At the Make Learn Grow workshop held in April 2023, attendees learned about how to get into selling at markets or expanding their reach if they have already begun. This workshop was led by Ashley Garner of Nest. Nest has been a vendor at countless pop ups, markets, craft fairs, and everything in between.
Resources from this workshop can be found HERE.
Ashley Adair Garner is a single mom to three boys and four dogs, living in South Knoxville. After attending college at Belmont University in Nashville, she moved to New York City, then eventually back to east TN, calling Knoxville home since 2009. In April of 2018, she left an unstable and unsafe marriage with no job and three boys ages 8 and under to care for and in that instant Nest transformed from a hobby to a business. Since then, she has stayed committed to her mission to refresh-restore-renovate her business, her community, and herself. In fall of 2022, Nest launched a staging and event design offshoot and currently curating a unique line of apparel, candles, perfumes, and a few other home and body centric items to really take the “refresh, restore, renovate” tagline in a totally new direction while remaining true to the original ideation that I started with..
In addition to the Mayor’s Maker Council and various Maker City committees, Ashley serves as a Voices Panel member of domestic violence advocates with the Knoxville Family Justice Center, a volunteer voice instructor at The Joy of Music School, and is a nationally published writer having written for Knoxville Mom’s, Her View From Home, Today Parents, and The Dollywood Company.
In her spare time, you can find her reading, paddle boarding, hunting for vintage traysure, drinking a fountain Diet Coke, or watching a serial killer documentary. She is avid napper, lover of all things summer, and wants to pet every dog.
Make Learn Grow is a series of in-person workshops designed to provide makers with business education to grow their small businesses. We tackle informational topics related to makers, navigating the next stage of growth, or learning new skills through expert-led workshops.