There is a new vintage pop-up shop in Saint Paul, MN called Junk Love. Junk Love is the brainchild of Malia Schroeder, a marketing student at Century College. Malia takes salvaged item and turns them into something special. She sells found items such as vintage, antique, retro, repurposed and up-cycled items. Innovator and entrepreneur Malia Schroder also takes plain newer items and make appear old. Some would consider this the “shabby chic” look.
They threw their first weekend-long sale in May of 2011 and have had three other sales since then. For being such a new shop, it has certainly received a lot of buzz around town. They were recognized in Metro Magazine as best of the Twin Cities in 2011 along with a follow-up personal interview with Malia Schroeder who came up with the concept, blogged about in many personal blogs, participated in the first annual Urban Flea Market at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis and the facebook page has over 300 “likes”…all of this happening in six months time sounds like quite a promising venture.
More recently, Junk Love threw a holiday sale on Black Friday. They had guest vendors at all of the previous sales but they wanted this one to be more of a holiday shopping experience so their thinking behind it was “the more, the merrier.” More vendors mean more advertising, more traffic, and more sales. This experimental sale turned out to be a pretty successful experiment and maybe next year’s Black Friday Sale will be bigger and better and even more successful.
Some things that are in store for Junk Love include possible permanent set-up at a vintage boutique in NE Minneapolis and use of a new venue for weekend sales that they still plan on doing along with the boutique space. The next weekend sale will be sometime between late February and early March of 2012 and will take place at The Lyric at Carleton Place in the “Johnny Lounge” room. It has easier access to a newly accessible parking lot that can be used for Junk Love sales and an entry that does not require the “junk lover” to be buzzed in to check out the sale.
Junk Love is moving up in the world of occasional sales and their goal is to stand out from similar shops; they are well on their way!
3 Responses
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Malia Says:
Hey everyone!! The next sale will be in March. The 24th and 25th…..Saturday from 10-7pm and Sunday from 10-4pm. We’re throwing it at a new venue…our neighbors at The Lyric in St. Paul. Check out http://www.junk-love.com or facebook.com/junklove for details!!
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Malia Says:
We are now selling items out of a really cool vintage shop located in NE Minneapolis. Hill-Valley Boutique! Check it out at:
3301 Central Ave. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418
I’m there every Friday from noon until 4 pm and usually hang out with my mom on Sundays while she works for a few hours! -
Stephen Kelly Says:
Great concept Malia! The March show is near my house. I’ll have to stop on down.
Just out of curiosity, how much time do you spend a week scouring for junk? I have a friend who is heavily into antiques, and it is quite the time investment.
