Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa and Robyn.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We started Demonic Pinfestation on Friday, November 13, 2015. We have always been obsessed with horror and cult films as well as collectors of enamel pins. When we first started, I couldn’t really find any pin makers that we’re focusing on the women in horror movies. The strong female roles in horror movies deserve as much recognition as their male counterparts, and we wanted to change that.
We also have an obsession with medical/anatomical art, oddities & death, and wanted to expand into making realistic pins that resemble some of our favorite surgical tools, wet specimen, and embalming fluid bottles. We not only wanted to look at them at museums but felt their macabre beauty was something we wanted to wear as well.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think there are always struggles when starting up your own business. We have been lucky to have a ton of support from the people in the pin, horror and oddities communities on Instagram.
We are extremely grateful to them and know we wouldn’t have been able to continue without them. This is what we do 24/7, so it’s a struggle to find time for anything else, but in all honesty, I don’t want to do anything else. I never want to say that this is a job. It’s not.
It’s a passion and it took me (Melissa) a long time to find where I belonged and what I was good at. I am lucky to have the help and support of my mom/best friend Robyn. We make an amazing team and that makes it easier to deal with when struggles do come up.
Demonic Pinfestation – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I (Melissa) focus on all of the art and social media, my mom Robyn focuses mainly on the business side of things and takes care of shows that we will be vending at, and we have recently added on our friend Brett Sailor as our new graphic designer.
We specialize in creating unique enamel pins from our favorite horror and cult films as well as realistic medical oddities and surgical tools, but we also have pillowcases and a wine bottle stopper that is part of our Demonic Possessions line and we recently came out with our first T-shirt! We are growing and it’s exciting to produce things that you won’t find anywhere else.
It’s so rewarding to see something you worked so hard on turn into an actual object that people can wear and to see everyone from around the world posting pictures of themselves in your work. We are also so proud to have our pins in The Museum of Death in Hollywood as well as their location in New Orleans. That is a huge deal for us since The Museum of Death is one of our favorite museums in Los Angeles!
There are SO many amazing pin makers but I think what sets us apart from others is what we base our pin designs on. The women in horror and cult films as well as the medical side of it. We have two different customer bases and a lot of our customers cross over and tend to be excited about both the horror and oddities designs we do. After all, I think they go hand in hand.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
We have had quite a few proud moments since we started our business. We had the opportunity to do two official pin bundles for Anna Biller’s The Love Witch. We did a Pin & Love Spell Bundle with our friend Ghoulish Delights Bath Shop that came with a love spell with the actual herbs used in Elaine’s spell book!
We also did The Victorian Tea Room Bundle. We put together a Love Witch High Tea Party with The Mystic Museum in Burbank where people came to meet Anna Biller, Samantha Robinson and a large part of the cast as well as have tea leaf readings. It was such an amazing evening and it was such an honor to get to work with Anna Biller on these projects.
We were also asked to recreate VHS art for Slashback Video at the Mystic Museum. We recreated the VHS art for one of our favorite Halloween horror films, Night Of The Demons! This was such a rad experience for us, being a child from the 80’s/90’s and brought back such nostalgia of going to rent a VHS and being completely enamored with the artwork in the horror VHS section! I highly recommend going to check out the exhibit at the Mystic Museum. The exhibition runs through December!
Another proud moment was being asked to do an Officially Licensed Vincent Price pin and patch for Creeper Crate. Creeper Crate is a mystery horror subscription box that has a new theme every month. We have been working with Creeper Crate for a little over a year and do a ton of art for her boxes. Getting asked to do something for the Vincent Price box was so exciting! While we mostly focus on women in horror, we absolutely couldn’t pass up the opportunity to create something for the Master of Menace!
Contact Info:
- Website: DemonicPinfestation.bigcartel.com
- Email: [email protected]
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
