This 28-year-old paid off her law school loans selling stickers and coloring books
Key takeaways
- Elyse Burns enrolled in law school at Duke University in 2019, taking out federal student loans to cover the $63,000 in tuition plus her living expenses, she says.
- "I feel like everybody knows you can make a good living as a lawyer, and you can't as an artist, and that's sort of like the stereotype and the thought," the 28-year-old says.
- Back in 2015, Burns started selling hand-painted canvases on Etsy.
Elyse Burns enrolled in law school at Duke University in 2019, taking out federal student loans to cover the $63,000 in tuition plus her living expenses, she says. A law career seemed like the practical move, but before she graduated, she knew she wouldn't work as a lawyer.
"I feel like everybody knows you can make a good living as a lawyer, and you can't as an artist, and that's sort of like the stereotype and the thought," the 28-year-old says.
Back in 2015, Burns started selling hand-painted canvases on Etsy. She opened a bank account and linked it to an Etsy seller account on her 18th birthday, she says, and sold two pieces within a week. By 2020, her company, Elyse Breanne Design, was raking in six figures in sales, bringing in $360,000 that year, she says.