EPISODE 29
This is episode twenty nine of Yellow Colored Glasses. We have Ms. Amie Fleming here with us, with Fleming Floral station. And such a cool name, we're gonna get into that later. But first and foremost, let's read a review. Amie, we are so happy to have you on. We were just kind of talking before the podcast started, and I'm like, so excited about everything for you. So if you just wanna introduce yourself and tell us who you are, what you're doing, and we can kind of go from there.
Sure. So I'm Amy Fleming. I am the owner of Fleming Floral Station. It has always been a love of mine to work with hours. I've done it for years. I have helped, you know, countless family members, countless friends with weddings and graduations and parties and blah blah blah. All those things. And so I've worked with our forever. So, I've had my hands and flowers forever. I can remember when I was a little girl and my love of flowers came from my grandma. So my grandfather actually used to be when Longview was open, like, as a working farm. Mhmm. My grandpa was, like, the head of the one of the greenhouses there. Oh, wow. And so my dad actually grew up on Longview Farm. And so that's kind of where that came from. So my grandparents' backyard was phenomenal. It's just gorgeous. And so I remember being very, very little walking with my grandma holding her hand and her telling me about all the flowers in her backyard and helping her with her vegetables and all that stuff. And that was just kind of something that started very young for me. The love of floral and how it can totally transport your day. You know? I mean, it just remains so small. Yeah. Exactly. And on a totally different note. You know, it's the little tiny masterpieces from above. And so that's where that kind of started at a very young age. And then it just kind of went through for the rest of my life. Flowers transport us. They give us joy. You know, a whole other level that other things that don't, just like you said, the dopamine. So flowers are amazing and they store memories in sight and smell. Myra's bridal roses, they're an English rose or an old fashioned rose. There's different ways to say it. So they just have more of that strong smell. It's not so hybrid that they'd knock the smell out of them. They engineer them to last longer. They engineer them to do certain things to be unnatural colors.
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The Name of the Business: Like Well, Fleming's my last name. So and then Floral. And then station is a couple nods and one for our downtown. Okay. You know, we've got railroad days. That's very much station. Yeah. We've got the depot, the that's very much the station. And my late husband was a train engineer.
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Inspiration: Definitely. There's this one and down in Arkansas is my goal to go there someday. It's Chris for from Tipton, and he is phenomenal. Been in the business forever and ever and ever and his I would say that my style is very much his style. Like, I I were very similar, and I think that's kinda why I like him so much. But Yeah.
And then just inspiration, I mean, you know, of interest. I mean, you know, I mean -- Yeah. -- tons of stuff up, and just a hundred percent. But a lot of it, the inspiration comes from the flowers themselves. So depending on how the flour is and depending on how the flour moves and, you know, that dictates a lot.
Down on kind of how you do it. Yeah. And just basic design principles. So, you know, that kind of dictates to -- Yeah. -- on what you want it to look like. You know, do you want this to be a more traditional type of of arrangement, or do you want it to be a nontraditional type of arrangement, you know, and just kind of go from there and then just creativity. Yeah. I just, you know, I I like to I've always worked in the creative world always just kind of that's where my wheelhouse is. That's what I enjoy. It's where I get my joy.
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They say, you know, if you find something that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Yep. That's the truth. Absolutely the truth. I could do that all day long.
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Like, I didn't even realize the Saturday when we had the brick and mortar event, the Friday night, I was up till four thirty in the morning. Oh. And I didn't even know. And I yeah. And I didn't even realize.
I would look over at the clock and I'm like, oh my gosh. I blacked out to go to bed. Like, this I gotta I gotta I gotta stop. Like, I gotta hear about it. That's why when I was down there, you know, at the at the shop. It's fun in that. Like you said, it's stressful. For me, it's not stressful because I try to incorporate an every single arrangement, whether it's a pre made arrangement -- Mhmm. -- or an arrangement that I'm making specifically a customer arrangement for someone. I try to incorporate as much of their personality into it as I can. Yeah. So I really ask the person when they come in and they're I'm like, tell me about who this is for. Tell me about who this is for. What are their likes? What are their dislikes? You know, what Tell me about them. So it's fun because I get to hear about their love stories. I get to hear about all of those things and it helps me to move them towards the right arrangement for that person. Okay. So that in itself is super fun.
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More about Amie: I'm a twice widow. I've been on the end of I need to pick out flowers for my loved one. And it's one of the last things that you do as a tribute as an active service as everything to your loved one is to pick out something that represents that. And I've been on that twice now, and many other losses, and I've spent two really tragic losses. And in that moment, I'm standing at a counter. Business is going on behind me as usual. Yeah. And here I am trying to pick out something to honor them -- with no guidance. Yeah. You know, here's a book. Right? And so in my future goals of having a a place where they can do that, I'll have a table where they come and they sit and they're away from the rest of the everything -- Yeah. -- to where they can mourn and they can cry and they can tell me in detail about their loved ones. Yeah. I just did an arrangement just yesterday for a celebration of life. And the person who had passed, I kind of interviewed.
They had reached out to me. I kind of interviewed him and asked him, you know, tell me about your your person and how you like to do something for them for flowers. And they're like, can we do something in wild flowers? Something that looks wild flower-ish? That she was the type that we would walk as kids and she was always picking the dandelions. She was always picking the flowers along the way and everything. And so Spirit. That was exactly that was for Spirit. And so that's what I did. I made an arrangement that was felt like she'd been out in a meadow kicking all of these wild flowers. And I got a text from my delivery driver yesterday, and it was just amazing. He said it was amazing. They were crying when I brought it in. And and he was telling me that they were saying things like, she captured her she captured her in that arrangement. How did she do that? Because I listened. Oh. Because I listened -- and I listened to what they wanted and what they wanted for their loved one.
Mhmm. And that is what I want to be known for. That sets me apart -- Mhmm. -- from every other florist that you can go to and just stand at a counter and I'm passionate about that. Well, like I said, I think it's natural. Yeah. I mean I felt it. I've been there.
I've been in their shoes. Yeah. I don't want that. You know, I don't want that for them. I don't want them to have that experience. I want them to have some compassion in some of their deepest moments. But then on the flip side, I also want a bride who has had her, you know, wedding in her mind for years. And what I want this to look like, and she's had a Pinterest board going for, you know, years and years and, you know, that she was sixteen years old. Looking at me for. You know, and so and then I want to be able to meet their needs as well. Yes. I want it to be what they want within their budget, and that was one of the hugest compliments that I got. I did wedding a couple years ago. And her review said in it literally we weren't even going to have boutonnieres or anything because we couldn't afford it in our budget we thought. But I used all the leftovers. I got all of the small, little, insignificant flowers as long as she didn't care -- what it was. And everyone, even the grandmas and grandpas got boutonnieres and garages and stuff. It it gives me joy. That's the reason that I do what I do. Yeah. I needed something to give me joy after all the tragedy that I've the fallen in my life within the last, you know, five to ten years. I've lost two husbands. Yeah. And one we kind of knew it was coming and the other one was extremely tragic with the COVID passing. Mhmm. And it just devastated me in ways I didn't even know I can be devastated in. And weirdly enough in making memorial pieces for both of them. It rekindled that love that I had kind of put off in the back background -- with raising kids and all that good stuff. Sure. And so that joy kind of started to resurface in, I love this. I love what I'm doing. Like, this is really fun and then doing, you know, some friends, weddings, and and things along the way as well. I'm like, oh, hey, you know, maybe maybe we could do something with. So I didn't want to sit because I could very easily and very rightly so sit and wallow in death misery. Which is, I mean, like, rightly so. Yeah. But that's not who I am. I had some really amazing role models in that. No. I father -- which I don't even know if we've shared this. My father is a quadriplegic. Wow. And so my senior year, if I school, he fell out of a tree stand and broke his neck in the same exact place that Christopher Reeves did. The difference was my dad was only pinched and bruised, I guess, his he didn't sever his spinal cord. So watching him overcome and never give up with the hugest obstacle anybody. Yeah. I mean, could overcome. They told my mom she'd have to stop working and stay home and be as a nurse and he goes, mm-mm, I'll walk again. He goes, no. And he did. He walked. He I mean, it took him a long time.
Contact Amie Here:
flemingfloralstation@gmail.com
816-935-8453
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