Someone mentioned making 'baseball cards' for pets in another thread, I thought I'd share my 2nd-hand experience.
My sister is raising her grandson. He's 5 or 6 now, and has been kicking butt (quite literally) in karate tournaments for a couple of years already. He competes nationally, and she saw that some of the other competitors actually had their own trading cards and collectors.
Not wanting Bobbie to be left out, she took her mavica and her limited knowledge of MS Publisher and printed out some trading cards on her inkjet. The parents at the local dojo were fascinated, and started asking her how she got them, and now have started paying her to make them for their children.
They're laid out exactly like baseball cards, with an action shot and stats. She doesn't make a lot of money doing this, but then again she has no interest in doing it as a business or even a sideline.
I tried to get her interested in a website where anyone could upload a picture and get a stack of cards made from standard templates, but that's far more involved than she wants to get.
It seems to me this combines several common aspects. Kids have some sort of need for trading cards, parents like anything that makes their child seem even more special than they already are, and coaches/sponsors like the team-building they foster.
My sister is raising her grandson. He's 5 or 6 now, and has been kicking butt (quite literally) in karate tournaments for a couple of years already. He competes nationally, and she saw that some of the other competitors actually had their own trading cards and collectors.
Not wanting Bobbie to be left out, she took her mavica and her limited knowledge of MS Publisher and printed out some trading cards on her inkjet. The parents at the local dojo were fascinated, and started asking her how she got them, and now have started paying her to make them for their children.
They're laid out exactly like baseball cards, with an action shot and stats. She doesn't make a lot of money doing this, but then again she has no interest in doing it as a business or even a sideline.
I tried to get her interested in a website where anyone could upload a picture and get a stack of cards made from standard templates, but that's far more involved than she wants to get.
It seems to me this combines several common aspects. Kids have some sort of need for trading cards, parents like anything that makes their child seem even more special than they already are, and coaches/sponsors like the team-building they foster.
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