Bella and Bloom Boutique was born from this passion. I went to school for marketing and fashion merchandising at Texas State University, however I always knew the traditional route wasn't for me. After blogging full-time for 6 years, I took the leap of faith to open my own boutique where I could curate 100% of the items we carried. I put my blog on hold, sold virtually half my closet on resale clothing websites, and took $8,000 - which was almost every penny in my bank account - to purchase our first collection of inventory from market and pursue this passion project of mine. I wanted it to be a one stop shop for everything you could need - from every day items to those special events in your life. On February 20th, 2018, my dream became a reality, and Bella and Bloom Boutique was born. With no loans taken out or investors, I recycled every penny we made back into purchasing more inventory. The inventory was housed in our guest bedroom, which quickly turned into a stock room, and I spent hours on the floor printing labels and wrapping orders in light pink tissue paper for cute presentation, which you will still see as our signature wrapping paper to wrap your orders today. I drove 2 hours every weekend back to my hometown so that my mom could help with taking the product photos for our website, and I did the modeling, buying, customer service, order fulfillment, product uploading, social media and website. In July of 2018, the growth we were experiencing became too much for me to handle as one person, and my husband quit his job in car sales to join me, taking over the photography and order fulfillment.