After selling their home, Anna Metheny and her husband decided to invest $600 in a start-up kit for silver fingerprint jewelry that Anna first sold at a school PTA event. “I had no idea what I was doing. I had never done anything like it, but I walked away from that night with $850. I immediately realized that I may have found something interesting,” she says. 

As a full-time stay-at-home mom, Anna was delighted and intrigued to hit on a potential source of income that could nurture her creative side, bring in revenue, and offer flexibility at the same time. Anna was blown away by the enthusiastic response her metal artisanship received, and soon she was attending any venue that could be a market for her products.

What happened next was the fingerprint that changed the silver. “I met Anna through the Community Business Launch (CBL) held in the town of Buchanan,” says Roanoke Regional SBDC Advisor Heather Fay. “Since the end of the program, I have talked with Anna about exploring a space away from her home for her business and offering an appointment-based onsite experience for fingerprint jewelry.” 

Next, Anna placed fourth in a competition at the end of the CBL and was awarded $10,000, which financed the rental of her current business space.

Heather and the SBDC have kept pace with Anna, as things have moved rapidly for her and Patina Creek Silver, as well as Patina Creek Creative, the name of her brick-and-mortar space. Heather adds, “Anna and I have also talked through the pros and cons of expanding her business, as well as operating during a pandemic.”

Today, Anna is still in shock at how quickly things have moved. “If you would have told me in January,” she says as she gestures to the high, beautifully lit ceilings of her shop via a Zoom call, “that all this would be here now, I never would have believed you. But here we are.” Anna shares her space with another artist, and they hosted an inaugural handmade Christmas market in December. 

“Heather has always been so eager and excited to help me. Every time I think I don’t know how to do this, I just say to myself ‘I gotta call Heather,’” Anna says. Thanks to the resources and guidance of Heather and the SBDC, Anna captured her future.