We have happily added some long time friends and designers to the store! A great team of Sisters from my awesome hometown of Milwaukee, Wi. I highly recommend a visit! Milwaukee is where you will find a ton of independent boutiques, makers, and artists that support each other, small business is KING and definitely hometown pride reigns supreme.
This will always be one of my favorite cities hands down. Lets catch up with our latest and greatest duo to come out on the scene, Christine and Carrie of Where Wild Roses Grow!
When did you two first develop Where Wild Roses Grow and an idea of working together?
Considering we have worked together and done art together our whole lives, this gradual transition to jewelry designers was an easy one. As busy SAHM and working Mom, we both have been looking for outlets for our creative sides. Carrie is a Full Time elementary art teacher and I am a graphic designer, and we both constantly create art. About a year ago, we started throwing the idea around. We had an idea on where to sell, what to make, etc. and it all evolved from there. We naturally fell into our roles in the business, Carrie being the creative director, and I am more the Business and Marketing side. We had our first show at our kids' Montessori school craft fair back in May. We haven't looked back.
Tell us a little about your creative process such as inspiration, how ideas come, collaboration, work space.
We both love fashion. We have our own styles but crossover quite a bit and we used to share ALL of our clothes as kids into young adulthood. We grew up in very rural Wisconsin and both eventually found our way to Milwaukee, WI. We live about 2 miles from each other. Milwaukee is an incredibly supportive and nurturing environment for Makers, so that is a big help. We take inspiration from our childhood, growing up walking in the woods; picking and painting rocks ... and juxtapose the natural elements with more hard, industrial elements that remind us of the city. We both are city girls at heart. You will find a lot of wood and distressed metal in our collection. And most pieces are simple, clean and modern. We tend to have a boho aesthetic with a dash of sporty (you will see sporty stripes on metal or wood pieces), but favor clean and modern jewelry. Our husbands created work spaces for us in our home basements. The biggest problem we have is sharing some of the materials.
What's the Where Wild Roses Grow woman all about?
We definitely love eclectic style. We love to see that idea of opposites in fashion as well as our jewelry. The Where Wild Roses Grow woman loves jewelry and wants to make a statement. We've been making lots of statement necklaces lately. She is a little quirky and age definitely DOES NOT MATTER. We always joke that we want to be Old(er) Art ladies who wear all black, huge statement jewelry, and bright lipstick. (And I think we are already there!) The other day I wore our huge yellow distressed enamel earrings AND our copper triangle necklace with a denim work shirt. It was not a shy look.
Fam Forever
If you could see your jewels on a celebrity who would it be?
Musicians Valerie June and Neko Case. A modern day Frida Kahlo.
Where can we find your jewels!
We are in a retail store in Milwaukee called Hometown Established (all handmade products). And we have quite a few art/craft fairs lined up for the rest of the year. We will be doing a big
push to our Etsy store in a couple of weeks (with some new pieces). We also hope to collaborate with fellow artists to do pop-up shops around the city, and we will definitely be doing trunk shows in Fall and Winter. And www.OrangeBlush.com, of course!!!
