Hi there! My name is Haley, and I'm the owner, curator, and person behind The Mustard Dandelion shop. I wanted to introduce myself in further detail and tell a little bit more about the story behind The Mustard Dandelion that the previous blog post had mentioned. If you haven't already, click here to read the Welcome post, which includes some of my favorite features of the new site!
I live in Cleveland, Ohio, USA with my husband and cat, Beatrix. I met my husband in 2008 and we were married in 2011, so this year we'll be celebrating 10 years! We enjoy bike rides, game nights, hanging out with our nephew and three nieces, spoiling our cat, reading and travel, though we don't get to travel as much as we would like. When we were first married I was working in an office building in the AR department for a company - it was boring but I was good at it and the days flew by pretty quickly, haha. Shortly after starting the job I found myself oddly and frighteningly becoming more and more sick, to the point where I was ill all the time and having a lot of mysterious symptoms*. I always felt a little better once I got home, so I petitioned my bosses to let me do my job from there but was told that that was impossible (flash-forward to 2020 and suddenly EVERYONE deems it possible, right? But I digress, haha.) After about a year of petitioning back and forth I eventually got so sick that I had to make the tough decision to quit my job. In looking for a new career that would allow me to work from home I started thinking about what I like doing, what my interests are and where my talents could be used. That resulted in starting to gather up vintage items and antiques and selling them on eBay for a bit. I have always been interested in and shopped vintage and secondhand for as long as I can remember, and our home was mostly already decorated in vintage anyway. I also love history and find it really interesting, so the idea of so many things that I own having a story and having one to several previous owners always intrigued my already curious nature. Since eBay isn't really my favorite venue to use, I opened my shop on Etsy in January of 2013 and have been on a roll with it ever since. My shop inventory at one point exceeded 2000 items and I always (to this day - I'm looking at it as I write this!) have boxes and boxes and shelves of items waiting in the wings ready to be photographed and listed. My website was supposed to be my big project for 2020 but then COVID happened and we found ourselves unexpectedly house-hunting to find something better suited to our needs. Once we found a house we started the gigantic pain of a process that is packing and moving and I was all-consumed with that. After we settled in a little I started researching and setting up a site that would work well for what I was selling so that I could have more personal input and control over my shop.
Despite the fact that I had to start this career and continue to work in this field because of an illness, I count myself so privileged to be among those that have a job that they absolutely love doing. I love hunting for treasures, and I love researching and learning new things so it's always fun for me to learn the stories and history about brands like Fenton glassware, Pyrex, and others. Unlike many home décor and accessory options today, collecting and buying vintage allows you to have unique pieces since there aren't too many duplicates still around, and if there are they're unlikely to be discovered around the same time or by people you know. Your friends aren't likely to have the same pieces in their wardrobe or their home, unlike the Pottery Barn apothecary table from 'Friends'! (A great episode, by the way - on a recent re-watch of the series I noted just how underrated David Schwimmer's comedic timing is! So many of his lines, delivery, and facial expressions made me laugh all over again):
I often get asked about the name for The Mustard Dandelion and where it came from, what the meaning is, etc. The truth is - it has no meaning! I pulled it out of thin air one day while I was trying to think of a shop name for my Etsy store before I opened it and I thought it sounded good together, haha. Mustard yellow is one of my favorite colors, and dandelions, even though they're technically classified as "weeds" are a favorite flower of mine as well - there's just nothing like seeing a huge open grassy field dotted with the tiny yellow flowers!
Thank you so much for stopping by and reading about our origin story. You can find additional info on the About Us page by clicking here. If you have any questions or just want to say hello, please leave me a comment below or send me a message anytime at hello@themustarddandelion.com.
Thank you!
Haley
The Mustard Dandelion
Me!
(On our wedding day in October of 2011)
(Beatrix Kiddo the cat.)
And finally, please enjoy these photos I took of my hometown and the love and greetings that I'm sending to you from Cleveland, Ohio!
*My chronic illness mentioned above will be the topic of future blog posts!
(Please note that email addresses submitted in order to leave a comment are kept private and are not shown to the public.)
All imaging and written copy on this site is original and the protected property of The Mustard Dandelion™ brand. The 'Friends' clip is courtesy of Warner Bros and user Boomer DeLonge on YouTube.
Copyright © 2021 Haley Maynard / The Mustard Dandelion™
Beautiful site love, congratulations again 💜