VAN NUYS - Step aside, Rosie the Riveter.

A new group of women workers have emerged, and this time they're running the shop.

Through Made in the Valley, The Valley Girls Grew Up, a Granada Hills-based company launched a year ago, women entrepreneurs are selling individual product lines that they once dreamed of inventing, but were unsure how to start up their own businesses.

Enter Gail Lara, Made in the Valley founder and a retailer who shows these local, creative minds the path to independence and success in the business world. The women wholesale their products to Lara, who markets them online at madeinthevalley.net.

"I worked my way up the corporate ladder, but you do hit the glass ceiling and realize you are selling yourself short," said Lara, 53.

"They say, `Here is your raise.' And we don't say, `I'm worth this much.' I think women need to start understanding they are worth it."

Lara grew up in the San Fernando Valley, moved to Hawaii for college and then worked as a buyer for a major retailer.

After 25 years, she returned to the Valley and started her own retail business, selling Hawaiian products. Lara had the idea for years to market three of the items when she thought about other women who have products to sell, but are unsure how to do it.

Today 14 local businesses operated by women are selling their handcrafted jewelry, homemade organic beauty products, baby clothes and gift wrap on Lara's website

Lara has met 100 businesses, and so far has carefully chosen 14 for her flock. She will add 11 more. Ten percent of the Web site's profits go to charity.

"It has to be someone who is passionate about her business. She has to want to share that," Lara said. "They have to have a business plan. They have to know where they're going.

Through monthly meetings, Lara pairs up women running established businesses with newcomers to mentor. Women pay nothing to belong to the organization and make money off their own Web sites selling their products.

In 2003, 6.8 percent of women in the workforce were self-employed, compared to 12.4 percent of men, according to a February 2009 report from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The study reported that women enter self employment for reasons other than an increase in earnings. Lifestyle factors are more significant reasons than earnings in the decision to be self employed.

Susan Kushnatsian of Porter Ranch cast aside a child care agency she ran for years after launching Bee Gorgeous, an organic skin care line, two years ago. She started the business after she experimented with making her own products because she's allergic to nearly everything selling on store shelves.

Kushnatsian knew she was onto something good after customers lined up at a Green Expo in 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center for her homemade lip balm, lotions and all-in-one cleanser and moisturizer.

Even during the recession, Kushnatsian has found a reliable customer base by selling her handmade line to boutiques on trendy Melrose Avenue and in Venice. She also has celebrity clients.

Meeting with other business owners involved in Made in the Valley keeps her motivated.

"There's so much going on at the meetings, and you leave with this whole attitude of `I can do it,"' she said.

Deborah Lovett of Valley Glen embarked on a one-of-a-kind greeting card business in 2001 after fiddling around with old family photos when her mother died.

At the time, she had been laid off from her job coordinating data circuit installations for businesses. After creating 200 cards from family albums, she found a Granada Hills-based craft group to sell them. That's where Lara later discovered her.

Sitting inside her home, Lovett makes her recycled greeting cards with black-and-white photos, gift wrapping, bags, napkins from Europe, piles of papers and ticket stubs.

To keep a steady paycheck rolling in, she picked up a part-time receptionist job at a real estate company. She devotes the rest of her time to her card business called Once Upon a Kind.

Did she ever think her career could be so free-wheeling and operate on her own terms?

"No. Absolutely not," said Lovett who attends Lara's meetings. "I grew up believing you work a job from 9 to 5, and that's your life.

"After my mom died, I thought, `There has to be something else."'