I’m Magdalena, designer and founder of Real Mishmash. Thank you for stopping by to get to know a little more about me, my passion & how I started my craft journey.
I guess it would be true to say for a long time I’ve been looking for something that I’d truly enjoy and do with passion. My longstanding passion to DIY, home décor and painting has merged, and I feel like I found my purpose but before it happened, my path was bumpy and full of doubts.
Beginning of the story
Already as a teenager, I developed my creativity, starting with painting pictures, creating art, and participating in various competitions, which were motivated by my teachers who saw potential in me. My family encouraged me to choose a major in art – unfortunately, at that time I did not want to leave my family home at such a young age, and I chose a different direction. Then I started working and forgot about my passion and dreams.
After a few years, job in an office started to overwhelm me, I started to wonder what I really want, and does my life really have to be like this? I was feeling there must be a change. Then the pandemic came to my aid and my inner voice spoke up and remind me of my talent and desire to create and do what I really love. I started painting and making things out of concrete again. I remembered again how much joy and pleasure it gives me to express myself through creation.
Sounds fantastic, finding yourself again but…
The pandemic ended and the harsh reality came again. Every day I was going to work with the reluctance to do something that was repeated day by day, working for someone else’s account without achieving anything more for myself.
I realized this full-time job was taking away my self-expression, growth, and freedom. I began to wonder more and more why I was still stuck there and what I should do, fighting with myself. Until one day I decided that if I didn’t try to follow my heart, I’d never know if it was the right decision.
I left and so my story began…
I’ve always had trouble finding a minimalist decor for my home, I’m quite picky, and I really spent a lot of time looking for things that would appeal to me.
So, the beginning of looking special things brought me closer to the adventure with clay, concrete and finally I ended up with Jesmonite, as this material is water based making it kinder to the environment.
I started to create all these handmade little things, because of my needs. I missed items with a soul that are not mass-produced for popular stores. I wanted them to have meaning and be made according to my vision.
My spare room quickly became a makeshift workshop where I worked on things that will satisfy my taste which laid the foundations for what my products have become today.
My sales started on a few platforms to see if it made sense at all, where I successfully saw that people really like what I do, and my dreams of sharing my creations can come true.
This is how Real Mishmash was born
I started with the simple idea of bringing the best from me to my products. Everything you can find in my shop is handmade and eco-friendly, created in small batches.
Every piece is inspired by natural and earthy tones – simple, unique, with own individual quirks and imperfections. Each of them will be different from the previous one, this is what makes them truly special – not just a mass production
Manufacturing process is not all the time the same. There are several main stages I must go through to get the right product; measuring the ingredients, adding the right colors or additives, mixing it thoroughly, pouring it into the right molds, shaking it to get rid of air bubbles, waiting a few hours for it to harden, sanding, and sealing with natural wax on the end… it takes a lot of time! Some products require several days to be ready.
So, between creating products, I spend my time to designing and printing business cards, stickers, leaflets and thank you cards as I try to maintain ecological standards, which is very important to me, so if possible, I minimize the usage of plastic packaging and shipping to keep CO2 emissions and carbon footprint to a minimum.
No one said it will be easy
From day to day, I became the boss, a person who planning and creates, takes orders, manages marketing and sales, invoices, social media, is customer support agent, photographer, Post Office worker and many, many more.
So probably like every beginner, thousands of times I had doubts whether it makes sense, whether anyone at all appreciates the work I am doing now? Was it really a good decision to give up a steady job that was ‘safe’? Will I be able to handle it all? Because there were many ups and downs… Fortunately which I learned over time to turn into lessons.
As Paulo Coelho said: `There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: The fear of failure.
So, despite my struggles and the many mistakes I made, and many decisions to give up – I am proud of myself that I made the decision to fight and realize myself as a person who makes my dreams come true. My progress may be slow, but it’s still progress, and I’m happy where I’m now. Personal satisfaction, challenge, being my own boss and independence was a big motivation to work on it and helped to achieved it.
Through all of this, I met wonderful new people and companies that supported me on a new path of development and appreciated the effort I put into my work. It turned out that they also had similar experiences, so they understood how I felt and what emotions I had to deal with.
I am grateful for every new person I meet thanks to my new beginning and glad that I could rely on them. I understood that this was a process that I had to go through in order to make any progress and learn new skills.
So, if you are wondering whether to do what you love and have doubts if it’s worthy to start, my answer will always be yes! It’s an adventure that no employer can give you, and the satisfaction of achieving your own results and lessons is worth even if you had to fail.
I hope that my story will encourage you a bit to make your dreams come true despite adversity.
All the best,
Magdalena – Real Mishmash
WEB: www.realmishmash.com
FACEBOOK: realmishmashstudio
INSTAGRAM: @realmishmash
