Jennifer Cowart, 36, Stampin’ Up! consultant, senior manager

I wasn’t out looking for a home-based business. I was working part-time teaching. I loved it until we had our first daughter. All the things that we said we would work out before we had her weren’t working out — I desperately wanted to be home with her.

One of the teachers at my school was a Stampin’ Up consultant and was having a workshop. I was always a crafty person so I went and said, ‘Do you make any money doing this? Is it something I could do that would allow me to be home with my kids?’

I took the paperwork home with me, read it through and told my husband ‘I think I’ve figured it out — I think I know what I can do!’ The starter kit cost $195, and he said, ‘Do it. What’s the worst that can happen?’

It is multilevel marketing, but certainly not a pyramid scheme. I make my 20% commission, and I have a group of women who have signed up to be consultants: 128 people on five different levels. You make a certain percentage off of each level. I do an e-mail newsletter for my whole group. They’re all over the country: in Wisconsin, California, Virginia. I motivate and mentor all of them through my newsletter.

Scrapbooking is like a $2-billion business now. Stampin’ Up is based in Salt Lake City, with over 50,000 demonstrators now worldwide. Their annual conventions are so exciting — 10,000 people who are as enthused as you are about what they do. In 2004, I won an award at the convention: $4,000 and a spa vacation. I was astounded. It was for the greatest increase in sales — up 75% from one year to the next.

I try to maintain $1,000 every month in sales through my classes, clubs and parties. That’s what I need to contribute to our family budget.

A party is really a workshop: the hostess will have a group of women over, and I’ll demonstrate two or three projects. They’ll all get to make it, and hopefully everybody will place an order.

Or I might run a birthday card class. They pay a $30 class fee and get all the supplies they need to make a dozen birthday cards. I typically do those here in my home. People love the classes — they don’t have to have a group of people at their house, and I provide the coffee and wine and snacks.

And I have stampers club groups that meet every month. I teach them a new project or technique every month and they purchase a minimum of $25 each from me.

The best thing has been that I can do a lot of it without leaving home. There’s so much flexibility. I can do what I like to do, how I like to do it, in a way that works for us as a family.

But the hardest part is that I’m at home. I have to be disciplined — make sure I work when I need to work. There’s no boss to remind me of deadlines. At first, I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants. I was trying to run a business, but I didn’t feel organized. I had never taken a business class. I was comfortable with the teaching part, but there were a lot of marketing and advertising and smart business type things I didn’t know.

I took a seminar with a Stampin’ Up business coach. He said to set up specific office hours. I’ve done it and it works: 8:30 until 11:30 every night are my office hours. The girls are in bed. [Jen and her husband, Don, a school principal in Cranston, have three now, ages 3, 5 and 8.] That’s when I return phone calls, prep for a class, type a newsletter, answer e-mails.

If you love the product, you’ll be able to sell it. If you sell makeup, you have to love makeup. I love paper and ink and ribbon and Post-it notes and colored paper clips. I love every aspect of what I do: I love the craft, I love the product, and I love love love the people I get to meet and work with.

And you have to be a nice person. You have to be personable and friendly and funny, someone who can come into a crowd of strangers and talk. That either takes practice, or you come by it naturally.

Where does the recruiting come in? I do talk about it at my in-home parties. People ask me about the possibilities. Doing what you love is freedom, loving what you do is happiness, I tell them. That was my fortune once in a fortune cookie. I wouldn’t have been free if I had to stay doing what I was doing away from my girls, and I wouldn’t have been happy doing nothing.

I don’t have a single regret. When I think about how far I’ve gotten with that $195 investment, I’m amazed. I got this cardboard box in the mail full of stamps and ink and paper and forms and catalogues, and it changed my life. I’ve gotten to have my cake and eat it too. I get to be involved in school and Brownies and dance and soccer, and yet I still have a really important job.

My business reflects the cycles of our family. I know that I can take it to the hilt one year and slow down a bit the next, and I like that.