The truth about DTs ✂️ Maremi's Small Art

oooh interesting. About a week ago some other mixed media folks did a livestream round table on the topic of design teams. Their consensus was pretty much the opposite. Basically they say if you want to be paid in more than product then design teams are not for the likes of you.

Let me dig up the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACaFlqpbcgM (WARNING: the stream is 4 hours long! Skip around to find the good stuff.)

I started watching her channel years ago. I love her. She has such a gentle way about her, and she's very good about helping beginners feel confident and helping people feel good about creating even when they don't have the fancy expensive new thing.

Her approach is to just try something and then see what happens. You don't have to plan the end product out; you can just enjoy the process.

Jo, you mentioned overcommitment. That was the main thing I remember from the video ( I watched it a while ago.) It was definitely eating into her mommy time. I imagine she was perhaps also was feeling limited as an artist.

It's a long video, but worth it if the topic interests you at all.

Advertising/promotion expense = deductible business expense. It literally costs the brand nothing (but it takes away some tax revenue for society as a whole whereas they don't contribute to society by paying their DT members and thus don't contribute to pension, healthcare, etc.).

Ages ago I would have loved to be on a CT. I was strategically working in that direction. And then I saw something from Lisa/Glue Stick Girl that brought me to a screeching halt. This was 2012 or 2013ish, and she did an office tour, I guess? What I remember was her showing crate after crate after crate of layouts. Stacked up everywhere, in closets, shelves, all over! Hundreds and hundreds of completed layouts, basically tossed aside to move into the next project. It made me so sad.
Scrapbooking to me is an enjoyable labor of love and my projects mean everything to me! I realized that the DTs are often cranking things out for deadlines, or using stuff just to showcase a product, reusing the same photos over and over because it’s a good jumping off point to show the STUFF, not preserve their memories.

It changed my view in an instant.

I completely agree with this thought. It's becoming more apparent to me that people create projects and pages 'just because' they have to showcase the product. I don't believe that these people just happened to take a hike last week that perfectly compliments an outdoor themed stamp or collection, or genuinely wanted to create a spread in their pocket page album about a meal and use the latest food kit. I think they're creating for the sake of it, and will end up with TN's and albums just full of stuff not in chronological order - or perhaps even any order that makes sense - all for the sake of it. The thought of my memory keeping becoming so disorganised makes me shudder.

Over 6 years ago I was on a local DT, got the monthly kit and made at minimum 6-8 layouts plus blog posts, heavy involvement on their message board etc. I was on that team for almost 3 years, then my Grandma gets cancer and is in the hospital. We were very close and they didn't give her long to live. I asked to be let go from the DT. I got an OK and not one word of thanks for my time! You could tell who were the favorites on the team for sure. They were the ones who could submit stuff late, only do a couple of cards. I was soured after that. I never went back.

I can spot those layouts instantly, the ones where the DT had a product so completely outside of what fits their lives. I really dislike when a layout highlights the product and you have to search for the picture. Oh there it is under that leaf, lol

Thankfully I never had to use anything really outside my life. The hardest one might have been the beer based paper but that was assigned right after we did beer making for our anniversary. I was like whew I have pictures for this. Lol

I’ve been on one DT and it was probably as good of a DT as you could be on. Deadlines well known, flexible projects, no video component necessary, nice owner.

It was still a pain. If you scrapbook with a regular cadence, it can be a lot easier. But if you don’t, life will get in the way of meeting those deadlines and it’ll become a chore to churn out the layouts. Especially if you didn’t want to “seem” like the slacker on the team and wanted to make something really creative.

No surprise there!

I can tell you the right way to do it and the way most people do it are probably not the same.

The law requires you to report ALL income, no matter how small, from affiliates, etc. Most people don't report small amounts of money they get paid for side jobs even though they're technically required to (e.g. babysitting money, etc.), but I would imagine a lot of affiliate program, such as Amazon, do actually issue a 1099 to report the income for their affiliates as long as the individual makes over a certain dollar amount from them. The 1099 would allow the business, such as Amazon, to deduct the expense and would put it on the IRS' radar that the person who was paid should report the income.

Just because you have income from an activity does not mean it's a legitimate business for tax purposes. Your primary goal in participating in the activity has to be because you are trying to earn income, not because you just happen to get paid for participating in a hobby. So if you knit blankets because you love to and occasionally show at a craft fair and sell a couple of blankets that is not a business for tax purposes. If you open an LLC with the purpose of selling knit blankets, you market your company and spend your time knitting inventory to sell that is a business for tax purposes. 

As far as writing off expenses, you can only write off expenses (other than cost of goods sold) if they are from a legitimate business. So for example, you scrapbook for fun on the side and spend $3000 a year on scrapbooking supplies. You are on a couple of design teams and end up getting paid $300 for your work on the design teams, but you also have a full-time job which is really your source of income. For tax purposes, you have to report the $300 from DT work and cannot deduct any of the supplies [note: pre-Trump's tax code you were able to deduct supplies to the extent you earned income--it's more complicated than that, but generally--so in that example you would report the $300, deduct $300 (even though you spend $3000) and it would be a wash. Post-Trump tax code, you have to report the $300 and can't deduct anything]. 

If you get into selling actual products, like physical cards, then--in addition to income taxes--you have to actually get registered for sales tax purposes and collect and pay sales tax. There are a lot of tax barriers to dipping your toes into a business, so to speak, so you either need to plan on going all in and making it your business or doing it as a hobby and expect to pay taxes/not write anything off. This is why I think a lot of people just do a little bit and don't report it--either because they don't know how or they don't know they have to--and often they don't get caught. If you don't report $50 of cash you receive on the side, odds are the IRS isn't going to waste their time on you... if you write off $10,000 you shouldn't have, you're probably going to get caught and billed with interest and penalties. 

It sounds a little unfair when you look at it that way, but it really isn't--the IRS doesn't have the time or energy to figure out what everyone's really intention is behind doing things. I love scrapbooking and spend some (more than I should) of my hard earned paycheck on scrapbooking supplies. But, like everyone else, I pay taxes on my paycheck. I shouldn't be able to sign up for a design team here and there, make a couple hundred dollars, and write off thousands against my wages so I don't have to pay taxes like everyone else. Everyone spends some of their money on their hobbies... it's only fair if everyone pays taxes on that income. 

What?! I have never heard of a DT not giving you the products to work with!

Wow. They really are full of themselves.  SMH

What?! And I'm assuming it wasn't such a good discount that you were even getting things at cost. No way. Good grief.
Free DT product, free shipping obvs, AND a store discount could be described as generous compensation perhaps. Wow. I kind of want to know which store that was and who agreed to that terrible deal.

Assuming the store marks up the standard 50%, no, it define wasn't enough of a discount to bring down to their cost. Unfortunately, they seem to have gathered a full team with no issues. Even quite a few names I recognized.