My Flower Story

In my earliest memories, I’m cooking up dirt pies, dissecting flowers, and climbing the mulch pile at my father’s garden center.

I got both my love of nature, and entrepreneurial spirit from my dad. Some of my happiest childhood times were spent working along side him in his greenhouse. He taught me the value of hard work and helped me start my first business when I was ten, making macrame plant slings that we sold at his store.

My mother was a wildly creative homemaker.  I often wonder what her life would have been like if she were allowed to go to college like her older brother. It was only after I was born in the late 60’s, that she began to discover herself as an artist. Like her, I was always drawing and making things.

I eventually went on to study painting at the Kansas City Art institute. It’s funny to think back now, how I filled the gallery of my senior painting show, with giant vases of lilacs that I “harvested” in a late night raid. The mansions neighboring the school were brimming. In those 4 walls of the gallery, art making and nature converged. Flowers made everything better, my paintings included.

After I graduated, I moved to Chicago and started work at flower shop, A New Leaf, in Old Town. It was before computers, so we took orders over the phone. Like many flowers shops, it was the owner’s passion project. She hired exclusively art school students and turned her nose up at traditional floristry. We just kinda made it up as we went along, intuitively, as artists do.

I remember someone saying at the time, that all flowers all have little faces, and it was our job to help them talk to one another. I still think of that.

Like many women, my career has run parallel with life’s events. After my daughter, Iris, was born in 1990, I started a dried flower enterprise. I called it, “Seventh Nature”, a terrible name, but “Second Nature” was already taken. I made my business cards with a rubber stamp on brown paper, and went to work in the basement making little topiaries with moss, miniature roses, and hot glue. I would carry Iris on my back as I worked, and she would peer over my shoulder as I shoved styrofoam into terra cotta pots. Iris still remembers the dimly lit, and dank basement, a fragrant potpourri of burnt moss, and dried flowers.

A few years later, I started doing small weddings, and I moved into my painting studio in the west loop. Living in the loft allowed me to start a business with what was essentially no overhead while still taking care of Iris. It was “a business - home” as opposed to “a home - business,” if you will. 

We carved out a home. Iris with her bunny, turtle, and frogs, roller blading in warehouse during the week, and me cranking out (producing) weddings over the weekend. Iris got dragged to the flower market almost daily. While I was pulling my flowers, she’d be clearing the floor of every broken and spent flower, to make little sculptures back home. In many ways, her childhood reflected mine.

Over time, my venture, renamed “Blumen”, added employees, a walk in cooler, and more and more rental inventory. I still keep pre-digital portfolios from that time. It’s fun to look back at former clients and bygone floral trends, like, submerged orchids, and calla lilies bound up in wire. We did more weddings than I can possibly remember. Every bouquet had my heart stamped on it. 

In the winter of 2013, I got news of a rent increase and the prospect of signing a new lease loomed. It was my offhanded comment at a cocktail party, that led to the sale of Blumen to HMR, a large special event firm here in Chicago. With a drink in my hand, and in my best Mae West, I said, “Let me know if you want one more.” 

I arrived at HMR with 20 weddings on the calendar and 11 truckloads of inventory. From my temporary desk, behind the copier, I transitioned my Blumen events and went to work selling. With the help of an incredible creative team, I was able to elevate my designs. In my time there, I did some of the most extraordinary weddings and corporate parties. Events that were beyond my capabilities at Blumen, like; the opening launch of Radisson Blu Aqua, an event for the sheik of Qatar in a rooftop tent, parties at the Field for 1000, and luxurious dinners for private residences and Target executives. 

As my time behind computer increased, the more I realized that truly missed being hands on. I left HMR in 2014. It was this first time two decades that the my event calendar was clear. Eventually flowers drew me back in. I picked a name that better suits me “ Amy Crum Designs.” I absolutely love what I do, having a business that’s lean and mean is an advantage that allows me to devote my attention fully to each and every client.  My experiences throughout the years taught me lessons that have been invaluable. 

Flash forward to 2021, I find myself at new beginning and in some ways full circle. Iris got married this year. I got to be a MOB (mother of the bride) and do the flowers!

Here’s a photo of me wearing two hats on their wedding day! The best I’ll ever look on an install day!