Starting off her day with reading messages and confirmations about floral orders, Reina Rodriguez, a junior, works hard on her one year old business that is inspired by nature, flowers, and crafts. In her home, Rodriguez creates and sells items such as crochet roses, eternal flowers, and ribbon work.
Reina Rodriguez, a junior, owns flowersbyreina, she has over a year of experience.
“I like making people happy and seeing how they say thank you for work that I did with my own hands makes me feel happy, too,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez expresses that February is the busiest month, she handles around six clients or more per this month, and estimates that it takes about an hour to make a dozen roses.
Rodriguez advises aspiring business owners to be authentic and not to worry about others’ opinion: “Just be yourself and don’t listen to the critics of other people. People have different experiences and just focus on yourself.”
All these student business owners agree that most Bearcats balance many events in their lives such as school, sports, family matters, and many of them are in relationships. This Valentine’s Day students might want to give their significant other, or maybe someone they just appreciate, a gift.
Elizabeth Vega owns designs_lizz, she’s currently a junior
“I started because I wanted to make my mom a birthday gift. So I learned how to make eternal roses, and then from there I started making it for family and friends,” she said.
Having to go around with floral orders and managing school, Elizabeth Vega, a junior, runs designs_lizz which is an Instagram account with 120 followers. Vega expresses that her business started off with needing a gift for her mother’s birthday.
Camila Landin, a sophomore, owns cakepops.by.cami, she also runs clawedbycami!Landin loves making her clients happy and encourages other Bearcats to do the same.
“Do something you’re passionate about and people are going to buy,” Landin said.
Having to hurry back home and make cake pops batches that take up to 3 hours, CamilaLandin, a sophomore, creates any style of cake pops that her clients wish. Her business, cakepops.bycami, began when her family encouraged her to bake: “I worked to perfect the recipe in an efficient manner and took their words into consideration. I started off by selling to my friends and soon made an Instagram account in September 2024.”
Landin also runs a nail business on the side, but her focus depends on her client’s wishes.
Valentine nails are very popular during this special season, personal nail designs take a lot of time. According to junior Emily Chen, it takes her 3 hours to finish making press on nails. For this season’s Valentine’s Day, Chen does not plan to increase her prices by much, only by 50 cents.
“I took interest when I started doing it for fun. It was supposed to be a gift for someone, but I started doing it as a side business,” Chen said.
She also makes eternal roses on the side too, handling two businesses can be difficult, but for Chen it’s more of a stress reliever. Chen recommends other Bearcats that wish to open a business to do it, either as a business or a hobby, “It makes you happy and other people happy, too.”
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Junior Jessica Mendez is the Carmesi Co-Director for Crimson Newsmagazine this year. This is her first year in journalism and her favorite part of Crimson is reaching out to others and learning more about them. She is a part of AVID, bear-kittens, and volunteers at ELOP at Pat Butler Elementary.
Sophomore Laney Ortiz is a Social Media Co-Editor for Crimson NewsMagazine. This is her first year working in Crimson and her favorite thing about it is designing all sorts of cute things and meeting new people. She runs for fun and for the Cross Country team at PRHS. Out of school she loves being with her friends, music, makeup, traveling, and shopping. She’s also obsessed with anything cute.
