Creator Spotlight: Meet The Chocolate Minnie—Disney DIYer, Designer, and Pin Collector

The Chocolate Minnie is building a more inclusive fairytale-inspired world. Her work centers BIPOC representation, body positivity, disability visibility, and the kind of character design many Disney-loving adults rarely saw growing up. Through her character-driven creations, she has built a community centered around joy, nostalgia, and what she calls “proper representation.”

We spoke with The Chocolate Minnie about the meaning behind her brand, how her shop began, her creative process, and more.

What does the name, The Chocolate Minnie, represent to you?

The name itself was a name I gave myself. The account started out as a pin-collecting account. It wasn't meant for me to be a small shop owner. It was for me to keep track of my pin collection, the pins we were collecting, the trades I had in the works, and searches. Other people [on the platform] could see what you were looking for, and you got trades facilitated there.

Why I gave myself that name is because, one, I'm a bubbly person. Two, I am a fan of Disney, the whole spirit of magic, and finding joy in the little things and in life in general—because this world is crazy, even more so recently. It was just about reminding myself of the magic of life in general, and part of that is Disney and childhood and things. And, of course, I'm brown and I wanna celebrate that.

I also want other people to celebrate that and be proud of that, so another way of saying that is obviously, chocolate. A lot of times, I say that I'm chocolate-obsessed. When I say that, I'm always referring to my skin and just the body as a whole—how diverse we are, how beautiful we are. No two of us are the same—the shades, the everything. So I just love our community and that was kind of a way for me to come into my own, but also celebrate that with the rest of us.

Would you say that creating Disney merch has become a lucrative stream of income for you, or is it more passion-driven?

More passion-driven. I would love for it to be a lucrative thing where I could make this one income, but it definitely does not pay the bills. It is something I am passionate about, especially with the character designs and the detail of how I ensure what I call, that every character has a cuteness. That can be anything from having a gap in her teeth to having thick thighs, having vitiligo, or locks instead of just the regular straight hair. I try to make every character have unique characteristics about her that the other one doesn't have, but still, where there’s at least one or two characters that the BIPOC community can resonate with, from how they look to how they're dressed, and their characteristics and features.

What's your creative process when coming up with new merch ideas?

Me starting out as a pin collector introduced me to sourcing manufacturers abroad. After starting that with pins, I kind of branched out and started doing other things, like skirts, shirts, and backpacks. Sometimes, people do suggest things.

Sometimes, it's me wanting to expand and see someone else have something and being like, "Can I do that for myself with my characters?" Then, I try. Sometimes, I fail and sometimes, I make it happen. It's not like with companies where they have a big plan. They plan out for the year. They have a list of things that they wanna make happen, and they have a time frame and all that.

It's very much sort of spur of the moment, where I see something. I think it might be cool for my shop to provide that with my characters. I see if I can make it happen.

Disney is known for being pretty protective of its brand legally. How do you navigate that as a designer? What are some things that makers should be mindful of when selling Disney-inspired products?

As far as how I navigate things legally, [my characters] technically aren't Disney characters. They're my characters in Disney clothing, because the features are so different—the hair, we go through and change the names, because I also thought that would be fun for my community. That was one of the biggest things we did in the very beginning. Every time I introduced a new character, we would do a name game. My Instagram audience would suggest names, and we would vote. I would narrow it down to the top six that I liked. And then after that, it was polls on Instagram stories until we got down to the winner. So essentially, I do think that possibly, with renaming them. They are inspired by them, but you can never say that they're Disney characters in a sense, because they're not exactly the same.

You've built a strong social media community with over a thousand TikTok followers. What kind of content do you think has resonated most with your audience?

Diversity of the characters and me taking their feedback, honestly. One of the other things I say all the time is that it's not just about representation, but proper representation. There were characters [I created], like Jaseery, which is inspired by Jasmine. She has an Arabic background and culture. I asked people with those backgrounds to help me decide how much of the hair shows, and what is acceptable, because they have more standards as far as females and how they dress. Same thing with Zonta, which is my character inspired by Pocahontas.

I spoke with actual Native Americans from various tribes and helped to come up with a design that could represent all of them, in a sense, because they all have the symbolism. They all have certain patterns and things that they use in their clothing and their culture. I wanted to make something that could resonate with all of them— so even down to moccasins, how they were designed, and the hair. I really wanted to make sure that if it's something that I did not personally experience, or was well-versed about, I talked to that specific niche or community to make sure that I was putting something out there that they were proud to resonate with.

Did you go into social media content creation with a growth strategy, or did your growth happen organically?

Organically. Just winging it. Honestly, it's just sharing what I was doing, and people liked it. I didn't even go in thinking about merch in a sense. By the time I started my TikTok, it's because I had Instagram first. Originally, it was just my pin-collecting account. Then it became, "I'm gonna make my own pins, and we're gonna focus on shades." Because my big thing about pin collecting, was the shade of skin. Even from fan art and people that make small businesses out of making pins.

To me, it felt very much like this mindset that as long as she's brown, that's good enough. They didn't care about the fact that there are various shades of brown. All browns are beautiful, but if this is a certain brown, why is he 10 shades lighter or 10 shades darker? It should be closer to what the actual character design was. That frustrated me. When I went to make pins, I wanted to focus on having a diversity of skin shades, and understand how they're made with pins. You got to think of what type of metal and materials you use, because sometimes, you could have the same color but it comes out looking differently—depending on the other aspects of the pin. I wanted to do that, but I wanted to have this huge catalog of brown skin tones.

My focus definitely wasn't content creation or merch design in general. It was building a community and just showing what I was doing. I've always been a crafty person. I've always been a creative person. I've always been the one with projects. Once you start something, especially with this as a passion, I kind of dove in and it became doing those in the princesses. And then it just grew.

What design tools and platforms have helped you the most along the way? Like, what do you primarily use when designing merch?

Procreate, mostly. It's very much hodgepodge. Fun fact: I cannot draw, so I call myself a professional "colorer" because what I do is commission my artwork, and my line art—basically like a coloring book. The artist sends me the line art. Then, I fill in all the colors with Procreate, with the line art as the top layer. I then fill all the colors with the background layers. Procreate is definitely my bread and butter. Canva, too. I still use that sparingly. That's more for posts than the actual creation of stuff—of the art and whatnot. But, yeah, Procreate has been my best friend since day one.

How has being a designer and creator in the Disney space changed the way you experience the parks, if at all?

I definitely derive inspiration, but it also makes me understand that there are things that could be implemented that don't cost money. For me, working directly with manufacturers and seeing how much things cost to make, and that I'm able to afford it with my own money. I'm not rich or well off by any means, but there are things that I have been able to do on a much smaller scale and afford.

A conglomerate like Disney, who has tons of money and is doing things in hundreds of units, there’s definitely the capability to make more diversity happen with merch. They still have the money to make it happen if they really wanted to, or if there are people pushing for this type of stuff to happen on a larger scale.

Where can people support you and shop your merch?

I'm on Instagram and TikTok as The Chocolate Minnie. I do also have a site. My actual shop name is From, Mini Me. Mini is spelled like the little mini, not like the Disney Minnie. So just M-I-N-I. I like to say that my chief creative director is the little version of me. It's my younger self who would have loved to see the things that I'm creating when I was a child. That is a very big thing I keep in the back of my mind—making sure that now I'm providing the things that I would have loved to see to kids now. I think that also speaks to a lot of us in our current generation, and our current age groups who have the same sentiment that I do—that I've wanted to see this type of stuff and are now finally seeing it. It's letting all of our inner children out to play.

I have an online shop that's in the link in my socials as well. I do markets and things. Like I said, I'm from Maryland. I do events pretty much anywhere from DC to Virginia. I've actually started sponsoring a bit as my other business, but I do incorporate a lot of designs that form with my Chocolate Minnie. I don't know if you heard of Black Romance Book Fest. If you're a book girly, but I’m a swag bag sponsor for that. I have been trying to branch out a little bit, get my name out there a little bit more in different ways, but I do vending all over the DMV. I'm also on the inter-webs.

The Chocolate Minnie’s work is a reminder that representation is not just about being included. It is about being seen with detail, joy, and truth. Through From, Mini Me, she continues to create the kind of characters her younger self would have loved to see. Follow The Chocolate Minnie on TikTok and Instagram, and shop From, Mini Me through the link in her socials.