Meet Nancy.
Nancy never opened a flower business — she had no interest in making money from flowers. She just loves doing them.
A business built to lose money
For decades, Nancy made incredible floral creations for weddings, parties, auctions, fundraisers, schools, organizations, friends, and family — charging only the cost of materials. Our family gave this highly sustainable business model a name: My Mother's Losing Money Flower Business.
Nancy is completely self-taught, endlessly creative, and extraordinarily generous. She knows flowers, understands art and color like nobody else, and has a rare eye for seeing the potential in everything.
“To find the best flowers, I'd drive to a town 45 minutes away, then another 45 minutes past that — and sometimes it was worth crossing into the next country.”
She used whatever it took
She could make something beautiful out of whatever was available — wholesale flowers, the “perfect” branch spotted on the side of the road, a drive across the border, or clippings from her own backyard.
“Raid your garden. It's great for filler.”
She always said yes
And when she said yes to doing someone's flowers, she meant yes. Even when disaster struck.
“I was all dressed up by the time I found the maintenance staff throwing the ceremony flowers away — they thought they were from the night before. So I asked them for the trash bags back and started all over in time for the wedding.”
Carrying on the family business
That is, in many ways, the whole story. This studio exists because I grew up watching my mom make beautiful things for people simply because she could. She taught me that beauty doesn't have to be expensive, that generosity is never wasted, and that flowers are worth making because they bring people joy.
I'm carrying on the family business. Just with slightly better margins.