About Alana

Alana runs two online websites selling vintage collectibles, used and rare books, back issue magazines, postcards, ephemera and other antique and retro cherished treasures of days gone by.

Alana’s first website is Alana’s Cherished Treasures is a vintage collectible site dedicated to women who love to collect and buy vintage aprons, hats, gloves, hankies and other accessories. There is around 1500 one of a kinds that also include a large selection of old sewing patterns, depression glassware, salt and pepper shakers, and other collectibles for women. This store has been running live online since March of 2006.

Alana’s Second Website is Alana’s Books And Magazines and this store has close to 2500 individual one of a kind old, rare, collectible used books, magazines, postcards, photos, comics, sheet music, store catalogs, ephemera and a few retro children’s toys including marbles.

Alana’s third site is a forum for support, resources, and promotions to other online business ecommerce sites that want to work on enhancing and growing their business sites. This forum is a peer to peer group of other online business owners who come together and share their experiences and support with each other about running a online business site. During the first two years of running two websites, doing a ton of research, including training in CSS, HTML, SEO’s, and graphics, Alana felt the need to open a forum that was based on sharing peer to peer with other online business owners to support, learn and grow our knowledge and experiences. During those two years prior to opening the forum, Alana received numerous emails from others who had seen her websites and asked for support and help in building their own. Alana searched several other forums related to support to small online business sites, but didn’t see as much of the peer to peer support that she had hoped for. On January 16, 2008 Creative Shop Talk Forum. opened it’s doors to others who own and run or wish to own and run a online ecommerce website business. The forum has been through a couple of hosting and software changes, and has grown much faster than Alana expected, and today we have a wonderful community of website owners coming together to support each other in this business.

Alana works from her home full time (approx. 40-60 or more hours per week) She spends a lot of hours researching listing and selling on both her websites as well as administrating her forum. She strives to find out as much information as she can on her own products as well as information and resources for her forum.

Alana lives in Wisconsin. Grew up in the Far East and was born in Ohio. Her mother was born in Yucatan Mexico and her father was born and raised in northern Alabama. She has one younger sister who currently resides in Florida. Her mother gave her an extensive background in the Mayan Indian cultures and her father gave her the opportunity to travel out of the country. Her father made a career as a surgeon in the Air Force. Alana graduated from high school in Japan, went to elementary school in the Philippines. She also lived in Guam, Spain, Canada, and Mexico. She met her husband ten years ago in Wisconsin and has one son from a previous marriage) and one 2 year old grand child.

She attended the University of Wisconsin undergraduate school in Whitewater and graduate school in Madison. Spent 20 years working with teens with AODA issues and still fills in “on call” in her community working with teens at the local mental health unit in her community. She has also taken training in working with CSS, HTML, template and graphic design. She has recently started training in SEO’s and marketing for ecommerce websites.

Alana is married to a professional semi truck driver, has one son and one grand daughter. She loves animals and has two pugs, a cat and 4 parrots. When she tells you “it’s a zoo around here” she usually means it!