¶ Creativity to Fun Today
Hello , this is Brad Wiseman . You're listening to Real Estate and You , we are back in the studio , and today is a really special guest . We are not gonna talk about Real Estate today . Well , we might at some point , i don't know , but we're not gonna talk about Real Estate today .
We are gonna talk about an amazing person from Reading , pennsylvania , who has this company , and you might see the hat that's on my table here . Her name is Stephanie Teramina . You have a company called Have Some Fun Today .
Yes , I do .
Are you having fun ? today is my first question . Yes , I am . She's like until I got here . This is just terrible . Put me in this dark dungeon of a studio downstairs .
But no , you have created a company since around 2014 , which I have followed through the years via Facebook and Instagram and all those things , And it is just amazing , as a bystander on the outside , to watch what you have done and where it has gone , And I just wanna say congratulations and keep up the great work . All right . End of podcast .
No , just kidding . So no , let's just dive in here . This is not something that was new for you . This whole design passion .
True , I've been passionate about design since I was like 10 years old 10 years old .
Yeah , what were you doing ?
building like were you making dresses or something ? I was making huts Huts .
I was not thinking . That's where this was going .
Huts like what kind of huts , like with finding anything like things of wood , and we were very creative young children back in Shemokin PA when I- .
Shemokin . You're from Shemokin , i am . I didn't know you're from Shemokin , isn't our Shemokin ?
damn too , that's another part , it's a different place . Yeah , yeah , yeah , that's a nicer place .
What's funny is Shemokin is in the middle of nowhere . I played a gig there one time . Oh really Yes , years ago , when I was like 19 years old , I remember we didn't have GPS back then 19 , it's a long time ago . Yeah , believe me Yeah , yeah So .
But I remember going up there how to use a map And I saw Shemokin on the map And I remember thinking who lives here ? Now , nothing against people from Shemokin , which you are , but it's in the middle of Pennsylvania .
Yeah , so I played in the woods a lot .
Played in the woods a lot .
And my creativity was developed with Barbies . Okay , did the Barbies live in the huts ? No , no , no , we had . We created Barbie worlds in our house and our living room .
Barbie worlds got it , That's different .
That was my first foray into interior design . We would create our houses .
Yeah . So then how does it go from that to have some fun today ? I mean , how does it go ? that's a big leap .
Well , as a kid , you're using your imagination and dolls and creating worlds with your dolls was something that a lot of boys and girls experience ?
Yeah , absolutely definitely .
I was always really good at art And my mother had a hair salon and she always had all these magazines .
Oh , yes , yes .
So looking at these magazines you kind of like escape into different worlds .
Yeah , so true .
So that was like the initial things that were hitting me as a young girl and my grandmother used to collect antiques and both of my grandparents' homes . I remember really taking it in the way it looked .
The style .
I didn't even know what I was doing then but I slowly developed a passion for interiors , but I didn't even know what .
I was doing , but it's funny because I don't know if every kid is thinking that . No , you were thinking that at a young age .
Yeah .
I mean , if every kid's got a couch , who cares ? Or it's a picture or whatever , but you're actually taking it all in .
Yeah , i was , but I didn't even realize it , and I remember being like 10 or 11 and filling notebooks with drawings .
Oh yeah .
And I really knew , and I even created the name of my company and I didn't know How old are you then I was like 12 , 13 .
Oh my gosh .
I knew I was going to either design like clothing or the homes that people lived in .
Yeah . And now you know , in around adults , i'm sure you said , oh , this is what I'm going to do . And then a lot of people are like , okay , yeah , whatever You're going to , you'll change your mind or you'll do something else . But you kept this pattern going . You kept thinking this is what I want to do .
Yeah , well , i was always an artist . So you know , started with , you know , the coloring stuff , and then drawing , and then always in art classes . I excelled , um , and I went through grade school and high school and I was always into art .
Any clothing in there at all .
I would draw clothing .
You would draw , i would draw clothing .
I never made any clothing , um , and I remember when I was in high school , you know still with the art , but I , i didn't . I didn't think I was able to go to art school . I think I was really .
You know , i think a lot of times parents push people away from creative suits Absolutely , and I did go to school , so they kind of all pushed me towards academics college Yeah . And , but I still got the Parsons brochure , you know college brochures .
Yeah , yeah , wasn't going there's no going online . Yes .
So I remember looking at the Parsons brochure and just kind of thinking , oh , I wish Interesting . I went to Penn State , yeah . I don't know if you know that Um and my junior year of Penn State which is a good time .
It was amazing . I had a great time .
Yeah , but my junior year I decided to apply to this program in France , where I could be an au pair .
Okay .
And again before cell phones and all that stuff . And I went to France for a summer by myself and I didn't speak French fluently , but I had a little French English dictionary .
Oh my gosh , and that was before you could speak into the phone and and it would tell you Yeah , no , there was none of that .
It was really like this real yeah , I know what you mean . And it was there that , you know , i decided that when I graduated next year , i just didn't think that the subject matter I was studying was what I wanted to do And I was like God , i would really love to like graduate Penn State and go to Parsons and become a fashion designer .
And I remember when I came home and I talked to my mom and dad about that and they were supportive . So I spent my whole senior year at Penn State um developing a portfolio for Parsons .
Oh , get out of here And I then went to Parsons . So you agree , from there , from there , yeah , yeah , as well as Penn . State Yeah , awesome So it's funny how you can try to , and I want to say ignore . Yeah , maybe ignore . You can try to ignore the passion that is behind you sometimes you know what I mean .
And and there's a that's why I do this today I love entertainment , you know , and I got out of entertainment , uh , got into real estate , but the entertainment is always there , going like this , nagging at me , going hell , you should do something , you know . So it's the same kind of thing .
You , you knew what you wanted to do , right , you did the college thing right . But that passion just came breaking through . There was nothing to stop it .
Yeah , it did , and I graduated Parsons , which is an amazing place to go to school if you are a creative person , highly recommend Parsons .
What did you excel in there ?
Well , I was a fashion designer major So it's a pretty intense program . Like back when I went there , it was amazing because , like all the best designers in the world , actually came into our classrooms .
Wow , that's incredible And I worked with Michael Kors . Are you kidding me ? No , he was directly my design critique . Wow .
We were constantly being critiqued . We would do work , it would get critiqued . So you really developed a really thick skin around things you created . you know , And I kind of come from that- Yeah , So you've done .
You did that for a while And then you had , so you've been doing still interior decorating . Do you still do the interior decorating stuff for the interior design and things like that ?
I don't do it for other people anymore . I did it for 25 years while , i was raising my daughters before I started to have some fun today . It was an amazing way for me to kind of use my talents , and I even have you that one ?
Yes , you did . Oh yeah , that's a story .
¶ From Interior Design to Legacy
I took a comforter . Well , i'm just gonna quick tell the story , because you remember it , which is funny . So yeah , jess and I were gonna . We had a comforter first . Did we go backwards maybe on that ? We had the comforter first and then did the wall color , or is that normal ? I ?
think that probably happens to a lot of people because the comforter's , you know kind of a cool product and you're like , oh , i love that Yeah not thinking about the wall color , so it was like a grayish comforter .
Gray , i found out , is impossible for a layman to figure out the color , cause there's gray , pink , gray , blue , gray red , like there's so many shades of gray , right , okay , so she comes . She came into my office , looked at the comforter , got the swatches out . This is Stephanie .
She's looking at three colors And she goes oh , let's see this , this and this one . Which one do you like ? I'm like oh , i like that one . Okay , that was it . You did it in like 10 minutes . Jess and I almost got divorced over this thing .
I mean , it was like we were going at it , you know So , but that just shows the talent , or that's that thing that you have , that we just don't have .
You know it's like anyone like I'm jealous of people who can write code or who are like amazing with math and accounting . Exactly , there are two things that I utilize in my business that I have cleared about Exactly . And I wish I could do it .
Delegate . Delegate delegate . Exactly leverage , leverage everything . So that's cool . Now what takes you from there into the have some fun today ? I mean , that's a whole different , you know realm , whole different thing .
Well , you know , it's really funny When I was doing the interior design and it was awesome . I loved doing it . I got to do so many wonderful projects . In the interim of all of that , I was also started to paint again I'm a fine artist And so I was kind of merging both of those together aspects of what I do .
And you know along the way my dad would often say to me aside from have some fun , today , he would say , stephanie , why aren't you doing fashion anymore ? You know , and it bothered him that I wasn't . Isn't that interesting . A fashion designer And I'd be like dad . What I'm doing is still using my degree .
I'm still creating things for people , but it always kind of bothered him .
Isn't it funny how parents know us sometimes more than we know us .
Yeah , i mean , he's probably just like laughing up there . Yeah , You know the fact that I am now like you know , i mean the past nine years have been intense .
You know like to bring something . Yeah , that was nothing , exactly Nothing to something .
Mila Kunis is wearing it in a commercial .
That's amazing , and I didn't even know about it . Amazing .
So it is . it's very surreal And I'm sure my dad is like I got you .
Yeah , so tell the story a little bit about your dad . That's so . he used to say that have some fun today to everybody he met .
Yeah , My dad . I don't know if you've ever met him .
I did not , i did not , but he was a fantastic human .
My dad was a coach , high school coach And you know , back then , when you were a Catholic school teacher , you coached everything that you could coach . So , he was a super busy guy , always loved working with kids And he was really into psychology .
So I feel like my dad's success is partially due to his love of people and his understanding how people think and what impacts people .
And I don't know exactly when he started saying it , but somewhere , when I was an adult and living back in this area , it just started happening and we can't really pinpoint when , really , but it was a long time ago and it just became something that we kind of joked about , because you couldn't be around my dad without leaving and him saying have some fun today
. I mean it was even on his answering machine . It was at our company that my family owns . It's on the punch cards .
Yeah .
He , my dad , embraced this phrase while he was alive . It's amazing . And then when he got sick , this is this was something that really impacted me .
I spent the last three years of his life in hospital rooms and he was in many hospitals and I would remember walking out of his hospital room saying good night to him and he was really sick and even in that physical state and emotional state , he still said to me have some fun today .
Amazing Yeah , sorry .
That's tough .
That is tough And it's a . I don't think you want to call it a mantra , or it is . It's also an affirmation , and I think what it does too is what's interesting about a saying or a phrase . When he says it to you , there's no way you can't hear it .
Right .
So you hear it .
Yeah .
And then your brain goes fun . Today , you know it's like I swear that that happens . It's a record And there's no way you could take that negative . Yeah , so we just have some fun today You're like , oh okay , that sounds like a good idea to me , right ? So what an amazing thing . And what's amazing about , too , is that now his legacy is everywhere .
Yeah , that's , that's the part , that's just you know talking about . He has no idea of the impact that he made by saying follow your dream for one , and then for saying that phrase that you picked up on and put it on clothing , and now it's everywhere .
Yeah .
That's incredible .
Well , you know , when he at his funeral , over a thousand people came to my dad's funeral Wow , and you know we had that celebration afterwards and it was such a beautiful day .
It was really unbelievable And I just remember the people coming up to me and telling me stories about how he impacted their life , the positive ways that he did that And I remember you know going home and over the course of the next couple of months .
you know I don't know if you've ever lost anyone really close to you , but you know you definitely go through this like few months at least of like processing the loss .
Yeah .
And I'm a very spiritual person and I just remember , you know , doing like a morning gratitude practice And for me when I create things , i see them .
I see , I get a vision of what it should be , whatever I'm working on , or you know , even when I was doing design for people like I would meet with them , i would have the consultation and I would say , you know , just give me a couple of days . This is my process . I like process it , think about it And then I see it .
And you see it , i see it in my head , and it was that morning .
Months later , i saw a painting that I would make That had the words have some fun today , wow . And as soon as that happened , i saw visuals of that and many of the products that are still part of the brand today . And I called my mom and I said I'm going to start a brand And you know , whenever .
I say anything .
I do it .
Yeah , i'm one of those people . And so she said okay , And then here we went , you know so Wow , and here it is today . Yeah , and where it is . This is just amazing , great story , great story . Yeah , i'm just amazed at how it went from that to this . That's incredible , very incredible , so that's awesome . So let's go from there .
Now is it worldwide , it's everywhere .
I mean it's global . We ship globally . I you know we're on the internet .
Yeah , right , so it's everywhere . Yeah , as soon as it's on the internet , you're everywhere . Right , you're global .
We haven't delivered to Mars , or you know Well ?
that's next . It's not on the rover . Maybe we could get the rover to have some fun today on it . That'd be really good .
That would be hilarious .
Yeah , and also your philosophies . You have some . There's interesting stuff I saw on your website And one of them is the mission is making people smile . Very simple mission , but very you know it means a lot Making people smile Yeah .
You know it's . It's really interesting for anybody who owns . Have some fun today and wears it .
Yep my wife has bag , she has shirts , she has all that stuff . I know Jessica Pritzman was going through some stuff and some tough times and I love that they all had that shirt on that one picture . That brought the whole spirit up . That could be the reason that she's doing well .
It could be you know what I mean Like that helps everybody , it's energy and it's good energy and it's all around you .
That's exactly what it is . So when you're wearing the product and I do this as an experiment sometimes I'm in New York City and I have my baseball hat on- Right right
¶ Fashion, Sustainability, and Charity
. For example , i'm walking down the street and you're passing all kinds of people . Oh , yeah . And I will watch someone's eyes go to me in general and then go up to my hat clearly reading it , come down to my eyes , smile and we pass .
Interesting .
That is what have some fun today does .
That is a that's an incredible experience , because you just changed , you just affected somebody that you don't know .
Yeah .
By wearing a hat . Yes , with words on it . Yes , that's pretty awesome . I know That's pretty awesome . What if we all wore one ?
I know .
I got one today , Just so you know . Look at this puppy . Yeah , what you doing , Brad ? I ?
wanna hear what happens . What are you ?
wearing . I'm gonna have to do that . It's gonna be an experiment of mine .
You know , if you're , let's say you wear it out to happy old , yes , whatever .
I love that .
It's an energy exchange that makes people smile .
That's pretty cool , Pretty amazing . What do you think Hugo ? Pretty amazing . What do you think Tony ? Tony's here too . So we have social media Hugo's here producing the show . I think they're just sitting here just listening . They're all very . They're both very quiet . You know what I'm saying ? Very quiet , But I love it .
So so , going back to that , what's what's next ? Where do you go from here , Like , what products are you making next ?
Well , you know , this year we're , you know we've had a lot of challenges . Yes , COVID . Covid was quite an interesting experience for all of us , especially .
Did you make the mask with it on ?
No , I didn't .
I just thought maybe you know I . Probably not a good thing to have some fun today . Put on there .
I don't know . I thought about doing it . We did not do that . Supply chain stuff was crazy .
Oh , true , true , true true .
So we really had to be creative . So we actually changed our manufacturing and we're not manufacturing in China anymore .
Good for you , and we have moved things over to India and the US .
We're doing a lot of things in the US now It's it's hard to do but we're doing .
Real quick question about that Sure , Just because I don't know Why . Why does everybody go to China ?
Because they can make things affordably and then they can sell them at a lower price point .
Got it . You know , that's what I figured . So it's about yeah , it's , it's it's manufacturing , yeah , it's manufacturing , got it .
And trying to make things as affordable for our consumers as possible .
But do you think if , if any Americans would be asked the question hey , you're going to pay $5 more for this , for it to not be made there , don't you think I do ? you think that people , i think people will do it right .
Yeah , i think . I think people would you know and the people who wouldn't , well then , that's okay .
Well , I'm proud of you for doing that , Cause I think there's , there's . It's not good Yeah .
Well , the other thing that we did was we decided that we wanted to be more sustainable .
So Good for you .
Now the things that we're making are sustainable as much as we can .
I mean , that's going to be very hard . There's limits for everything .
Our canvas bags are recycled canvas .
Get out of here .
Yeah , So I thought that was pretty cool And we're only using natural materials Good good , good . And we're trying to produce in the United States as much as we can . So we do have some new things coming out that are made in the United States .
Well , the belt buckle you have on that . Is that new or no ?
Yeah , this is new and it's going to be coming out in the weeks .
Oh , so wait , you have it before anybody else . What ? how does that work ?
Because I get to wear all the proto samples . She acts like she's special .
Are you special ? I am very special . Well , it's a cool belt buckle because I know Tony recognized it right away . She's like , oh , that's cool .
Yeah , thank you , i'm really excited about it . That's very cool So we have a bunch of really like beautiful , beautiful products coming in this year . We're doing these beautiful leather products that are made in India . We are also doing a t-shirt that's going to be made in the US We're excited about .
We're also going to be doing some new recycled canvas bags that our local town has . I have so many people emailing me about these canvas wristlets we used to make that we sold out of when we were on QVC . Gotcha That was a really popular item And since then we have we kind of move on from a product , then we'll bring it back .
It's really popular and people are asking for it . So we have a lot of . we have a lot of cool things coming out . And we also just did a really cool charity event .
I saw that on social media . I wasn't sure exactly , but I know that you were somewhere and had a bunch of people and then I saw your painting in the background . Yeah , so I'll tell you I don't read much , I just look at pictures . You were somewhere and you had a picture .
So I had these bags that I made a couple years ago , and on a small portion of them there was a flaw in the leather , and I would not sell something that was not perfect , and so I was trying to think of how to create something fun out of these That would be a sustainable act .
So we took these bags and we reached out to a bunch of artists in New York City , and we asked each of them to create a work of art using the bag .
Oh my gosh , that's cool .
And then we had a party .
We have a link actually on our it's going to be on our website We're working on it right now where you can still bid on the bags , because we have four left that we want to raise some more money for , and so we had a party last week and we donated all of the proceeds and are going to be till the end of the month to a mental health organization .
That's great .
It's called Vibrant Awesome And they're the people that run like the suicide hot hot line .
That's awesome .
And they provide great services all over the country .
Absolutely .
So we really want to do more of this kind of stuff I mean it's you're having fun , it's involving fashion and art and it's doing something good , and it's also sustainable .
Love it , so we're just so excited to be on the team . Win , win , win , win . It's win all around , and also it looked like you had a good time .
Yeah , we had a good time , but I want to do them in other cities .
I love that idea .
I'd love to do one in Redding .
Yeah , you know , there's plenty of great artists here And we have great venues too . Different stuff Yeah , absolutely , that's something we just did recently . So are you still so before we end ? are you still like is it just you ? I mean , you have other people helping you design stuff . I mean , how does that work ?
I mean , i'm the designer , you're the designer , i'm the creative director .
I do all the creative vision stuff . But I my partner , jay Schwyd , has been helping me tremendously . He's like kind of , you know , my director of operations . And then I have a lot of people who we have a marketing team out of Florida And I have a PR team out of New York And so we have like entities that are helping this grow .
It's awesome , very cool . So I've been working on my own brand , so I just wanted to see what you think of what you think of this It's really original And I just want to see what you think . Okay , so it's , it's have some more fun today , do you like it ? Yeah , i like that .
I like that .
I mean , it took a lot of time .
That's adorable . Yeah , it took a lot of time , i have to steal your idea , And I was .
I worked , I drew it myself , this part myself .
I might have to just take a picture of that . Okay , just like copy it .
So this is going to be Alan T-shirt soon , yeah . You know that kind of stuff . I mean , i'm not used to doing that kind of work , but I thought I would try something new .
Might be a trademark in front of you , you think so . I hope you have a good lawyer .
Yeah , oh yeah , that's right .
Darn it .
Well , I want to thank you for coming on the show today . Thank you So much . What great stories , what great times . I love where you're going with things . I just can't wait to see where it goes next and who's going to wear the shirt next . Yeah , me too . I'm like a president or something like that . Can I get a president or somebody out there ?
or like John Travolta or somebody like that ? Has he worn it yet ?
No , not John Travolta .
Anybody any try to think of who else would have worn it ?
I saw a bunch of people Haley Halle Berry , she wears it all the time Halle Berry's herself and her boyfriend husband has worn it Yeah .
Yeah , i've seen it a couple of times in there . That's amazing . Keep up the great work . Thanks for coming in today . I very much appreciate it .
Thank you , brad , and that's it .
¶ Compliments and Farewell at Work
There we go . Stephanie Terramina , that was amazing . Have some fun today , by the way , and look at this fancy hat I have here . I'll have to wear this and see if I put smiles on people's faces , which I think I will , hopefully , and also my creation too , which we're going to use . That , all right , that's about it .
We'll see you next Thursday at 7pm , all right , thank you . Have fun .