Exploring Life & Business with Mariela Villeda of Vintage Baskets and Blooms LLC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mariela Villeda

Hi Mariela , can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a brand new business and just started my company in February 2025. I’ve always loved flowers, especially gifting them. I would always make flower arrangements for my best friend and her mom, and from there I started gifting them to the women in my family and hers. I like to joke and say it has become my love language. My passion became more curious towards the end of my last year in high school, I found myself thrifting a lot and would always see so many baskets on the shelves and all over the store, and I would always think to myself, these are so cute, I wish I could take them all! It’s the day before Mother’s Day, and I found the cutest basket at the thrift store, and gave my best friend the idea to make a floral arrangement in the basket for her mom, and she said do it and left it up to me! So I arranged them with her favorite flowers and they came out sooooo gorgeous, we all loved them! After that, I started making my gifted floral arrangements in thrifted baskets and would always tell the person I was gifting them to to find a way to reuse the basket, and they always did. My best friend’s house is full of thrifted repurposed baskets in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the pantry, in the basement, I mean everywhere. I go to my grandmas, my aunts, my friend’s houses, and I’ll see my once gifted floral arrangement baskets hanging around filled with purpose again. I believe that just because something is given up, doesn’t mean that it’s no good, you can find beauty in everything, even inside a basket. Eventually I became passionate about this new creativity and decided I wanted to open up a floral business with a little twist! And Vintage blooms and baskets were born. With this blessing I’ve been able to bless my community by supporting a local animal shelter with 5% of our profits in early March, and will continue to support my community.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It was not. But Im glad I had the support system I needed along the way, because I definitely would not have been able to do it alone. I think my main struggle, starting, was self-doubt. I was so tangled up with all the negative “what if’s”. I think as a woman I have a more determined drive to be successful, that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, when I had just started. I had to tell myself to step back, take a deep breath, and just go for it. Even now we have our patchy struggle areas where we get slow, but I don’t let that discourage me!

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a locally Latina woman-owned and operated floral business that does decorated arrangements in previously loved repurposed baskets, so you get a basket unique to you and by flower color, which sets us apart from other floral businesses! Of course we speak Spanish and we are located in Independence, MO, and offer local pick up or delivery in Independence and surrounding cities! You can contact us through DM on Facebook and Instagram @vintage baskets and Blooms LLC, or email [email protected] for floral arrangements! We are also striving to help our community by donating 5% of our profits to a local cause every month. Brand-wise I am most proud of how everything has come together little by little and the support I have received.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I like the sense of community, there’s always something going on, and always friendly faces around. I definitely like the potholes the least for sure, and that new thing they did to E Truman Road and Jackson Ave a while back. Horrible.

Pricing:

• S basket arrengments $40
• M basket arrengment $60
• delivery $10

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vintagebaskets.bloomsllc?igsh=NGZtcGplbXpmbGx1&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1ER7SJGCV9/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Other: [email protected]