We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Rice a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, appreciate you joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

This is a long winding origin story, but I feel every detail counts! For years living in NYC, whenever I walked through East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I would pass an apartment window featuring a collection of New York related artifacts and collections from every day New Yorkers. Eventually that window turned into a full fledged non-profit museum a few blocks away. The brainchild of a NYC firefighter, The City Reliquary became and is still is a collection of NYC related artifacts that continue to feature the random collections of members of the community (think rocks, unicorn figurines, bones, etc.) And so as someone with an interest in the world of history and museums and the idea of collecting (which I attribute to being a child of the 80s who was a proud collector of keychains and stickers!), I signed up to be a volunteer for The City Reliquary in 2017.

Not sure exactly when, but one day in trying to plan a visit to The Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, I researched its history and I learned that when the rotating dance floor was refurbished in 2014, the floor renovators found confetti from the 1940s beneath the floorboards. This factoid inspired me to start collecting confetti—deadstock, commemorative, any kind I could find. So the only next logical step was to ask the museum if I could display it!

While on display it brought me and others so much joy. I programmed two events including a talk by Treb Heining, the man behind the Times Square New Year’s confetti drop. And through that connection my now husband and the then baby growing inside of me spent the transition from 2019 to 2020 as confetti dispersal engineers!

Our daughter was born in May 2020. Named after a confetti moment, she entered the world during a time of uncertainty, job furlough, me needing to fill her nap times with something, and most importantly a time when people needed something to celebrate more than ever. It was during this time that the idea for Confettienda, my confetti making project, was also born.

We understand the idea of throwing paper into the air just because seems wasteful and trivial, but we all needed a reason to celebrate more than ever in 2020 and even now. Confetti is the cherry on top of any moment—from New Year’s Eve to a wedding or birthday, confetti adds an extra sweetness and joy. It was this that inspired me and motivated me to make my own confetti and confetti related products for others to enjoy.

Confettienda is a shop of confetti inspired by our vintage confetti collection and our maternal roots (the Spanish word for store, tienda).

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always enjoyed a theme! I distinctly remember the level of effort, detail, and creativity from some of my earliest theme events. From a 1950s sock hop (with custom poodle skirt) and a 1960s dance (with circular colored glasses, daisy stickers, and tie dye) in elementary school to a mouse themed birthday party for my cat in college complete with chocolate mice, I live for the thoughtful details of a touch of or an all encompassing theme.

While the origin story of Confettienda revolves around collecting and history, it feels like a natural evolution of the theme of my love of themes. And now especially as a mother, my hand is usually the first to raise when a school event needs a theme, decor, or entertainment ideas! So not only can I provide the confetti, I can offer 360 coverage of fun for any event for children and beyond (just ask my adult co-workers at my full time job!).

It is that last comment that has encouraged me the most to offer my services for event / party planning. The compliments of co-workers and questions from fellow parents asking me if I do this for a living, have encouraged me to continue raising my hand, coming up with new confetti related designs, and to just in general keep going, keep being creative, and most importantly, keep having fun!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

If anyone wants to test their ability to receive feedback on the product they are putting out in the world, I highly suggest doing an in-person market. We were lucky enough to be selected to participate in the Renegade Craft Fair as our first in-person event.

I may have overthought my presentation and merchandising and I may have not set the best expectations for myself and product in such an environment. On the first day of the market, I sold nothing—zero, zilch, nada. It was heartbreaking. All the work I put into my business was completely walked past. The few that stopped, many said “why do I need confetti?”

It was so incredibly discouraging especially surrounded by other booths of ceramics and hair bows, and candles selling non-stop. But on the second day, someone bought something. I was elated. To find someone that appreciated what I made, what I put out in the world was so much more encouraging than all the others that just passed by or made unnecessary comments. I loved this stranger. And then another person bought something and Ioved this stranger even more.

I learned so much doing this market, about learning what to ignore and what to listen to, what to pay attention to. I learned that if I loved what I made someone out there would too. And I learned how to think about re-marketing myself, best seen in my transition to involving my child in the process. It became more than my thing, it became our thing and offering additional products to show those who questioned “why do I need confetti” to show them how many things you could do with confetti as seen in our “Crafing with Confetti” series and kits.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I often think the discouraging comments I received at our first in person market were made by more literal people who saw confetti and only saw it as confetti. And at our second in person market all the comments we got about our pricing being too high were made by those who never put a part of themselves out in the world before.

I would feel bad to label these two experiences as experiences with non-creative people (especially because one of the pricing comments was made by an artist 🤦🏽‍♀️). But I think some advice for people in general making comments about the works of others—keep it to yourself and do not feel the need to share your every thought with the maker directly. It takes a lot for a maker to put a part of themselves out there. I respect every person who makes something and has the courage to offer it to a public.

Save any judgmental, unnecessary, unsolicited or just plain nasty comments to yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://msha.ke/confettienda/#welcome-to
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/confettienda/
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Confettienda

Image Credits

All photos by Confettienda owner, Jennifer Rice