“Did Bianca tell you we are starting a business?” My mom asked.
The answer was clearly “no” based on the expression on my husband’s face.
Up until that point, pretty much everything I had talked about with my husband had lived in the realm of hypothetical. I wanted to create a business plan with the help of my mom just to see. I was curious. I don’t think I had even realized that my conversations with my mom had reached a point of action. Thinking back on it, I was also probably a bit fearful and anxious about moving forward into what felt like the unknown.
You know that meme that was popular maybe a few years ago, about the feminine urge to open a bookstore that is also a cafe and flower shop? Well, when I first saw it, it instantly resonated with me. I love books, and coffee, and stationery. There is just something about the appeal of being able to work for yourself and be surrounded by the things you enjoy, a cozy little fantasy life. I remember when I first discovered the blogs written by Wakako of Baum-Kuchen. I would read her writing about the experience of building their store with her husband while homeschooling her two girls. I would dream about being able to do something like that, but never really thought it could be me.
Over the past couple of years I feel like there has been a confluence of events in my life pointing me towards taking action. I recently entered a new decade that prompted me to reevaluate my life a bit. My young children were no longer babies and I found myself feeling like I was in a state of transition to rediscover the forgotten parts of myself. Unfortunately, I have experienced the loss of several family members to cancer who were far too young, most recently my cousin with whom I was inseparable as a kid. My husband and I made the, what seemed like a crazy, decision to relocate our little family to another state in search of a slower pace, and let’s be real, something more affordable. All of these things impacted me in different ways and I found myself questioning Who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do with the time I have?
My questioning and searching didn’t lead me to any grand answers, but it did prompt me to want to create with my hands. I allowed myself the space to be a beginner, which can be hard as a recovering perfectionist, and try learning some new skills. I learned how to crochet and knit, and next on my list was drawing and sewing. I also started to do some leather work with my husband. We bought some basic tools and made leather journal covers for my family. It was around that time that my aunt suggested that I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I didn’t complete it the first go around, but I did on the second. I can’t say that I connected with everything in the book, but through the process, I feel like I discovered things about myself that I had been neglecting. I had some ideas about ways that I could express myself and not suppress my creative urges.
So I had an idea that I wanted to explore. I had long been a fan of stationery from my bullet journal days to discovering Hobonichi and fountain pens in 2019. I have gotten myself some very popular leather journals over the years like Traveler’s Company, Louise Carmen, Paper-Republic. While I still have and use these notebooks, I noticed that they couldn’t hold my preferred notebooks because of their sizing. I also realized that I could make them. So, I reached out to my mom to help me write a business plan, since she’s worked in corporate and had many years of business experience. I just wanted to go through the process, I was curious. I wanted to see if it was possible to create something I was passionate about. Could one of my fantasy lives actually become a reality? It also aligned with me feeling so tired of just lurking and wanting to feel like I could be a part of a larger community.
That’s when the conversations began and then the slightly early announcement to my husband that actually pushed this idea from could this be to let’s try to make it happen. Building Floramoon from scratch has been a daily learning experience and something I absolutely could not have started without the encouragement and day-to-day support of my mom. My husband is getting some good practice with his photography. My daughters love all the notebooks and have a list of the leather covers they want me to make for them, which seems to expand every time they see me make something new. So far, I am enjoying this journey of putting myself out there and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I get to make and engage with products that I truly enjoy and I am excited to see where this all leads.
Bianca