New business blooms in Lodi
Exquisitely Made creates colorful, customized flowers
A new business has sprung up in Downtown Lodi, much like the pops of color brightening the lush spring-colored gardens around town. Exquisitely Made, which sells customized handmade flowers, opened its doors on Tuesday at 11 W. Pine St.
The store’s walls are decorated with many examples of the vibrant paper flowers that the mother-and-daughter store-owning duo create.
As a centerpiece behind the counter, an 8-by-8-inch large light purple flower hangs, created with about 1,000 individual petals. Owner Arnesha Williams said it took about three weeks to bring the flower to full bloom.
“We do all our own templates and we get inspiration from different themes and colors, and try to bring the flowers to life,” Williams said, outfitted in a white dress with soft blue-and-pink-leaf motifs. “We can make them blend in to people’s home decor, or make them for parties, and they are budget friendly as well. We try to replace everything you can use real flowers for with flowers out of paper.”
They make many flower designs for birthday parties and baby showers, and a lot of home decor, including bedrooms, kids’ rooms and living rooms.
“It’s a very versatile concept,” Williams said. “You can take a backdrop you’ve used at a party and also take it into your home. They last longer than regular flowers, so you can get your money’s worth.”
While they work mainly with paper, they can create flowers out of many other materials. They have used fabrics and cloths, even a comic book, for their designs.
“You have to use a lot of heat sometimes. There is a lot of folding, bending and stretching — anything we can do to manipulate it to the way you want,” Williams said.
The new business sprung its roots organically, and unexpectedly, and changed the course of Williams’ career. For the past 11 years, she had worked as a manager at two different Dollar stores in Lodi. Then one day, her younger sister, Tamia Hamilton, who was about to graduate high school, asked Arnesha if she could make a flower backdrop for her graduation party.
That was the first creation, and it grew from there.
“It was something everybody enjoyed, and wanted us to do. We were doing it for fun and for friends and different people, and we thought, maybe we have something here,” Williams said. “So we took a leap and went for it.”
The store offers everything from small flowers that will fit in the palm of your hand, up to the large wall displays — the biggest they have created so far is 10-by-10 feet.
A small flower takes about 45 minutes to make and the really large ones can take up to three weeks. There are a lot of different steps to the process, Williams explained.
“We start with a pattern, manipulate the paper, lay it out, make sure our vision is correct … sometimes we have to add, sometimes we take away — it depends on the flower. It’s very labor intensive. You’re down there building, building, building. Your thighs burn after a while,” she said with a laugh.
The smallest flowers are priced from $5-9, and go up from there. A customer has the option to add whatever suits their design — extra bling, rhinestones, spray paint colors — and fits into their budget, Williams said. They can make them smaller, larger, or fuller. They also offer bouquets starting at $20 and can go up to $120.
In the future, Williams said they plan to offer workshops, host birthday parties, and offer customers another creative outlet in Downtown.
Having been opened just a couple of days so far, their business has already started to bloom.
“It’s been really good, everyone is excited that something new is coming to town.”
Williams is making the most of her creations at home.
“I am a night owl, I just stay up late. I have my Netflix, Hulu, coffee. Instead of just sitting on the couch, doing nothing, I just make flowers. I draw templates, I look at different things to get inspiration from, then ... it blooms, I guess, in a sense.”