Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Choe.
Jamie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up always loving flowers fashion. When it was time for me to choose my career/school I went to school to become electronic / computer engineer. I thought I could enjoy flowers, fashion & design as a hobby. So I started working for a big corporation as an engineer and IT system administrator right after college in Silicon Valley.
However, Soon I realized I was not happy sitting in front of computer and machines all day and every day. It took me almost 7 years to leave my job with good pay to start searching for a job that will make me wanna come to work every day. After stopped working for a tech company, I moved down to LA, tried several careers working for commercial real estate and commercial insurance. still felt like it wasn’t what I am looking for. Then I got married and had 2 beautiful kids.
While I was being a stay at home mom to raise two kids, I had a chance to take a floral course at Los Angeles School of Flower design and got a little taste of floral design. I instantly knew this is what I wanted to do. And I had a great opportunity to be part of a partnership in flower business in Silicon Valley as a designer/investor. I was flying back and forth from LA to Silicon Valley to be part of the business as we were getting more corporate/business accounts. It was such an amazing experience, however, traveling back and forth was not getting any easier.
I got out of the partnership and started doing events/wedding on the side and I decided to go to Europe for more depth in floral training. I have learned different style of floral design at several flower schools in Europe including Catherine Muller flower school (French design), Jane Packer London and Jamie Aston London.
Then one day my husband and I stumbled upon the storefront location in Hermosa Beach, And that was the beginning Sweet Blooms Atelier since July of 2017. I named the store after my two beautiful girls, to me they are the sweetest flower blooms!! And they are the one who inspired me to start a succulent bar along with my floral business.
One day they came to the shop saw all the containers and succulents and asked me if they could make their own for their room. We had so much fun making them together and that’s we how we have our clients to make their own succulents anytime at the shop. We’ve had a couple making succulent planters together for their new home, or kids making a succulent planter for their teacher, making one for mom and the list goes on.
For flower side, I can not be happier. We tried to corporate European style arrangement with vibrant and bold modern American floral design. Our specialty is to create beautiful arrangements in two types of hat boxes. One is the straw hatboxes ( English style) and cardboard hat boxes ( french style). We are so lucky to be getting support from our local clients and we try our best to create unique and beautiful arrangements for our client’s needs. We have expanded our service to weddings, private events and corporate events. One of my favorite part of the event is when we offer a private/group succulent or floral workshop.
My passion for sharing technics for floral design and the succulent arrangement has met with our client’s enthusiasm for creating something beautiful. I try hard to continue educating/ updating my skillset/design to provide quality service to our clients by attending workshops going back to Europe. My adventure will be at Mcqueen flower school in London. I am excited to find out what comes next with our business adventure filled with passion.
Has it been a smooth road?
-Learned a lot from partnership experience. clashing with marketing/ sales ppl constantly for different aspects of business.
– Had to modify some of European especially French design to fit American style.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sweet Blooms Atelier story. Tell us more about the business.
Bespoke style arrangements (clients are encouraged to add their personal touch to everything they create or we create for them.) For example, our clients gets to choose vessel, containers for their arrangements from our wide selection of containers.
We love collaborating with other business or nonprofit organization ( i.e Gifted Taste, event by sandpipers, local business), will have a pop-up shop at annual women in entertainment luncheon @stubhub center in June have various off-site and onsite succulent workshop for a corporate team building activity.
Where do you see your industry going over the next 5-10 years? Any big shifts, changes, trends, etc?
More we do business, we realize how our clients wants to reflect their own taste / personal touch in everything they create and we create for them. We have seen so many different designs using the same material we provide for them.
Even for our Valentines’s, our clients didn’t want cookie cutter arrangements. We’d like to create bespoke ( make your own/ customized arrangements) arrangements for our clients. We are always trying to find ways to add our client’s unique touch to everything we create and we see the industry going toward those directions in 5-10 years.
Pricing:
- Our DIY succulent arrangements start as low as $13 / piece and up
- our hatbox arrangements start from $75 and up
Contact Info:
- Address: 421 Pier Ave Hermosa Beach, CA
- Website: www.sweetbloomsatelier.com
- Phone: 310 318 8871
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetbloomsatelier/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweetbloomsatelier/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-blooms-atelier-hermosa-beach
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
