HOUSTON, TX, September 18, 2026: Cakes Concealed Carry, the Nevada based women’s luxury concealed carry handbag brand, has added Iron Belle Defense of Houston to its affiliated instructor network. The affiliation makes founder Courtney Hardy the brand’s recommended training partner for Cakes Concealed Carry customers in the greater Houston area and places Iron Belle Defense on the Cakes Concealed Carry instructor map (cakesconcealed.com/pages/find-an-instructor), the brand’s directory of vetted women focused firearms instructors across the United States.
Cakes Concealed Carry adds instructors to the map regularly. Most additions get a listing and a social post. This one gets a full spotlight, because before the paperwork was signed, Courtney trained the CEO’s sister, and it went better than anyone expected.
What went down…
Tamkin Collins, Founder and CEO of Cakes Concealed Carry, has a 3 sisters, Anika being second oldest, was planning on the fence about training with firearms. She had never shot a gun. She hadn’t really wanted to, either. That was fine until the Cakes Bakery Retreat got scheduled for October 22 to 25 at Bullets and Bones in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and Tamkin decided she wanted her sister there shooting alongside everyone else, not sitting in a folding chair watching.
Which left the problem of getting a beginner in Houston comfortable enough with a pistol, in a few weeks, without wrecking the whole idea on day one. Tamkin found Courtney through online search and facebook groups.
Courtney and Anika have done training in one session so far. Courtney showed up with a whole spread of her own pistols and ammo so Anika could try things instead of guessing from a catalog. That mattered, because Anika had already decided she wanted a revolver. She hadn’t been able to rack a slide before and figured semi-autos were out for her. Courtney brought both kinds and let her work through it. Turns out Anika can rack a slide fine once someone shows her the technique instead of just telling her to pull harder. She also found out a double action revolver trigger can take as much as 12 pounds of pressure, which explains a lot about why revolvers feel “easier” right up until you try to shoot one accurately.
Beyond the gun stuff, Courtney started where she starts everyone: the safety rules, how to hold the gun, how to stand, a lot of dry fire before any ammunition came out. Then live rounds. Anika left that first day already asking about the next one, and carrying a pile of Iron Belle merch Courtney sent her home with. The two of them are texting now. That part wasn’t in the plan, but nobody’s complaining.
The next one is a training day blocked out for the week before the retreat, and the goal is that she gets on a plane to Florida able to run her own gun with a line full of women who’ve carried for years.
Tamkin’s version: “I literally had tears in my eyes seeing my sister gain her confidence and take her power back. She’s been through so much, and normally doesn’t like to be put on the spot. But I am so proud of her I could scream from a mountaintop right now, and that’s because my sister could let her walls down with Courtney.”
About Courtney
Courtney owns Iron Belle Defense, a female owned training company in Houston. She teaches the Texas License to Carry course, both the classroom half and the live fire qualification, which the state only lets DPS certified LTC instructors run, and Texas requires a recognized firearms instructor credential before you can even sit for that certification. So the paperwork is real. But the thing her students talk about isn’t paperwork.
The company’s tagline is “Where Strength Blooms.” The mission statement talks about empowering, educating, and equipping people to take ownership of their own safety, and about training that’s accessible and welcoming rather than intimidating. Most instructor websites say some version of that. The difference with Courtney is that a woman who did not want to be at the range walked out wanting to go back, so apparently she means it.
What she teaches
Iron Belle Defense runs more than a single beginner class. The lineup, as of this writing:
Belle Basics: Women’s Firearms 101. Offered with or without live fire. A woman who isn’t ready to shoot yet can take the classroom version first and come back for the range portion later.
Iron Foundations: Firearms 101 for Beginners. Same ground up approach, open to anyone.
Iron Support: Firearm Purchase Companion. Courtney goes to the gun store with you. Anyone who has watched a first time buyer get steered toward the wrong gun by a guy behind the counter will understand why she offers this.
Iron Refined: Private 1-on-1 Sessions. This is what Anika is doing. Nobody else on the line, pace set by the student.
Concealed Handgun License classroom and CHL/LTC Live-Fire Qualification. Both pieces of the Texas License to Carry.
Iron Signs: Firearms 101 with ASL Access. Fundamentals taught with American Sign Language access for Deaf and hard of hearing students. We could not find many instructors in the country offering this.
Iron Youth: Firearms Safety and Awareness for Kids and Teens. For the kids who live in a house with a gun, whether or not they’ll ever shoot one.
Belle Beyond the Barrel: Virtual Coaching and Support Sessions. Remote coaching between range days, or for women nowhere near Houston.
She also maintains a find a trainer directory by state on her site and runs Iron Belle Online, a train from home program for women working toward qualifying.
There’s also an apparel side to the business. Her Faithful Belle line is built around faith and training together, with shirts like “She Prays She Trains She Protects” and “Holsters and Hymns,” and she has a collaboration with Sanders Tactical Performance. Her site also carries a public accessibility commitment, updated this January, covering her training, registration, and online programs. That, plus the ASL course, tells you a lot about who she is trying to reach.
Why a handbag company builds an instructor network
Cakes Concealed Carry makes leather handbags with a dedicated, lockable firearm compartment, built so a woman can carry a pistol in a bag that looks like a bag and not like gear. The company launched its first product in January 2025, was named Emerging Brand of the Year at the 2026 Gundie Awards, and now ships roughly a thousand bags a month to women who, in a lot of cases, are carrying for the first time.
That last part is the whole reason the instructor network exists. A concealed carry handbag without training is a nice purse. Off body carry has its own skill set: how you hold the bag in a crowd, how you draw from it, how you keep it under control when someone grabs the strap. Almost none of that gets covered in a standard holster class. So the most common customer email Cakes Concealed Carry receives after a purchase is some version of “okay, now who teaches me?”
The instructor map is the answer. Every instructor on it is vetted for three things: patience with beginners, real experience teaching women, and an understanding that drawing from a handbag is different from drawing from a belt. Instructors on the map get referrals from Cakes Concealed Carry customers in their area, a listing on the instructor map at cakesconcealed.com/pages/find-an-instructor, and an invitation into the brand’s affiliate program and events, including the Cakes Bakery Retreat, a multi day live fire training event for women held each fall.
Iron Belle Defense checks all three boxes, and Courtney checked them with the founder’s own family, which is about as thorough as vetting gets. Houston also happens to be one of the largest Cakes Concealed Carry customer markets in the country, and until now the brand did not have a woman led instructor there it could recommend without hesitation.
If you’re in Houston
If you own a Cakes Concealed Carry bag and have been meaning to get training, this is a good time. Start with Belle Basics if you’re brand new. Book Iron Refined if you’d rather do it privately. Either way, bring the Cakes Concealed Carry bag you actually carry and tell Courtney you want to train drawing from it. That is the point of the affiliation: the bag and the training are supposed to go together.
She’s at ironbelledefense.com and @ironbelledefense on Instagram.
Welcome aboard, Courtney.
Tell us about yours
If a woman taught you to shoot, or taught your mother or your daughter, and it changed something for you, we’d like to hear about it. Email inbox@cakesconcealed.com with who she is, where she teaches, and what she did. We’ll feature the stories that stick with us, and we’ll reach out to every instructor named and invite her onto the Cakes Concealed Carry instructor map at cakesconcealed.com/pages/find-an-instructor.
About Cakes Concealed Carry
Cakes Concealed Carry, Inc. designs and sells luxury concealed carry handbags for women, built with a dedicated lockable firearm compartment and made to be carried anywhere. Founded in October 2024 by Tamkin Collins and headquartered in Pahrump, Nevada, the company launched its first product in January 2025 and was named Emerging Brand of the Year at the 2026 Gundie Awards. Cakes Concealed Carry operates a national instructor map of vetted women focused firearms instructors and hosts the annual Cakes Bakery Retreat. The 2026 retreat takes place October 22 to 25 at Bullets and Bones in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. Learn more at cakesconcealed.com.
About Iron Belle Defense
Iron Belle Defense is a female owned defense training company based in Houston, Texas, founded by Courtney Hardy. It offers firearms instruction for women, families, and youth, Texas License to Carry certification, private coaching, virtual coaching, and firearms fundamentals with American Sign Language access. Learn more at ironbelledefense.com.
Media and instructor affiliation inquiries: inbox@cakesconcealed.com
