Best Selling Design of 2023
Meet Dramatic Deco Poppies! She’s a painterly poppy design that merges the bold sophistication of the Art Deco era with the soft, ethereal qualities of watercolor. She’s available exclusively through Spoonflower.
I’ll be the first to admit that after the baby was born in the latter half of 2022, I didn’t anticipate pushing my career forward until the baby started preschool. I really thought “maintenance mode” was the way to go for a few years. And yet, this has been the most whirlwind year yet, with Dramatic Deco Poppies really taking center stage!
Behind the Design—
Dramatic Deco Poppies was made in the wee hours of a fall morning in 2021. It was simple and elegant, dramatic but not flashy — I loved her! I immediately uploaded her to my Spoonflower site and clicked purchase on a sample swatch. (If you’re reading this past 2023, sample swatched were the archaic way we used to have to proof our designs.) She was added to my Spoonflower shop in such a haste, I only recently wrote a description for her.
As we rolled into 2022, she started gaining traction as the first of my designs to quickly be ‘liked’ by the Spoonflower community. Eventually ‘Likes’ transitioned into sale after sale. But not the fabric sales we all know and love from Spoonflower, she had found her place in wallpaper and to this day, wallpaper sales make up 90% of my success with this design.
Soon enough, Spoonflower started adding their own tags to the design such as editorspicksvintagewallpaper and spoonflowertopsellingwallpapers. I’ll admit, at the time, I did not know they did this.
In 2023, Spoonflower added more tags (yay!) and toward the end of the year wallpaperbestsellers2023 was added to the design. I’m sorry Best Seller? That one blew my mind! I’m eternally grateful for the support the design has found on the site.
What Does “Best Seller” Really Even Mean?
Ok, I’ve seen other artists be vulnerably transparent about how much they’re actually making. This is huge in the artist community because no one really knows what to charge these days. Time equals money (so I hear) so asking hundreds for a custom design doesn’t sound crazy to me, but it apparently does to a handful of potential clients of mine that I apparently scared away. (Not going to list them here, but I thought about it…)
Anyway, I want to be a transparent artist, so here’s what a Spoonflower “Best Selling Wallpaper” actually means. (And please don’t come for me for more info. If you are on Spoonflower, you know their sales tracking tools are not quite up to par.)
2023 total wallpaper sales - 626 (includes test swatches)
2023 total royalties earned - $3,761.95
So there you have it! From just one design I’ve earned nearly 4k in 2023. A design that didn’t take an absurd amount of hours to create, instead a design that is fused with years of art lessons, and practice, and obsession, and experimentation. A design I would be proud to have on my walls.
But Wait, There’s More!
Sure Dramatic Deco Poppies is center stage of of my Spoonflower shop—yes— but I couldn’t help but recolor this design in about 10,000 ways! So I guess you could say Miss Dramatic Deco Poppies brought all her sisters along too. Click here to see the all the girls.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for indulging me. This time last year I decided to celebrate the little wins, and honestly, I think this is more like a huge win! The least I can do is make a blog post to celebrate myself.
Until next time-
J/Marie
J Marie is a stay at home mom, artist and blogger based in the Los Angeles Suburbs. Follow her on Instagram for daily artwork updates! You can find her work on Etsy, Geometry and Spoonflower.
