Instacart shopper schedules help make room for art, family and work

One of the great keys for success as an artist is keeping it fresh. Whether painting, music, poetry or anything in between, artists constantly labor to devise new ideas for their work while improving on the existing.

Maggie C. is a silversmith in Boulder, Colorado. She spends up to 40 hours each week in her small studio making beautiful charms, bracelets and necklaces, which she sells on Etsy and her own website. But making jewelry, like any artform, requires an artist to keep pace with changing tastes and trends. Thinking through original concepts takes space and time — and often artists don’t have the financial means to set aside that breathing room.

“Instacart frees me up to be more creative. I’m able to be riskier or more thoughtful with my work,” Maggie says. “Sometimes when I’m doing stuff over and over again, I feel like a machine. But when you’re not worried about money, you can do more.”

Maggie started working with Instacart in August of 2014. Previously she’d worked in the restaurant business, even owning a little coffee shop in Aspen with her husband. But when she went back to school for web design and e-commerce and took some silversmithing classes on the side, she knew she’d found her true calling.

Like drawing, painting or sculpture, metalwork is a field of artistry where supplies don’t come cheap. Maggie’s jewelry not only includes silver but precious stones, pearls and crystals. Experimentation can be an expensive affair, not to mention she endures the cost of replacing tools or trying new techniques.

With the help of the money she earns through Instacart, “I can really help concentrate on developing a line,” she says.

Retail is also extremely seasonal. Following the winter holidays most creators see a sharp drop in sales. “It gets really quiet,” Maggie says. So when business slowed this past year Maggie was able to increase the amount of time she spent working as a Personal Shopper, and know she could easily step it back down when she wanted to spend more time in the studio. “Instacart has been really steady, something I can count on. It’s just given me a really good income on a regular basis,” she says.

Now she and her husband, a video engineer, are working to put their second son through college. Their youngest son will be graduating high school soon. And Maggie’s oldest has since moved to Oklahoma. Two years ago Maggie became a grandma and just recently found out her granddaughter will soon have a sibling.

So the importance of being able to travel and visit her growing family has skyrocketed. She loves that her work with Instacart provides her with the flexibility to leave town whenever she wants and then come back and pick up right where she left off. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise,” she said.

“I always had the flexibility, but I wouldn’t have had the money.”

Learn more about becoming a shopper at Instacart.