Our Story

Grunge Granny is more than just handmade wares. It’s a journey of healing trauma through creativity and learning about oneself in the process.

Grunge Granny began as me, Ren, making things perpetually as a coping mechanism for childhood trauma, as though seeing things take shape out of yarn, floss, resin, cardboard, paper—anything, was a substitute for control in my life.

However, at 31-years-old, I realized that at this point, this is more than just a coping mechanism, and maybe I’ve been denying this part of myself as an artist. Maybe I can call myself an artist now. Maybe I can believe in my endeavors. (This took a lot of self-work and therapy to get to.) Motherhood only added to this, as I watched my daughter draw, sculpt, glue things together to make things and thinking, “I feel that,” when she said that drawing calmed her down.

I’ve always made things for people, believing firmly in the idea that “food made with love, tastes better,” I believe anything made with the intention to protect, draw joy, peace, and/or introspection, feels and looks better, too!

Of course, 2020 threw everyone for a loop. Things were unpredictable and chaotic—but at the time, I had started a new job that was very uncreative. I had already decided to start my own shop and was making things in every single minute of downtime. When I lost my job at the start of 2021, it was time to stop putting it off—it was time to start.

There’s a quote somewhere about setting goals for five years from now, but how if we just start working on them now, then we’ll be farther along on those same goals when “five years” finally comes. Well, five years ago I started Grunge Granny. It was under a different name. It wasn’t organized. It was unrealistic when it came to how much time I would spend on items I sold and I learned a lot about what I was capable of, what I wasn’t capable of, what would drain my energy, and how I needed to be more organized about things I hadn’t even thought of when I started.

Having my own shop is a dream and yes, it was a dream that I set kind of “out there,” in the future, to work on slowly but surely, waiting until I felt like I could say, “Okay, yes, I’m good at this. I can make things,” before actually deciding to commit to it. Maybe it’s 30’s naivety but I look back at all that I’ve done the past decade, all that I’ve made it through since my childhood. I always say, “This is not the worst thing I’ve already survived,” but I think the toughest thing has really been fully believing in myself to make things with a peaceful and loving heart, smiling at little flaws because I see the beauty in imperfections, and I feel ready to do that now.

After losing my job, my daughter wanted to be able to make and sell things too! I’m nervous about her trying to promote herself via social media, I told her instead, “Let’s just do this together.” She could be a part of my shop and we’d even make things together! I want to encourage her artistic endeavors and I love seeing how confident she is and how her confidence grows every time someone is excited to have her art. I want to nurture that drive inside of her so that she grows up believing in her own art, appreciating others’ abilities as though they’re as wonderful as her own, constructively competing only against her past self and not the world.