Hello and welcome! I’m Arbella, the owner and lead designer of The Flower Crown Design Studio. I thought I’d kick this off by introducing myself and sharing about my life… my goals, fears, family and values. I hope this gives you a little insight into who I am and what I’m about.

Now let’s take it back to November of 1989… I was born in Modesto, CA where I’ve lived my entire life. My dad, a US Army Vietnam Veteran worked for the US Postal Service, and my mom was a stay-at-home rockstar that eventually became a florist and a pharmacy technician. I have two older brothers that did what typical older brothers do… babysit/torment their younger sister. But they also watched out for me, made sure I didn’t get into the same trouble they did, and eventually scared away any potential boyfriends.

When I was around 4-years-old, my parents purchased a convenience store in Oakdale, CA, where my Dad would put in long hours, and the rest of us would join him after school got out. My mom set the back stockroom up with a mattress set atop a bunch of wooden pallets, an old TV with extra long antennae, and a VCR to keep me entertained with VHS Disney movies while everyone else worked. I’d occasionally do some tasks like wiping down dusty shelves, breaking down cardboard boxes, or restocking the Gatorade, but mostly… I’d steal candy bars, read books, watch movies, and play with rubber bands when I got really bored.

Growing up, my mom was always terrified of letting me play outside in the front yard with neighborhood kids because she watched too many Lifetime movies of children getting kidnapped, and there’s only so much you can do alone in the backyard, so to get some social interaction she signed me up for martial arts, and I joined the school band. Yes, I have a black belt. Yes, I’m a band geek. I know… I’m a nerd. But I also learned about work ethic, determination, persistence, and fostered my creativity along the way.

In 2008, just one year after graduating high school, I lost my mom. It was one of the hardest things our family has ever had to go through. Boy… did I grow up quickly. Taking care of a household is no easy feat. My mom was our teacher, secretary, chef, housekeeper, chauffer, seamstress, personal shopper/decorator, nurse, and therapist. She left a huge void in our hearts, and being the only girl in the family, I had big shoes to fill. It took a beating on my confidence. My mom was so amazing that I felt like I’d never be able to live up to everyone’s expectations. Not knowing what career path I wanted to take didn’t help either. I managed to talk myself out of everything because I was always afraid I wouldn’t be good enough.

After the set back of losing my mom, a state-wide education crisis, several changes to my major, and some wasted years of college laziness, I finally graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies from CSU Stanislaus in 2015. If I’m being completely honest, I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a teacher, but I figured I could pull off a Multiple-Subject credential since I couldn’t commit to one field. Spoiler alert: I couldn’t commit to teaching either. Right after graduating with my BA, I got engaged to the one guy brave enough to face my brothers. I could go on and on with all the cheesy, cliché, lovey-dovey sayings about how much I love him, but one of my most favorite things about him is his ability to lift me up and be my encourager. More on this later… So rather than jumping straight into the credential program after graduation, I took the next year off to plan my wedding. After the whirlwind was over, I seriously thought about what I would do next. Go back to get my credential? Work a random job? Start a business? That last thought was one I had lightly entertained most of my life. More specifically, starting a flower business. When my now-husband, Ashur, and I were dating, it was something we talked about on occasion when planning for the future and talking about our goals, hopes, and dreams. It was always like a “yeah, that’d be nice” kind of thing, but I didn’t believe it would really happen.

One evening in early February the topic came up again. And Ashur finally just asked me what I was waiting for. I told him I was scared to take a risk. Again, going back to a sheltered upbringing, I was always taught to be safe and that risks have the potential of loss. But Ashur reminded me that we really didn’t have anything to lose. We had nothing of significant value to our name, and we honestly had no money to invest in starting it up. If it failed, I would have lost nothing. So that week I went and applied for all the necessary licenses and permits, and made a trip to San Francisco to become a badge holder at the flower market. All the fees and paperwork didn’t cost much, but at the time… it was all we had. And on February 10, 2017, I was, officially, a business owner.

I got everything set up, but didn’t have any work lined up. At which point one of my best friends came up with a brilliant idea. She told me to reach out to our male friends that were in relationships and just ask them if they were already planning on buying their wives/girlfriends flowers that Valentine’s Day, if they’d be willing to buy them from me. And they did! And they paid upfront! So I used that money to buy the flowers, advertised on social media, got a few more orders, and I made enough money that Valentine’s Day to cover all my business licensing and permit fees.

Just one month later I found out we were expecting our first child–our smart and feisty daughter, Inanna. She’s now almost three and we also have a brave little one-year-old son, Ninos. Their shenanigans get them into lots of trouble, they make big messes (all the time), and keep us on our toes, but we wouldn’t want it any other way. We all live together with my dad, who is also coincidentally named Ashur (it’s a common Assyrian name), and the kids love driving their grandpa crazy. They have him wrapped around their little fingers and he loves it, too. So this is my story. This is me. Thank you for trusting this indecisive nerd/dreamer/new-risk-taker to create beautiful floral works of art for you. I hope you enjoy them and know the heart of the person that makes them.