I was recently inspired to look for another way of making money online using only free resources.

I came across CafePress a few months back, but have not tried to use its services to make money online. I created a challenge for myself to set up a T-shirt shop with CafePress using free resources.  Here’s how I completed the challenge in just an hour or less.

First of all, you must understand that I do not have much technical knowledge. I’m a technophobe. I’m quite averse to softwares and anything new. CafePress was new to me. My initial impression of CafePress is that it is going to be wonderfully easy for me to create a T-shirt shop with them. They said that it can be done in 3 easy steps – choose a product to customize, upload your image and start placing your order. But I still have a problem – I don’t know how to create a design or image. I managed to overcome this fear of the unknown.

  1. Free Design Software

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    I don’t believe in spending a bomb on softwares. I always try to look for something that is free. So, I asked a couple of friends who may know something about this. One of them suggested I download Paint.net. After looking around the program, I was convinced that it is a great find, as the system is rather user-friendly. After a few false starts, I was able to create a design for a wall clock and save it a JPEG format. You can also choose other digital image formats.

  2. Sign Up for CafePress

    You can sign up for an account for free for a Basic Shop. There is a disadvantage here. It can only offer one of each of the products with your image at a time. I would suggest you start with the Basic Shop first. If there is some success, you can upgrade to a Premium shop which costs $6.95 per month. Here you can offer unlimited products and designs.

  3. Upload Your Image

    First, you need to select a product. You can choose anything from apparel, cards, mugs, and home decor products. After selecting the products, you can click on Select an Image and Upload New Image from your computer. After uploading the design for the wall clock onto CafePress, you can click on Next. You will be brought to the Final Product Design page where you specify your Product Name, a Product Description and your retail price. Type how much you want to markup from its cost, to get the retail price. Once that is completed, you can view your product in your shop with your shop URL.

Then you wait for people to purchase your product and you collect your commission checks every month. You have now created a passive income using only free resources with just 3 easy steps which you can complete in an hour or less.