In 2001 when I began my journey from corporate girl to creative entrepreneur, there just simply wasn’t a lot of online resources – if any for someone like me. Someone who wanted to know what it was like to be an artist, to make money, to feel insecure, what steps to take, what to do on day one and day 50.

There were some government sites about licensing and copyright but even those were hard to find. There weren’t a lot of artists talking about their business online, there definitely wasn’t the blogs. There wasn’t an Etsy or other networks to easily sell your ware or connect with an audience who’d buy it.

That’s why I created Girl at Play and this site, Another Girl at Play. I wanted to share all that I knew with others who I knew were looking for the same information. I wanted to create a community that didn’t exist yet. I wanted to share all the wonderful friends I had that were in the same boat as I.

As a result, this site started to reach over 150,000 people a day. Obviously that meant that people were looking for the kind of stories shared here because they wanted to create their own story.

Our community here grew, we gained more profiles, more blogs went up, other communities were created and more and more resources (it seems limitless now!) went online so that there was no reason to ever fear or be discouraged from following a dream. All one had to do was surf and you’d run into someone or something that could help.

While I’ve been so proud to have created this site and even more proud of the thousands and thousands of you that have written to say how the artists here has changed your life, I’ve always felt bad about not being able to keep up with the newsletters, the additional profiles or the resources that have blossomed all over the web. So despite being ahead of it’s time seven (!!) years ago, this site has fallen behind the times over the past couple of years.

Last month, however, I rebuilt the site so that it’s finally modern which means it’s easy to update, easy to comment on, and hopefully, easy to navigate. What took days to do means that updating should only take minutes which means I hope to keep adding to the resources that everyone comes here looking for.

So with that, if you have a favourite resource, a place of inspiration, legal forms, blogs you love – anything, please either contact me or leave a comment here and I’ll add them to our renewed “Community Page.”

But one thing has never wavered despite technological changes; the women profiled on this site. Their stories are still relevant and inspirational, especially since they all keep coming out with new things, ideas, and overcoming their own challenges. So I’m very, very thankful to each of them for sharing their stories and to you who reads them. And to everyone who has been patient with all the changes that have been taking place over the past little while!

	Anna Maria Horner Designer		Alicia Paulson Designer & Writer		Amanda Woodward Illustrator
	Andrea scher Jewellery Designer		Catherine Aurelio Art Director		Claire Robertson Illustrator
	Debbie Drechsler Illustrator		Emira & Lauren Graphic Designers		Jen Griggs Sebastian Artist/Product Designer
	Jenny Hart Embroidery Artist		Keri Smith Artist & Writer		Jill Bliss Product Designer
	Julie Valentine Designer		Julianna Smith Card Designer		Katherine Dunn Illustrator
	Kathy Cano Murillo Crafty Chica		Laurie Wagner Word Wrangler		Lorena Siminovich Artist/Collage
	Lori Joy Smith Artist		Martine Locke Musician		Melanie Mauer Photographer
	Pamela Barsky Artist		Pamela Mueller Author		Ruby Bayan Writer
	Sarah Lugg Artist/Collage		Sharyn Sowell Paper Artist		Tammy Raybould Singer
	Stephannie Barba Calligrapher		Tera Leigh Product Designer		Hope Wallace Artist