12
November | 2021
I understand you started your
career in education.
I taught high school for six years.
I taught the AP Spanish language
courses. I loved the teaching. e
lesson planning process in teaching
was, for me, the creative part of it—
fi nding the perfect video, magazine
article or regalia, like something
that tightened so perfectly to the
grammatical thing or the vocab
that I was teaching.
Teaching feeds my soul, so when
I left, it was diffi cult, but I really
wanted to own my own business.
I just had this itch that I had to
scratch, and fl owers were the
natural fi t at the time. My
husband was really supportive
and gave me two years of fi nancial
support while I tutored on the side.
What did your store focus on at fi rst?
I created a gift boutique, so I opened
a business with 50 percent retail gifts.
I was selling an aesthetic with jewelry,
scarves and pottery. I was importing
merchandise from France. I went on
a buying trip to Argentina to source
handbags and items like that. It was
also 50 percent fl owers, and I told
myself that whichever one starts to
pull is the one I would investment
more money and time into.
en it started going 60/40 fl owers,
then 70/30 and, ultimately, the
fl owers really took off , and that's
how I landed in the fl ower business.
In the fl oral world, I have been able to
fl ex my creative muscles and fi nd my
own voice in how I like to design, but
I always missed teaching. It was so
nice when I was
fi nally able to come
into a moment
where I could start
hosting workshops.
How did COVID
aff ect your
business?
When COVID hit, I had a ton of
wedding business that all went away.
I had put all my eggs in the wedding
basket and hired a ton of people.
My payroll was out of control, and
I had a lot of commercial vehicles,
so I downsized my workforce to help
survive the economic downturn.
en I started doing workshops for
free, and people loved it.
I next started doing Zoom classes,
as I had the time. Now we hold
12
November | 2021
Florist Spotlight