Hi, I’m Melissa Panszi Riebe: jewelry maker, community builder, and the woman who decided that if the table didn’t exist, she’d build it herself.

Some of you may know me from A D’Zine, my one-of-a-kind handmade jewelry business. Maybe you found me through a media piece, a pop-up event, or a friend who handed you something bought at my store and said, “you have to meet this woman.”

However you got here, I’m glad you did.

Before I tell you about Make Your Mark[et], I need to tell you about the feeling that built it.

Something Was Always Missing

I grew up in Indiana as a Female Latine: caught between two worlds, fully belonging to neither.

Every summer, my family traveled to Mexico to visit relatives. I wanted to feel at home there. I didn’t speak Spanish. My father, who had immigrated from Mexico and built a life as a neurologist in the Midwest, had made a deliberate choice not to teach us: worried an accent would mark us as different, would make the road harder.

I’d stand in rooms full of my own family, catching pieces of conversation, feeling the warmth but not quite able to reach it.

Then I’d come home to Indiana, where I didn’t quite fit there either.

I spent years learning to blend in. To assemble the right credentials, check the right boxes, move through spaces without taking up too much room. I earned two master’s degrees. I worked with inmates on death row. I became a social worker at a cancer center. I did meaningful work. I cared deeply.

There was still this quiet, persistent ache. Like I was living someone else’s version of a good life instead of my own.

The thing I was missing? Permission to be fully, visibly myself.

A D’Zine Was the First Step

My jewelry business, A D’Zine, came to life in 2016. It became fully real by 2019: a business built on the belief that we should never have to make ourselves smaller to fit in. Every piece I make is designed to help you stand out. To celebrate exactly who you are, where you come from, what makes you different.

That work changed me. It also showed me something I couldn’t unsee.

I wasn’t the only one who had been overlooked.

The Table I Wish Had Existed

When I started A D’Zine, I met makers everywhere. Talented, creative, hardworking people: many of them women, many of them from communities that don’t always get a seat at the table. People with real skills, real stories, real products.

Not enough places to be seen.

I knew that feeling. I had lived that feeling.

Make Your Mark[et] is a pop-up marketplace that spotlights local makers: especially those who are underrepresented. Makers at every stage of their business. The ones just starting out. The ones who’ve been at it for years and still haven’t gotten their moment. The ones who have something real to offer and just need a room full of people who are ready to receive it.

What Happens at Make Your Mark[et]

This isn’t a craft fair. It’s a community.

Walking through the doors of Make Your Mark[et] means meeting the people who made what’s in front of you. You’re hearing the story behind the piece in your hand. You’re doing something that matters: choosing to spend your money in a way that goes directly to an independent maker, a real person, a small business that feels your support.

The makers who come to Make Your Mark[et] bring everything they have. The people who shop here feel that.

That warmth, that connection, that sense of being part of something: it’s what keeps people coming back every year.

Why Independent Artists Deserve to Be Seen

You may have seen me on a segment or heard me on a podcast talking about local makers, tabletop finds, or products worth knowing about.

I do that work for one reason: visibility.

I spent years as a social worker watching people get overlooked by systems that were supposed to see them. That didn’t stop when I left that work. I don’t take payment for those pieces. I show up because independent makers deserve to be seen on the same platforms where big brands get all the airtime. Every time I get a seat at that table, I bring makers with me.

Makers at Every Stage

Make Your Mark[et] is for makers who are still finding their footing: people who are building something real and need a space to show up, connect with customers face to face, and see what it feels like to be celebrated for what they create.

If you’re a maker reading this: you belong here. Your story matters. Your work matters. There is a community of people who want to find you.

The Part That Fills Me Up

I am honored every time a customer walks away from Make Your Mark[et] having found something that means something to them. A piece of jewelry. A handmade gift. A product made by someone whose story they now carry with them.

That’s what shopping local really means: buying something made by a human being who put themselves into it.

Watching that connection happen, a maker and a customer, right there in the room, I remember exactly why I built this.

You Found Your Way Here For a Reason

If any part of this felt familiar, the in-between feeling, the sense that you’ve been looking for something real, you’re exactly who this is for.

Come to a Make Your Mark[et] event. Follow along as we spotlight makers and the causes we care about. Start by browsing. There’s no wrong way in.

However you find your way here, I’m glad you did.

To know more about the jewelry that started all of this, visit A D’Zine at adzineny.com.