I’ve always been into the arts and creating things out of whatever I could get my hands on. I think I was born creative; it’s just in my blood. My mother is a Jane of all trades when I was growing up. So I think I get most of my inspiration from her. It might also be another reason why I can’t just stick to one thing. I am constantly trying out different crafts.
She used to make me these really cool birthday cakes when I was younger and each year was always a different theme. My most memorable must be the ‘Barbie doll cake’. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? You know the cake where her dress is actually the cake and the doll is sort of stuffed into it. The top part of her dress is put on with icing to match the rest of her dress. I loved those cakes. She also used to make wedding cakes right down to the icing herself. A few of my aunts would come over whenever she was going to be making a wedding cake for someone in the family and sit there and make flowers out of icing for it. Amazing. I really don’t know how they have the patience.
It was always fun watching her put them together, even more amazing how she managed to get the completed cake to the hall without hardly ever breaking the icing that hung down in strands off the cake.
She also was a decent drawer and recently was into folk art crafts. I love my mom. We have so much in common that way. I think I also get my love of reading from her as well.
So at a young age I was always doing something crafty. I used to make these cards for peoples birthdays or other occasions and I always include this logo of a mouse I had made along with my business name ‘Mouse inc.’ and the year. Sort of like Hallmark and other card companies do on the back of their cards.
That is really were Mouse Ink was born. I always wanted my own business that was called Mouse Inc. Mouse is my nickname in my family. I don’t really remember how I got it, more then likely because I was always quiet and loved cheese. The name just stuck. So I always wrote it on anything I could.
As I grew older I started taking an interest in jewelry and started my collection of beads and other jewerly making accessories. I went to college for graphic design and during our third year they started talking about registering business names. I thought it might be a good idea but wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. At least it got me thinking about it. A year or so after I graduated that was exactly what I did. I went down to register my business; unfortunately I couldn’t use Mouse Incorporated because well it takes lots of money to do that. So it eventually transformed into Mouse Ink, and that is what it is still today.
Over the years I really didn’t do a whole lot with my business until recently when I joined up on Etsy. I was so into trying new things that it was hard for me to stick to one thing long enough to even consider trying to sell it. I still am that way really, but I have to start somewhere.
Currently my main passion is still jewelry but mainly chain maille inspired jewelry. My brother was the one that got me into that. We are both into medieval times and castles, knights and all of that stuff. He started coiling and cutting his own rings and showed me one day what he was making. He even gave me some rings to play around with and made me a little system to coil my own rings as well (complete with different sized poles to make different sized rings!). That got me on my way.
It’s funny how different aspects of ones life or even incidents kind of put you onto another path in life. I never expected to make things out of rings before, but as of right now I am loving it. J Hopefully I can build Mouse Ink into something I have dreamed of since I was a young kid. At least finally I am pointed in that direction.
I really like the top one, but I also love how the top part of the second one looks. Its a hard decision. I might just have to use both of them. :)
