We were lucky to catch up with Kristen Grandi recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kristen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

How do you pick one crazy story out of 10 years? There are three things that I have to tell you!

We were at a show maybe 6-7 years ago. We always give away a few spaces for free at each show, sort of as a way to help new vendors get started or as a thank you to existing vendors. At this show, we had given a space away to a sweet lady who was a new vendor with us. We had a great show and at the end of the day, she came up to me sobbing. I thought something terrible had happened. She told me that she was losing her home, but through her free space at that event, she made enough money that day to save it. I will never forget her or that moment.

We buy and sell vintage, and a month or so ago I sold a midcentury painting online. I saw that it was going to New York City and I thought that was cool, that’s one of my favorite places. Then I printed the shipping label and actually saw who bought it. Jimmy Fallon’s wife! That’s my coolest celebrity story! I did look for my best friend Drew Barrymore when we went to the Rose Bowl Flea, but didn’t see her.

And my last crazy story is that we are celebrating Junk Hippy’s 10th anniversary this March! We’re kicking off our eleventh year! wow! We made it through two years of being shut down in a pandemic and we’re still kickin. I’m so grateful and excited to see how our business evolves. Cheers to the next 10!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Junk Hippy is a true family-owned and operated small business that started in Oklahoma City in 2012. We produce vintage markets in Oklahoma and Texas, but we are all things vintage…we also do estate sales, style weddings and parties, buy and sell vintage, and interior design. We produced markets all over Texas for several years, but now are focusing on staying in the Houston area. We’ve been in Rosenberg twice each year since we started, and in Pasadena since 2019. These are two of our favorite venues and both cities are on our calendar every spring and summer. We’ll be in Rosenberg Saturday, February 26 at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds! Our shows have everything from midcentury finds, antiques, vintage clothing and decor, repurposed pieces and handmade goods.

Since we are a small business ourselves, we always try to support other small or family owned businesses. We shop at our shows. We buy soaps, candles, salsa, and vintage finds from our vendors. Especially after the last 2 or so years, this is more important than ever. We’re very laid back and love what we do, and I think people can feel that in the atmosphere at our events. We want our vendors and our customers to feel at home and have a good time!

I am so proud of Junk Hippy and how it has evolved. My husband and I are able to work together from home, our family helps out, and our girls have grown up with these shows. They definitely have the entrepreneurial spirit too and I love watching them be creative.

Our style is a little bit 70’s Laurel Canyon, rock and roll, midcentury but cozy, if Janis Joplin shopped at the flea market. It’s weird! But we love it! I kind of go out of my way to not have the same things as everyone else. I’m a big believer that your home should look like YOU and not every house on the block. It should be personal and tell your story! I love watching people carry their treasures out of our shows and give them a new life.

In 2019, we bought our dream home, a 1970’s contemporary, and we’re having fun putting the 70’s soul back in it which the previous owners had stripped away. We have been thrifting, garage sale-ing, and redecorating as long as I can remember so we have lots of random fun things. I love finding the weird, wonky stuff that no one else has. All of our furniture and things around the house are vintage…everything is from our shows, garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores or the curb. Nothing from the big box stores. Part of what we do comes from nostalgia, but also trying to preserve a simpler, maybe better time and lifestyle.

We’d love to see you at our Houston shows and keep in touch on our social media! Watch me try to do Instagram! I have no idea what I’m doing.

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

Resilience or stubbornness? It’s hard to tell sometimes. Watching our business and our livelihood come to a halt during the pandemic forces you to evaluate a lot of things. We were shut down for basically two years. Should we have found regular jobs that pay the bills like “normal” people? Probably. Did we? No. There were so many days I thought, we’ve worked too damn hard for too damn long to roll over and die. I’ll never give up! And there were days I thought, ok I’m going to get a job at Starbucks. Owning your own business is a roller coaster. It is not easy. It’s not for the faint of heart. Maybe the universe forces you out of your comfort zone so you have to try something new. And we are. We always have big plans and something in the works.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

When my husband and I had our first home together, we had zero money and I had to get creative. I started painting our old furniture and did that as a hobby for several years. It turned into a garage hustle…I was painting and selling things on Facebook, and ended up lugging my vintage finds around to any craft show I could find so I could sell my treasures. I told my husband that we needed an event that was our style, with the vintage stuff we and our friends all loved. At the time, there wasn’t anything like that happening. I called the fairgrounds in Oklahoma City one day and booked a building and three weeks later we had sold out all the vendor spaces and had a waiting list. And let me say this, we had zero experience, zero money, and zero clue what we were doing but it worked! Shoppers were lined up out the door. That was 2012. Things have changed so much, there are vintage events it seems like every weekend in every city now. But we’re still here, doing our thing! We’ve had so much fun! We were named one of Country Living Magazine’s top vintage events, we’ve sold vintage pieces to be used as props in tv shows, we’ve roamed around Los Angeles pulling a UHaul trailer buying junk and all the surfboards we could find, we’ve made some awesome friends and every day is an adventure!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.junkhippy.com
• Instagram: @junkhippyofficial
• Facebook: @junkhippy
• Other: Pinterest – @junkhippy