Meet the Maker - 2minty Studio

2minty studio were early adopters of Small Market and it's been lovely to have them with us from the beginning. Jan and Girts are a husband and wife team and we're big fans of their amazing array of makes.

We asked them a few questions to find out more about them and their fabulous small business.

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Business Name: 2minty Studio

Makers: Jan & Girts Galians

Favourite Products: Dartmoor Series Bronzed Bowl and Framed Woven Artwork 'Beyond'

Tell us about your business name - 2minty Studio

Many years ago, Jan's son went to Morocco and came back enthused with a love of mint. Mint tea, soap, shower gel, everything. We got into telling him things were too minty, so when we set up a website for him and his sister, we called it 2minty. That quickly dropped from favour because of peer pressure. You know how it is. Time went by until a few years ago we moved to this house, which had a studio in the garden. It was shabby and unloved (the garden and the studio) so we set about renovating everything. Of course, a fresh studio needed a fresh name. The 2minty domain name was still ours and had been sitting around, also unloved, all this time. It was the obvious choice.

When did you start crafting?

Jan was taught to knit and crochet as a child by her Granny, then in her 20s she moved to patchwork until a young family made crafting time challenging. With Girts, he loved to doodle designs for buildings in his school books so the desire to create has always been there and his architectural photography career fed his love of line and form.

Tell us about your journey to here with your small business

This house has a lot to answer for. It came with a studio and is in the ancient town of Crediton. The town holds an annual festival called Credfest which includes an arts and crafts element. All the shops in the town give a space in their windows for an artist or crafter to display their work for two weeks, after which all the work is shown (and available for sale) at a dedicated craft fair. That was our first experience of selling our work. Since then, we've become regulars at other craft events such as the local RHS Gardens at Rosemoor.

What do you like to do outside of crafting?

Girts gets great pleasure from building patios and paths in the garden and Jan's passion is for plants; sowing seeds, making cuttings and generally nurturing the greenery. She also feeds wild hedgehogs who pass through the garden. Walks on nearby Dartmoor always feed the soul and are often the source of artistic inspiration. Then there's reading, films, family history etc, all enjoyed with the odd glass of red wine.

Why are we selling on Small Market?

In the current restrictions, all the craft fairs, art shows and the gallery co-operative we help to run are all closed. So we wanted to sell as part of an online community rather than just through our own website. That's when Jan heard about this startup with a radically different approach. Think Small. We liked the visual approach, the way it works and the smooth operation of listing and everything. Having set up a site for artists some years ago, we knew some of the pitfalls, and Small Market avoided them.

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We absolutely love the team at 2minty, talented artists with a flair for the handmade. You can find more of their amazing makes on their Small Market shop - we suggest you take a look!

2minty Shop