Meet Renae Redenius. She just moved to St. Paul last May to live with her boyfriend. Half of her family live in Minnesota, and the other half lives in South Dakota. She currently work as an inventory specialist, but is working on finding a job in either pattern making or product developement for soft goods. You can find Renae on her Etsy store, Trigo. She doesn't have a blog at this time because she's generally too busy working on various experiments.
1. What types of items do you sell in your store?
I started off selling odd sockmonkeys and hand embroidered purses, but now I'm moving more towards recycled monster coin purses because they have so much personality!
2. Where do you get your inspiration?
My best ideas come to me right before I fall asleep at night. I also tend to be inspired by the materials I have at hand. One creativity exercise I do is to look at an ordinary object and try to see how many uses I can think of for that object.
3. Do you have a specific space where you do most of your work?
I have a small studio area set up in the living room of my apartment, but they tend to spread out and take over the rest of the room as well.
4. When did you first start crafting?
When I was a child my sisters and I used to embroider squares of fabric that my mom would then sew into quilts for us. I didn't seriously start to craft until I was in the army and deplyed to Iraq. My family would send me cross stitch kits to keep me busy and I would find ways to personalize them. I was also sent a small stitchery sample kit and that was when I started to branch out and explore other crafting methods. I also did macaroni pictures and marrionette goats from various findings around the office. I'm a very curious person, so I'm always looking for new things to try.
5. Do you do any crafts or art beyond what you sell?
I make toy kittens that I donate to Bundles of Love here in the cities. It is an organization that gathers donated items and baby clothes that are made by volunteers and they make bundles that contain everything a baby needs it's first two weeks in life. These bundles are then given to needy families. Their website is worth checking out.
6. What are your favorite places to buy supplies?
I love to go to Artscraps here in the cities. They are super friendly and its a great place for people who are interested in making crafts from recycled items. They also hold birthdays parties for small children.
7. What is the best thing you've ever done to promote your etsy store?
I joined flickr and have posting my pictures in different crafts groups. I also like to frequent the forums on etsy.
8. What other etsy store(s) do you really like?
I really like be Banana. She's very talented and I've told her that her prices are way too low. I think she just needs more confidence in herself. I bought a couple pouches from her and the quality was amazing.
I also think that Recycedelic has some very unique items.
SugarPickle has some really neat plastic wallets and she donates all her profits from that shop