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Hey everybody!  Welcome to my blog, The Marketwoman, for artists and sellers only.

Seems like it took me forever to start blogging.  But now I have 3:  one is personal Ta Ankh's World, one is for my customers Ioni's Creations and this one, just for us.  I'll probably mostly only share this one with The Handmade Collective.

I just want to talk about the whole adventure of what it is to be a creative person who sells, including the financial ups and downs, and the magical inspiration, and the gratification you feel when someone not only loves what you do, but is willing to pay for it.  Also learning about what we can do to plot out our own success.

About me.

I was raised in a family business, our family jewelry store that lasted 35 years before it closed in 2011.  In the 90's, I went to Africa and came home determined to start a business with my friends.  I was getting deeply into African culture at the time, and I loved making things with cowries and mudcloth and anything else African I could create.  Still do.  But I could barely sew.  Still, I sold a lot of stuff.  A LOT of stuff.  I went as far with it as I could, and then I was just murdering fabric, so I knew I needed a teacher.

Years later, Ioni Dodson came into my life.  She's the Ioni of Ioni's Creations and the one who taught me to crochet and knit.  We started Ioni's Creations and my part of the business is Created by Ta Ankh.  We opened some online stores, and now we have a website, as well as vend in markets mostly in Brooklyn, New York.  We do consignment too.

I love what I do, and when my family store closed and my parents retired, I went on to do this full time.  I won't lie.  It's hard as hell.  I am learning to be frugal, which is a word that was foreign to me before this.  But I love my business and I'm willing.

I love the Handmade Collective because so much of what I have learned, especially when it comes to vending and online selling, I learned there. 

I just want to share and give back, but also to discuss our next moves.  I get just as excited plotting and planning with people who are trying to figure it out as I do being taught by an expert.

So let's go!

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