My Home Office Tour and What I do for a Living

Hi friends! Today I’m sharing a behind-the-scenes look at my home office and business! This is where I work every day. The place where all the work for my blog and shop gets done!

If you’ve never been here before, hi! My name is Carmia and I’m a graphic designer and blogger from South Africa. 

In this post I will give you a peek at my home office and I will also talk about how I earn a living online as a graphic designer. I’ve been self-employed for 5 years now. All of my income is generated online and it’s a 100% passive income.

My home office is the 2nd bedroom in my apartment and I share it with my husband. He works for me part-time and helps me update my websites, edit my videos, bookkeeping, etc. He also has his own YouTube channel where he uploads his PC gaming videos.

In this video he was away on holiday so he took his computer with him.

You’ll hear me saying in the video that this is my first IGTV. Last year I recorded a quick video walkthrough of my home office for my Instagram IGTV channel. I though I’d share it here too for those of you who don’t follow me on Instagram. Sorry about the portrait orientation – that’s the orientation I had to use for IGTV.

I’ve never recorded my voice before so if you’ve been curious what I sound like, watch the video below.

If you’re wondering what I do for a living, here’s a bit more about me. I’m a graphic designer and blogger, and I run my own business full-time. My husband and I rent an apartment in Gordon’s Bay, South Africa.

Like I said earlier, he doesn’t have a full-time job – he works part-time for me. I have more than one income stream because I believe that it’s important when you have your own business.

Here’s how I earn a living online as a graphic designer

This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase something through my links. Read my full disclosure here.

Ad income

I have been running this blog for 8 years now and my pageviews are currently a bit over 100,000 per month. I share mostly free downloads here like wallpapers for your tech devices and printables to help you be productive. So you might be wondering how I make money when I give away everything for free? I recently installed ads on my blog to help me make an income from all the free work I put out there. I never wanted to install ads on my blog because I like a minimalist look, but the blog expenses have been adding up. Ad income helps me to pay the rent. My ad network is Mediavine and I am very happy with them!

Affiliate marketing

Apart from ad income I also make a few dollars from affiliate marketing. I recommend products that I use myself and earn a small commission when someone purchases the product through my link at no extra cost to them. Usually I earn about 10%. My affiliate marketing income is very very low compared to my other sources of income, but that’s because it’s not my focus. On this blog I recommend products from Creative Market and Design Cuts because these are two of my favourite websites where I purchase fonts, graphics and textures. I also earn affiliate income from Skillshare which is my favourite website to learn new skills.

Printables shop

I have a separate online shop where I sell printables that are all about helping you make the most of life. These include printable planners, calendars, greeting cards and inspirational prints.

Monthly subscription

A few months ago I started a monthly planner subscription where I send out 8 planner printables and 1 device wallpaper to help you make each month special. This isn’t a big source of income at the moment but I hope to attract more subscribers soon.

Graphic design templates

My biggest source of income is designing and selling digital templates. I like to design birthday party invitations, wedding invitations, and other stationery. I sell these templates on Greenvelope and Canva (where the customer can customise my invitation online and email it to guests), and also on Envato Elements, Creative Market, Design Bundles and The Hungry Jpeg (as Photoshop and Illustrator files).

If you’re wondering how I got to design templates for these companies, I was fortunate enough to be invited by Greenvelope, Canva and Envato Elements to upload my designs to their websites. It’s not like a client job – I can upload what and when I want. And that’s what I like! With Creative Market you have to apply to open a shop with them. But all you need is a little information about yourself and a good portfolio of your work so that they can see the type of work you do and determine if it’s a good fit for their website.

Those are my 4 sources of income. I don’t do any freelance work or custom design work for clients. I did start my business doing client work but after 3 years I realised that client work wasn’t for me. It was incredibly stressful and I just don’t enjoy working on other people’s businesses.

Blog and business expenses

You might be wondering what business and blog expenses I have…

I pay a monthly fee to…

• Siteground to host this blog
• Mailerlite to send email newsletters every month
• Adobe Creative Cloud (the software I use to design)
• Haute Stock for stock photos I use in my blog posts
• Shopify to host my online shop and SendOwl to deliver the files to customers
• Gumroad to host my monthly subscription
• Etsy for listing my printables on their marketplace

And then of course I have internet expenses, PayPal fees, and taxes to pay.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my home office tour! This is the first time I have recorded my voice and I’m usually too shy to share so much of myself online, but I wanted to do something that was out of my comfort zone. *Pats myself on the back*

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below or send me an email and I’ll get back to you soon!

Pin the image below to Pinterest to save it for later.