SPECIAL FEATURE #3: The House of Mouse

The Queen of Mice. That's how I like to describe felt artist, Anna Greaves, the founder of The House of Mouse. Visit her shop crawling with adorable mice and you'll instantly be in awe.

If the thought of real mice scares you, there's no need to worry - Anna's mice are replicas of every day people, fictional characters, and pop icons you love. Meet the Beatles, Sherlock Holmes, or even happily wedded mice. But that's not all, she spends her days creating a variety of other cool characters at her location in Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Chewbaca and Princess Leia mice, included.

It's no surprise that The House of Mouse's creator performs improvised comedy quite often. She might make mice for a living, yet she hits the stage with a comedy group called "The Dog Ate My Scenework", in Amsterdam center on Friday nights. Think "Whose Line is it Anyway" - the hilarious unscripted show that featured Wayne Brady among other talents. It's a show I used to watch, religiously and therefore find it amazing that Anna's been at it for three years.

You'd think her schedule was booked between her time spent felting and making people laugh on stage. Oh no - there's much more she loves to do. About her extra activities, the artist says that she enjoys ". . . being able to get up on stage without having to learn lines first. It’s so much fun to make it up as I go along. I also enjoy sewing, knitting, baking, card making and any other creative things that take my fancy."

As you can see, it's no wonder that she describes herself as "quirky, creative, and loved." Yes, Anna - one look at your shop's 1,000+ hearts and it's pretty clear many people love your quirky, creative nature.

Read the interview below, to find out more about The Queen of Mice and what new things she has in store:


In business, the 20 second pitch means everything. In 2 sentences or less, tell us what you sell in your Etsy shop and why it is unique.

I create little felt mice that come in a large variety of styles and characters, all with their own little personalities; each individually handcrafted mouse is inspired by everything from occupations and culture to movies and fantasy. Handmade mice, little mice with big hearts.

What are your favorite materials to use in your pieces?

My mice are made with many different materials but I use more felt than anything else, I also use ribbon, beads and card. Some of my mice have accessories made from wire, polymer clay, wood, buttons and metal. I like being able to combine these materials in different ways to create new characters for my store.

Which item from The House of Mouse is your most treasured piece? Why?

Oh that’s a tricky question, that’s bit like asking someone which of their children is their favorite. I love them all! If I HAD to pick right now I would say it’s my Mother and Baby mice, mostly because that baby mouse is really pushing the limit of cuteness before it makes my head explode!

We all pull from different things to inspire our art. What 3 things inspire your creativity the most?

When I first started making them the inspiration came from my friends and family, as I was making each mouse as a Christmas present with a certain person in mind. After Christmas I was inundated with other suggestions from the people that received them!

I regularly think of other mice to make while doing my everyday things, I’ll be watching a movie and think “Oh, a Supermouse would be cool!” sometimes it is from finding an object and trying to see it from a mouse-size point of view. For example the Gladiator Mouse's shield is actually a particularly ugly earring I picked up at a car boot sale. Suffice it to say the ideas hit me all the time.

I also regularly get suggestions from people visiting my shop or MySpace page. And there is continued stream of suggestions from my friends. I have a little book I always carry with me to keep my ideas in.

What is your definition of success?

To me, success is having spent the day doing something creative, whether that creative thing in it’s self was perfect or even satisfactory does not matter. If I have made a creative step that day then I have had a successful day. I know that your question is asking about success as a business or success as an artist, or perhaps success as a human being . . . over a much longer period of time.

However I do not like to look at the top of a mountain and see how much further I have to go, setting myself difficult goals often results in my being scared by them and then unwilling to start. Now, I take a small step every day in the form of making something, I let The Universe choose the direction I will go in.

Etsy selling is all about survival of the fittest. What has been your toughest challenge while running The House of Mouse?

It is a little embarrassing to say this but I have not found Etsy particularly challenging so far.

Having done my research before I opened my shop – reading all the storque articles I could find on setting up my shop, and making sure I understood Etsy’s policies and rules - I have enjoyed myself a great deal so far. However I have only been selling for 3 months so perhaps I have not yet discovered the challenges you mention. I think perhaps that because my mice are very different from anything else sold on Etsy that I have an advantage over many other sellers.

I feel bad for the jewelry sellers in particular as they have so much competition on Etsy. The biggest challenge for me is to keep the time I spend of Etsy to a minimum, I am still a little addicted to chat, making treasuries and lurking in forums!

Share your most exciting experience while running The House of Mouse.

That’s a tough thing to do, narrowing it down to just one. My first exciting experience was my first sale, I think anyone who sells on Etsy would agree that the first sale is a big moment. A week later I had one order for 11 mice to the same person, that was amazing and I was thrilled someone liked my mice that much! But most recently, and perhaps most exciting of all was seeing one of my mice on Etsy’s Front Page.

What words of wisdom do you live by when selling on Etsy?

Strive to do better. One step at a time.

If you could open a brick and mortar shop anywhere in the world, where would it be? Why?

If I could I would buy back my Grandmother’s shop in a village called Mousehole in Cornwall on the south west coast of England .

My grandparents died when I was only 3 but I do have some memories of that shop. I think it would be wonderful to have The House of Mouse reside in the Mousehole shop where my grandmother made and sold her own little mice. She never had the chance to pass on to me the knowledge of how she created her mice, which were slightly different to mine.

I learned how to do it myself, but you could say that it is a family tradition. There would be a great feeling of completing the circle if I could return to that place and start a business there.

If you could select only one celebrity to be photographed with one of your pieces, who would it be?

Remy, from the Pixar movie Ratatouille.


(Remy; Photographer Mouse Female by House of Mouse)

What new things should we look forward to in your shop?

Oh, I have a list longer than both my arms of new characters for my shop! I plan on expanding my collection of mice inspired by famous faces, including Elvis mouse, Madonna Mouse and Marilyn Monroe Mouse. I am also working on a line of new Musician Mice and hope to have a whole orchestra full of them in a few months time. But I am sure that in time there will be new additions to every category of my shop. At some point in the future I would like to expand into making hedgehogs, owls and cats too.

Visit The House of Mouse to see more great items.
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Anna's MOST MEMORABLE CARNIVAL MOMENT:

Yes, when I was very young I went to a fair with my parents. The only thingI can remember about it is the candyfloss! I have a sweet tooth . . . .________________________________________________________________________________________________