant foil equipment, and industrial sewing machine accessories.

• Leather cutting tools and pattern-making supplies
• Industrial sewing machine education
• Edge painting, adhesives, and finishing techniques
• Hot foil logo equipment and branding tools
• Online classes, YouTube channels, and maker communities