Let’s Mail Flowers with BloomInk
This month's Let's Mail Flowers letters came with something extra special and I have been so excited to share it once all the letters were sent out. A student run sustainability project out of San Diego called BloomInk found my mail club on Instagram and reached out to me. This was started by high school students who collected discarded materials and turn them into handmade flower cards. They pitched the idea to me and said they would love to collaborate with my flower themed mail club since it’s the perfect pairing, a community built around flowers, making things by hand, and physical mail and I immediately said yes .
BloomInk also runs workshops teaching kids sustainability through hands on making and they've been looking for a way to bring that beyond San Diego and I hope my mail club could be the perfect way to do it. BloomInk created a special piece just for this collaboration. It is a card made from recycled paper and discarded flowers and embedded with real flower seeds. It is also plantable which also supports pollinators. Every envelope this month included one along with a small card telling the story behind it. They wanted it to be a real way for people to participate in sustainability themselves. By the way, this was all their idea and quoted from them.
I already knew this month's mail theme was going to be dahlias because I knew we were going to a dahlia farm for our Paper Talk retreat and I definitely took a photo I was like WOA it looks good and I can’t wait to frame it for my home. We planned to build the September mail club theme around this photo from that trip and BloomInk made sure these plantable cards included 2 to 4 dahlia mix seeds to match so subscribers won't just be reading about dahlias this month, they can actually grow some for themselves!
Students Building Something Real
I love seeing high school students build something like this and collecting materials, making and selling handmade goods, teaching workshops, reaching out to me to collaborate, and thinking through how to make an impact outside their own city. I see real entrepreneurship here and it was so heartfelt. Seeing that kind of initiative and passion is genuinely inspiring and it has also pushed me to think differently about what this mail club could become. I never expected to build a community around flower lovers and then also open the door to collaborations like this one. It's given me so many ideas for the future.
I also just came back from our PaperTalk Mastermind where I mentor through a 6 month business program and everything these students are doing felt like they will be the next boss of our future, it truly is so inspiring! I definitely want them on our podcast in our coming season. In the meantime, please go support BloomInk. The easiest way is to follow them and check out what they're building, linked below.
BloomInk Website- https://bloominksd.weebly.com/
BloomInkSD Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/bloominksd
Want to see this month's mail? I shared a behind the scenes on my latest vlog linked here. Also if you're not already part of Let's Mail Flowers, you can sign up below to get next month’s mail with the next flower I come across.
