Introduction
Jacob Derauf here with Maple Grove Radio, and today I have on the show Moriah and Abby, the owners of Flame and Flora. Thanks for being on today. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here. So today we're going to talk a little bit about your business and kind of what you do history and what makes you different and just, you know, your ties to Maple Grove and everything.
What is Flame & Flora
So let's just start off with what is Flame and Flora. Yeah, so Flame and Flora is an event-based business. What we do is bring really fun, creative DIY events to local businesses. We specialize in plants and candles. So the creativeness that you're going to get to do when you come and hang out with us is pot a low maintenance house plant and then style it and make it really unique and fun for personalized for you and then pour your own custom candle so you get to create your own fragrance and pick your own vessel and then pour that candle and be able to go home with something really cool that you can be proud of that you made while you had a really fun time hanging out with your friends. So, yeah, we're really wanting to get people connected, get people back out in their community with local businesses, creating things, and just being together in the community.
About Us and The History of Flame and Flora
OK, so kind of how did this come about then? And a little bit of your background then. Yeah, so Abby and I are longtime friends. We're going on like 17 years of friendship and we went through a phase where we I was pursuing I'm the plant person, Abby's the candle person. I was pursuing how I could figure out I had so many friends waiting for plants and I was propagating and giving things away. And Abby was also dabbling with candle-making. And we realized I think it was even your husband because like you guys should turn this into a business. People want these products. People want this creativity. You should turn this into a business. So it was born out of our longtime friendship, our personal passions, but then also just a real love and idea of bringing people together.
We love people. We want to build community. And so we realized that by creating this DIY business, we could follow our passions but also build the community, bring the community together. Yeah, our the idea that she loves plants, I love candles. That's I mean, never been argued, but what we both really love together is community and bringing people together and creating spaces for people to have conversations and for walls to come down. We just find that as people get their hands in dirt and start potting plants or pouring candles. Then the walls come down, they start telling stories, they start it just building that community and relationships with people. And that is what we are both really about. And what we wanted to try to do. Our first couple of things when we were thinking this through, like, well, maybe we just get some friends together and it would just be fun if we can have some of our girlfriends together tonight. Like Girls Night. Yeah. And then we could just do something at our church. And this would be really fun for the women at our church to do. And then, like, if we could do that, we could do a business, yeah, we could take this on the road and we could open this up as an option and share this passion with everybody. So that's what our mission has been.
What Makes You Different?
OK, so how do you do it? How is it different and kind of what's the process and everything? Yes, so when you come to a Flame and Flora event, we have you get your tickets beforehand so that you're all set, you can show up for your spot and we will walk you through everything. So it's can be it sounds intimidating maybe that you're going to pour a candle. Most people don't just pour candles on the side, but we will. You'll start by sniffing a bunch of the different fragrances that I have and deciding which one smells most like you, and then you can really customize it. There's a lot of different fragrances to choose from that you can blend together to create a fragrance nobody else has ever smelled before. You're going to pick your vessel that you want that poured in and that's going to look great in your home. And then I walk you through step by step on how to get your candle wicked and get your fragrances mixed and then blended and then the candle poured as well.
Then you get to hang out for a little bit. You go and plot your plant and the candle takes usually about an hour to cure. So that's one of the things we love about partnering with local businesses. We do a lot of breweries and wineries, restaurants, things like that is a lot of where events will take place. And we just love that. We say you know what, your candle takes about an hour to cure go back up to the bar, have another round, hang out a little bit. Just enjoy being with your people together in this really great space. And yeah, so like I said, that we pass them on to the plants. So for plants. None of our spaces are the same. All of our homes have different light, different humidity, sometimes animals, sometimes kids. So I just bring a variety of plants so that there is low light options, bright light options, animal-safe options, and then different pottery for the different esthetic appeal. I have signs that are made by me and then little they're called Topper11-year-olds. They're a little decorative things that can be added into the plant and you get to choose all of those. We also are working with an 11-year-old clay maker who's making some of my toppers, which is really fun that we're able to bring in this next generation of creative makers into this space. So, yeah, you just get to pick esthetically what you're interested in, but also what's going to thrive in your space pot it all up. I give instructions on how to care for everything so that you actually are empowered to take it home and care for it correctly, which is a big thing for us really educating people on how to use these products and then get another drink, hang out with your friends while your candles curing and just enjoy the venue that we're at.
Yeah, that's we're really passionate about empowering and collaboration, whatever we can do to bring other people along in this. Like I said, we love our local business partners that we work with. We love we just believe that there is there's enough for everybody. We're not we're not in competition with anybody, anybody else in our industry. Anybody else doing this is just other people that we can learn from, people that can help us grow. We just love to support and encourage and empower and collaborate and just be a part of our community in whatever ways, whatever ways we can.
Ideal Group Sizes?
OK, we're kind of the ideal size of groups and stuff that your kind of work with. Yeah, so we're flexible, so if we go to a public venue like when we have been to Rock Elm in Maple Grove or Pour in Champlin or Forgotten Star, in Fridley they are public events. So you can come with yourself, you can come with a partner, a friend, or you can bring 10 friends and roll in and take over multiple time slots. We are really, really flexible. That's part of why we are having people sign up for tickets ahead of time right now so that we can make sure that we have the supplies for everyone. We have the space and the ability to serve everyone that wants to work with us. We also offer private events. We do corporate team building events, birthday parties, bachelorette parties, all kinds of things. So for some of those private events, we would ask for a group of 10 or more where there's really no cap to how many people we can work with. But then it's fun. At a public event, if you just want to come by yourself or you want to come with one person, you still have the ability to do that. Yeah, our minimum is ten, but our maximum, like we had no pre or mid-2020. We had plans to run a class for one hundred and fifty people. So we can do we can do large groups. Like she said, for a corporate team building as companies are getting back in and now trying to find ways to just reconnect with their employees and coworkers. This is a great Hands-On way to do that. And we can accommodate small groups. Large groups. Yeah, our motto is say yes and figure it out later. Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like you're very flexible. Definitely.
How to Get in Contact
Yeah. So, if someone's interested, how do they get in contact with you then. Yeah, so we have our Web page, www.flameflora.com definitely has some information and you'll find email addresses and stuff to reach out and contact us. Another great way is social media. We do a lot of our business just naturally, organically grown through social media. So Facebook or Instagram @FlameFlora. And you can drop us a DM and we'll get in touch with you. Perfect. Anything else you want to share before we go here? I don't think so. Thank you so much for having us. We really got to love the community here that we're based here in Maple Grove, but we travel anywhere and we just love just supporting the supporting community, supporting other businesses that value community. That's the places that we really find a strong connection, is these businesses that are here for the community to love the community, to help give the community a place to be and grow. And we just love coming alongside those people. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much for being on and sharing your story here. Thanks so much. Thanks, Jake. OK, all right. Talk to you later. Yeah. Bye bye.
To find out more about Flame & Flora you can go to their website www.FlameFlora.com. Make sure to check them out on social media @flameflora for Instagram and their Facebook Page
