I used to hand paint floorcloths and other home accessories and always wondered how an artist could get their pattern designs onto home furnishings.

So I decided to find out. I’m just back from a New York trip to attend a huge trade show, SURTEX.

Three days of workshops with artists, licensing agents and product manufacturers gave me a crash course in the surface and textile design industry.

It really made me appreciate how much better a home staging career is for generating income when you’re a creative person.

Artists were selling their designs outright for a one-time fee of $600 (what most home stagers can make in a few hours).

Then the manufacturer could turn around and use it on hundreds of products worldwide and they’d get none of the benefits.

Others were licensing their work for 1.25% of sales.

So if Pier 1 sold a million dollars worth of placemats with your pretty pattern on it, for example, you’d only make $12,500 in royalties.

Worse yet, you wouldn’t get paid anything for at least 2 years from when you signed the licensing deal.

Plus the royalties can take many years to come in.

By contrast, home stagers get paid right away.

And instead of earning that amount in dribs and drabs over time, they get it all at once.

Recently I wrote about Staging Diva Grad Stacy Goade who has made $7,000 in a month staging homes in Anchorage Alaska.

It just occured to me that a home stager will make more placing accent pillows on a couch than the artist who designed the pattern that’s on the accent pillow.