Creative Inspiration

         

Nature is strongly influencing my creativity in jewelry design this spring.  As I force myself to take better care of myself by eating more nutritious foods, going for walks and/or jogs in the woods, I am forcing myself to stop and enjoy the beauty that God has given us to enjoy.   I am surrounded by so much inspiration if I am willing to take the time to even get outdoors to take in the natural beauty and exercise my much needed muscles and joints.

Can you even imagine how many years ago that someone might have carved this heart with the TJ within it on this tree bark?  So cool, and a sign of love.  It is located alongside of a walking trail in a large nature Park Reserve that we use, and is conveniently located right outside of a large Urban City.  I 💚 this about Minnesota! There are acres and acres of free parks, trails and beautiful lakes throughout Minnesota.

I came upon this moss filled decaying picnic table, which is a 'gem' of a find, within a thick woodland Park out near our cabin.  As I was working out slowly trying to build my muscles and joints from walking, to a light jog and eventually to running, I was jogging on this grass trail, when I happened upon this treasure.  It brought me to a screeching halt, stopping me in my tracks!  I just had to stop and photograph it with my iPhone.  It was simply such a rare find, a found treasure in hiding, a little gem of unexpected pleasure, that I knew I wanted to capture it for longevity.  

Would you of noticed this too?  Or would you be so focused on your exercise that you'd run right past it and not give it a second thought?  Maybe, you are like some of my extended family and think its junk, and not good junk, like most of us bloggers are in the love of treasuring...

Nature I've found, is truly all about the details.  Once again the inspiration for 'Mimi-Toria's Designs' is  nature and the detailing of it, this is how I have always chosen to create with a lot of extra details.  I will  often even add time consuming little unexpected surprises into a design, and work adding these treasures and surprises, until I feel The Lord gently prompting and showing me its time to move onto the next creation.  To me, my business is less about the time and pay per hour, but more providing a one of a kind well loved design for my customers.  

So it is with the birth of a baby foal to its Mother, each Mimi-Toria's Design I create has come from deep within me.  I truly believe that each piece I create for my business, has been predestined for a customer that the Lord already has picked out ahead of time.  I have learned this over time, as I've gained confidence in who I am in Him, and who I am in the jewelry design business, and through my customers testimonies, that my jewelry most often calls to them, speaks to them in some way, to be purchased and become a part of their life.  My customers know that each piece I create has a little piece of "Gretchen Schaumann" that goes with the design and that it was made with love and prayers for its future owner.  

I am blessed that for 17 years, He's chosen to use my jewelry design business as a way for me to be sharing God's love, and I will continue to trust Him in the creative process, and be even more mindful in the days ahead of His leading in my business and personal life.

Do you find yourself drawn to anything in particular while creating?  My mind is busting wide open, but my hands have been too idle.  Time to get them banging out some love...

Mimi-Toria's Designs is Heading to Junk Bonanza

Junk Bonanza

April 18, 19 & 20, 2013

Just a quick note, as I wanted to let you know that the upcoming week is the Junk Bonanza event at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, MN.  There are 90 quality vendors showcased and I will be one of them.  Just thought I'd remind you in case you were interested in check ing it out.  I love this event and it's truly the best possible place to see all that I do in any one given place.  I will have the largest inventory 2 x's per year at this event, as there are around 12,000+ people that go through in the 3 days that it is held, so I have to produce for months in advance to have lots of jewelry to offer the customers.

Early Bird Shopping @ Junk Bonanza:

It starts with an early bird shopping opportunity from 8-10 a.m. on Thursday for those that buy early bird tickets at $25.  The $25 gave the first 200 buyers of the tickets ( the first 200 also get an oversized ivory canvas shopping bag), an early entrance into the show for 2 hours with only the early bird ticket holders shopping (first dibs on everything), plus it lets you back into the show for all 3 days with that early bird entrance fee.

Regular pricing is $9 per day.  There is food, drinks and all you need to spend the day checking out this great event.

The Hours are: 

Thursday 8-10 (early bird shoppers only) 

                                             10-5 p.m. for the rest of the ticket shoppers

Friday 9-5

   (lots of free giveaways on Friday - so be sure to sign up if you attend)

Saturday 9-5

My booth is # 256.  During Junk Bonanza, the Canterbury Park has what they call a permanent tent like building that you enter into.  It may be colder in there, so be sure to wear layers if you are able to come.  You go through that building to gain access to the Main Building to find my Vendor Space #256.  Once inside you go down the right aisle past the Junk Bonanza store, etc. and take a right when you can.  Walk past 2 spaces and you should see me at the beginning of the next row on the Front Corner #256.  I am near the food and seating areas.

You can watch for my Trademark mannequin which is an angel with wings and crown, as well as my Mimi-Toria's Designs logo vintage window sign.

I hope to see you@ Junk Bonanza...

Where You can Buy Mimi-Toria's Designs in Minnesota

Minnesota Metro Area:

Antique Mall of Rogers

12820 Main St.; Rogers, MN

(763)428-4873

Hours M-Sat 10-6 pm; Sun 11-6 pm

Located on the main floor, far back left vendor space, 

and show cased within the 

"The Vintage Jewelry Collection" 

Central MN:

Marishka's Shoppe

811 West St. Germain; St. Cloud, MN

(320)217-8538

Hours M-Sat 10-6 pm

North Central (Brainerd Lakes Area):

Massie Creek LLC

25330 Smiley Road; Nisswa, MN

(218)963-7996

Currently not available at this location until Spring 2013

M-Sat 10-5  Sun 11-4  (May 11 - Oct)

South Eastern MN:

GetFresh Vintage

116 Parkway North; Lanesboro, MN

507-467-2922

http://www.junkmarketstyleevents.com/p/getfresh-vintage.html

April 15-Dec. 21

Events:

Junk Bonanza Events

@ Canterbury Park

1100 Canterbury Road 

Shakopee, MN

http://www.junkbonanza.com/

April 18, 19 and 20, 2013  (Thurs-Sat)

September 26, 27 and 28, 2013  (Thurs-Sat)

Junk Market Style Events

http://www.junkmarketstyleevents.com/p/pamper-yourself-trunk-show.html

held several times a year at Otten Bros. Nursery Long Lake, MN

Private Contacts:

Blog @  http://www.mimitoriasdesigns.blogspot.com

Pinterest @  http://pinterest.com/mimitorias/buy-mimi-toria-s-jewelry/

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/MimiTorias

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/GretchenJohnsonSchaumann

Thank you for your interest.

Gretchen Schaumann

Champlin, MN

gretchen.schaumann@comcast.net

763-427-6211

http://pinterest.com/mimitorias/buy-mimi-toria-s-jewelry/https://www.facebook.com/MimiTorias

Winner of Giveaway Announced

With 237 entries into the giveaway, the chosen name was Diane Roberts.  This was a gallon size vintage jar filled with hand written tickets of each persons entries as well as how they entered.  Diane won with her new blog "like" ticket, but had a bunch of entries for her hard work of promoting my business.  Thus a big shout out to:

Diane Roberts

Thank you to  everyone  for all of your likes, followings, shares of my page and/or contest, blogs, pinterest pages, twitter, etc...  I truly  appreciate  each  and every one of your  efforts and wish I could give this to each and every one of you.

Thank you again!

  ~Gretchen~

500 Fan Giveaway on Facebook

Giveaway for Mimi-Toria's Designs is officially closed!

Drawing will take place later today and winner update will be posted on my blog as well as facebook personal and business pages.  Thank you for all of your loving, sharing, and encouragement you've all given me and my business through this giveaway.  Good luck to everyone that shared, posted, liked, tweeted, pinterest joined, twitter joined, etc., etc.   There are a lot of entries...  So excited to find out who the lucky person will be.  $75 value giveaway

Welcome to Mimi-Toria's Designs blog page.  I hadn't intended on doing the giveaway here, but when I did some more research on google to set up the giveaway, I quickly found out a whole lot of rules and dos and don'ts that facebook has regarding giveaways, so decided to switch it to my blog instead of losing my years of hard work building up a facebook page.  They can eliminate a facebook page completely if their very strict rules weren't followed exactly.  So thus I have switched it to my blog.  So very sorry for the extra work that has caused any of you my old and new fans alike.  I should of researched this more carefully ahead of time, but unfortunately didn't. 

So let's get on with the giveaway:

Good luck to all!

One person will win the above prizes, which include:

1.  Starbucks $10 Gift Card

2.  Mimi-Toria's Designs original one of a kind vintage redesigned necklace as shown on ball chain

3.  Mimi-Toria's Designs original pair of vintage redesigned French hook earrings

Total value of giveaway is: $75

HOW TO ENTER

Here's what you'll need to do to have your chance to win these gifts.  You may enter as many times as you'd like and than leave a comment below to let me know what you did.  You do not have to leave separate comments for each thing, just tell me how many times you qualify.  

1.  Become a fan on my blog and leave a comment that you are new to my page

2.  Join my pinterest business page at:  http://pinterest.com/mimitorias/

3.  Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/GretchenofMimis/

4.  Let me know that you are a follower of my facebook page of Mimi-Toria's Designs

https://www.facebook.com/MimiTorias

5.  Share about my giveaway on any form of social media and let me know

I will enter your name in for the drawing 1 time for each way you choose to help me promote my business. 

Thank you for taking the time and again, I apologize for having to safely move my giveaway to this format instead of facebook.  I just couldn't risk losing my page over a giveaway gone bad.

Please check back here for drawing winner on February 3rd, when I will announce the winner.

I will also try to sneak in a blurb about it on my facebook pages.

Thanks again everyone for helping me to reach the 500 goal!

Creating "Soul" Series - Part 2

Good morning dear friends.  Today, I am sharing with you a blog post that I started quite some time ago, and actually is Part 2 of a "Creating Soul" series that I was writing.  I found it in my draft box and felt let to share it with you since at one point it was on my heart pretty strongly, and truly is some interesting thoughts.  I'd love to hear what you think about it, good and the bad.  Have a blessed day!

2 ~ Uniqueness of Product

Is your art your creating unique?

Do people easily duplicate it?  

Or maybe you are someone that consistently uses other peoples design ideas to make your products?

(an example of a unique piece that isn't easily duplicated)

Have you ever personally noticed when something that is lovingly hand-created has soul?

What about the opposite?

Have you ever noticed items that are hastily created and lack soul?

For me personally, I struggle with this.  I tend to create some of my vintage jewelry redesigns to be quite time consuming and elaborate.  They are filled with "soul" and speak to the customers quite intensely.  I love when this happens.  My customer "feels the love", understands the work it took to create an elaborate piece, they connect with the piece and than appreciates it enough to spend their hard earned cash on my creation.  This is the utmost highest compliment a designer can experience.  :)  

Thank you to all of my loyal customers these past 16 years I've been creating jewelry!

But then sometimes, because of the lack of enough time in the day, the demand for large amounts of product, and because I cater to a broad range of customer styles, I also create items that are more simplified in their design.  I try to not lose the "soul" factor, but at times I wonder if I lose that connection I so want to convey through my designs.  That which I'm describing as the "soul" factor.


Along with simplification of designs, these unfortunately can than more easily be duplicated by others.  I've been noticing it more and more with quite a few fellow creators that do this on a regular basis.   Do you often work hard on a design and/or concept to only see others take it as their own?  Thus the issue and problem comes with "copy cat artists".  

Creativity takes courage.

~Henri Matisse

(an example of a more simplified design I created in 

early 2009 and has been duplicated by many others)

Adding "soul" value to your products...

I find that as an artisan if we try to keep our products "unique" and more complicated they are less likely to be duplicated.  Something, I love to do, but don't always have the extra time to invest 2-4 hours into every necklace I create.  This again can be a struggle at times for the above reasons, as well as sometimes a lack of vintage found elements availability and/or price fluctuation's on products used with regard to the good old economics 101 "supply and demand".  

Try to be a cutting edge designer that comes up with the creative designs vs. the copy cat artist that tends to only use others work.  I know there's a fine line here...  Some of you may say "everything is out there", it's "already been done", etc., etc.  Not really always true.  There are constantly new mediums and techniques available to us jewelry designers all the time.  I personally attempt to try to keep educating myself with new techniques and styles that I can incorporate into my designs to keep things new and exciting.  Try to keep things fresh.  I am currently attending a workshop the end of the month to learn a technique I've always wanted to learn and hope to incorporate those skills into my designs in the future.  I really work hard at coming up with my own designs.  We often doubt our abilities when in fact if we take the time to spend time in the creative process, many times the ideas flow out of us.  This is one of the things I've been trying to relay to my students out in Rogers, MN, where I teach at the new shop "The Vintage Jewelry Collection".  I am teaching Vintage Redesign 101 & 202, and thus not teaching a project, but rather an entire Style and Art including techniques, hard to find elements, what supplies I use, etc.  What I want my students to know, is that they can and should take parts of ideas, techniques taught to them, supplies they like, etc., but then give it their own twist, so that it isn't a direct copy of what someone else is doing.  Often, I have found myself not showcasing or sharing things that I'd normally love to be sharing, because I want them to remain a new design offered by me at an upcoming show, or event.  Some people in this business get most of the ideas/designs from others, and I've even had people that will than undercut my pricing and sell a few booths away at the same show.  Morally, I was raised that this is wrong. 

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.

~Mary Lou Cook

Develop your own style...the below example is one of the design lines that I have been creating for a number of years now, and is recognized as a "Mimi-Toria's Design" by others when my customers wear these style of necklaces with the vintage pocket watch faces and the addition of the "flying sparrow", "French Eiffel tower", and or vintage rhinestones.

Examples of designs recognized as "Mimi-Toria's Designs"

Convey and/or learn to be confident enough to show your customers what sets you apart from others.  Take the time to explain the details that set your creations apart from the booth next to yours, the retail shop down the street, the other etsy stores, blogs, and/or other web shops designs.  This is something I don't always do a good job at, so need to also work on this area myself.  Consistently strive to take your art form to the next level.  And most of all, I feel we each find our true success when we are original in our designs.  Then we are sharing "our soul" and not "someone else's heart and soul."  

Does this make sense to you my followers?  Only then does that satisfaction of a job well done truly reward us with the "connection" we seek with our customers.  It's such a joy when something "I created" with the Lord's direction and guidance speaks to one of my customers.  I just love that!

Marburger Farms - Garden Edition - JUNKMARKET Style

This video clip is fun to watch. It shows Sue, of Junk Market Style educating us about what to look for when planting garden containers, and was filmed at Marburger Show in Texas this past Spring. The Marburger Show is one of those things on my bucket list to do.

Click on the link below to see this video.

Sue's Video at the Marburger Farm Antique Show

Fun fact is cute and funky little Sue is sporting a Mimi-Toria's Designs necklace during the filming of this clip too.  Although this clip may be a bit old, many of you may not have had the opportunity to see it yet, and it is filled with interesting and educational information.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  Sue is always a hoot and so entertaining.

Marburger Farms - Garden Edition - JUNKMARKET Style