Four years as a full-time calligrapher

Four years ago I left my 9-5 office job to become a full-time calligrapher. It was a huge leap, I was earning nothing and just had blind faith and ambition that it would work out.

I made some progress but I decided to pick up a a part-time job for about a year from 2022-23 but in late 2023, I started working on my business full-time again.

This reflection is about my experience from July 2024 - June 2025.

Some milestones are small and some are big but all of them should be celebrated. 

Here's what I've achieved in the last year since becoming full-time:

• Enquiry from a new workshop venue

• Contacted about a collaboration event by a Pilates instructor

• Booked a live calligraphy gig with a popular brand

• Pitched myself to that brand to do additional gigs (and booked them)

• Travelled around the UK working on these gigs (and had lots of fun!)

• Gained over 200 email subscribers from the a bundle I'd signed up to

• Booked a month-long gig at a local shopping centre

• Created all of my wedding calligraphy including signage

• Took a long trip by myself for a repeat university workshop

• Able to take almost three weeks off for my wedding

• Taught my largest group of students in a workshop (20+)

• Designed a gift tag workbook

• Taught a new style of workshop focused on gift tags

• Designed a shortened version of my workbook for shorter classes

• Taught pop-up workshops which was challenging but good experience

• Corporate workshop for Amazon

• Created a 2025 bullet journal design which I loved

• Launched a new membership (Pick up your pen!)

• Took lots of annual leave throughout the year

• Took over a Facebook group with 1k+ members focusing on calligraphy classes

• Created a eye-catching branding style for my new membership

• Had members sign up to my new membership

• Created new business branding (including a new logo)

• Vendor at a wedding fair (at one of my workshop venues)

• Sold out workshops

• Ran a private class for a large hen do

• Created the Tech Troubleshooter freebie

• Took new photos of my calligraphy

• Created the Email Marketing Planner

• Created the 3.0 version of my Bounce Calligraphy Workbook

• Taught my first live Bounce Calligraphy Class

• Created the Brand in Bloom challenge

• Rerun my Boost your Bookings! and The Workbook Workshop challenges

• Took part in World Calligraphy as Meditation Day

Last year I'd forgotten most of my wins and this year was the same. I kind of went in thinking that there wasn't going to be much on the list but it kept growing.

Again, I referred to my journals to remind me, and that's why I believe it's really important to note down your wins somewhere.

Work

Workshops:

Last year I had an awfully quiet year for workshops. After a record breaking year in 2023, I'd decided to triple my workshops in early 2024 but I was ending up with workshops half-filled and having to cancel workshops even at my most popular venue.

Because of this I decided to cut back on the number of workshops for autumn and Christmas classes. I had two a month rather than three, and still had to cancel a couple!

Despite this, I had some fun private calligraphy class jobs. I was rebooked at a university for Fresher's week.

I taught a private class for a community arts group which had 20 people. This was largest in-person class to-date. I was nervous but it was fun and rewarding.

I had a couple of hen dos which varied in size. One was cosy with four students and the other was a larger with 20 students which was lively and fun.

I loved both and I like that each group has their own vibes.

Around Christmas time I booked an online corporate class for Amazon. Someone I had worked with years ago had seen my promote my classes on LinkedIn and booked me for their team for a class. It was fun to showcase to a previous colleague what I'm up to now.

I also booked a month-long booking with Regent Arcade - a shopping centre in Cheltenham. They had a regency themed event (think Bridgerton styling) and felt calligraphy would make for a perfect pop-up event each week.

It was a challenging experience from a teaching perspective, as people could join as and when throughout the session so I could essentially be teaching five classes simultaneously!

Into 2025, I decided to cut back on the number of workshops. One every couple of months rather than three a month. These workshops sold out. Although yes, I'd like to run workshops more often, whilst the industry is quiet I wanted to work smarter rather than harder.

Also in 2025 I launched a live version of my Bounce Calligraphy Class. I updated my workbook which I was super happy with the outcome. I felt nervous teaching a new style of class but it was a good way to stretch me as a teacher.

Designing my Bounce Calligraphy Class meant that I had the perfect suggestion when I was approached about teaching a class for World Calligraphy as Meditation Day. This was such a fun opportunity and I taught my largest ever class size of around 85 students!

TOAST tour:

The brand TOAST reached out to me about customising some gift tags in their Cheltenham branch.

I happily accepted and decided to pitch myself to do work for their other branches too. Most of the nearby branches had already booked calligraphers, but I was booked onto work at two other branches.

One of the branches was in the cosy town of Llandeilo, Wales. A town I’d never visited that was a couple of hours away.

I can drive but I always get a little anxious about travelling and parking somewhere nearby. I always do lots of research to make sure that I have a plan of action on where I’ll be going, any pit stops, and where I’m going to park.

Anyway, I arrive in the small town of Llandeilo to discover that it’s heaving with people and that the car park with hundreds of spaces is fully booked up. Thankfully, I followed local traffic and found a street to park on.

Despite that initial hiccup, I arrive to the branch and receive a warm welcome.

Working with TOAST was genuinely one of my favourite jobs I’ve done as a calligrapher.

I visited a total of three branches and each and every one of them had warm and welcoming staff that made the experience so enjoyable.

I also loved creating Christmassy gift tags and must have created hundreds by the end of my “TOAST tour” as I liked to call it.

Memberships:

Memberships have become such an integral part of my business, and I thrive off having a community of calligraphers that I can chat to and seek advice from and I’m sure they feel the same.

I created some new resources for my business memberships including a branding challenge and my Email Marketing Planner which took FOREVER, but I’m incredibly proud of the result.

In 2025 I gained some extra members which is always lovely.

I’d launched my first calligraphy membership- Pick up your pen! at the start of 2025 and it was rewarding to see sign ups and people engaging with the content.

I faced a few challenges with this membership though.

The first is that after initial opening sign ups I started to have some drop offs. This is always happens with memberships, but I was relieved that my workshop students were interested in the membership and gained some new members.

However, I’ve cut back on workshops and forgot to promote the new membership at multiple workshops.

This meant I had some drop offs without many new sign ups.

The second challenge was content creation. I was back on the train of creating content each and every month and felt I had to create an elaborate project.

These projects focused on digital downloads which my members could download and use to create calligraphy. But my sales page ended up showcasing lots of digital resources and not so much calligraphy - not great when you want to promote a calligraphy membership!

I found that my members weren’t even able to fully keep up with the projects I was creating and I’m now in the process of working out how to rework the membership to encourage participation without members feeling behind.

The final challenge was visibility.

Pick up your pen is all about getting students picking up their pen to create calligraphy regularly. I encourage this with prompts for them to post in the Facebook group.

Facebook has other ideas. Visibility across all of my Facebook groups has been a challenge. It sometimes feels like shouting into a void. The opposite of what you want when engagement is meant to be a key selling point.

Again, I’m currently in the process of thinking about ways to increase engagement.

So for the last year memberships have been one of my favourite aspects of running my business and one of the most worrying. Though I’m certain I’ll work out a the challenges by next year's post.

Financial

No side income:

I left my part-time job in late 2023 so this last year I haven’t had any supplementary income.

On the whole, I haven't been too stressed about it, particularly as I had a more lucrative winter season.

However, it has affected how I’ve been able to invest in my business. For a while I relaunched my Facebook ads but these were quite a large monthly expense for a business that had deviating income.

I have to think more carefully about purchases, but thankfully made some good investments when I had my supplementary income to save money long-term, such as signing up for 3 years with my website provider.

It’s still quiet:

In last year’s post I shared that it was the quietest year ever. I’d love to say that the winds had shifted and business was now booming but that hasn’t been the case.

Without booking private gigs, I would have seriously struggled and probably returned to work.

I cut back on workshop numbers, and whilst some of them have sold out, in previous years I’d had considerably more ticket sales.

This year, memberships occasionally saved my butt when I’d had awfully quiet months in other areas of my business. Having some consistency brought some peace of mind.

Reduced costs:

This last year I managed to cut back on some of the costs I’d had in the previous year.

I still paid for Facebook ads for a while, aiming to increase my mailing list size with freebies. This helped with growing my list but I realised that my email newsletter engagement had dropped and I believe it's because the "quality" of leads wasn't aligned with what I was looking for.

I also looked at making some upsells during the freebie sign up process but not many people were going for it, I think I need to look at creating other funnels.

Personal

Wedding season:

I had a busy personal life in the second half of 2024. We attended a destination wedding in Malta and then in September I also got married!

Photo credit: Leanne Elizabeth Photography

I was lucky to be able to switch off from work in the lead up to the wedding and took about three weeks off to cover last minute wedding prep and our honeymoon.

On another wedding note, it was nice to save some money and do the calligraphy myself. I have to admit, I felt my calligraphy was so-so. I'd always anticipated going a little bit over the top with my own wedding calligraphy, but with so much to do it became a last minute task.

It was so lovely speaking to my friend recently though who said that she'd kept her place card with her name on it.

Photo credit: Leanne Elizabeth Photography

Social life:

I've been running a business networking group with my biz friend Katie and being nudged to get out the house each month and socialise is always a good thing.

I've found it pretty easy to be social this year, and like the option of being able to easily take time off to enjoy time with friends or family. For example, I drove some of my family to Cardiff to watch Hamilton, a show my little sister was OBSESSED with and it was nice to see it with her.

I've found it easier to switch off in the evenings and weekends which made socialising with friends a lot easier than before.

Routine:

What routine??

In all seriousness, I aim to get up no later than 9.30ish and have quite a relaxed start to my day. I usually start to wind down after 4pm as my attention starts to waver, but will occasionally work later if I'm in the zone.

When scheduling my week, I target 6 hours of work in my daily to-do list. I've found this is the number of hours I can be productive on a good day and work towards this goal.

Thinking more about it actually, I do have a bit of a routine in that I'll have "Marketing Monday" where I'll focus on email marketing and other marketing, or "Workshop Wednesday" where I'll focus on workshops, workbooks and courses. I like this little bit of structure otherwise it's easy to think "what am I doing?".

Health:

I still love lie-ins and prioritise my sleep a lot. It makes such a difference to my mood to be able to get enough sleep, and I'm someone that seems to need a lot of it.

I started going for daily walks back in 2020 and this is a habit that I still do. This helps me to get some fresh air and catch up with my partner mid-way through the day.

In 2025, for the last few months of writing this post. I've dealt with some intense fatigue. Fatigue in something I've dealt with in years prior but it's been a lot the last few months. I've genuinely been so appreciative that I'm able to rest on those days where fatigue is kicking my butt.

Overall experience in my four years as a full-time calligrapher

Looking back I've done some really cool activities in my business.

I like that I've had opportunities to stretch myself, particularly travelling around the country for classes and live calligraphy gigs. I also found the pop-up workshop a challenge but rewarding experience as a teacher as I was able to really put my skills to work, juggling students doing different things at once.

Personally, I've had such a lovely year. Getting married, taking some lovely trips. Being able to take off as much time as I need is genuinely such a privilege that I continue to appreciate year-on-year, and I only get more comfortable utilising that perk of working for myself.

What do I want from the next year? I know that it's going to be a busy one personally, and I'm looking forward to seeing how I can make my business work around my personal needs.

Look forward to updating you all next year!