Arielle Valle emerges from her studio with her long, brown hair tied into a bun, concrete smudged on her face and flaking off her skin from elbow to fingertip. “Today's a concrete day; we're like, ‘Pretend I'm not here.’ I'm locked in my little cave like a gremlin all day long,” the multihyphenate maker says.
Arielle and her mother, Beth, run Cape Coral’s The Wallflower Shoppe, where they sell their handmade ‘soulful essentials,’ including Arielle’s concrete pottery, Beth’s natural beauty and home products, and the duo’s signature eco-friendly, nontoxic candles, which they mix and pour in house.
On 47th Terrace, just a few blocks from Cape Coral’s Midpoint Memorial Bridge, the shop is marked by a mural from Fort Myers artist Gabrielle Kesecker. The whimsical doodles of mushrooms and flowers span the windows of the 1976 former real estate building the Valles renovated over seven months. The women spent five years building their brand of sustainably minded home decor and wellness products at artisan markets nationwide before opening their shop.
The peaceful, eight-month-old boutique prompts guests to linger, explore and try the goods. A rattan seating area, dubbed the ‘day room’ for its sunny exposure, fronts a coffee bar with brews from Cape Coral’s Bones Coffee Company and gluten-free and vegan treats from the next-door Sweet Real bakery. In the center of the spacious front room, tables and shelves house a mix of Wallflower’s artisan wares alongside goods from other makers with a similar ethos (think: sustainable yoga mats and blocks from the Cape’s 42 Birds).
Opposite the day room is the cozy ‘green room,’ named after the many plants surrounding the space’s plush, burgundy furniture. Mood lighting from a farmhouse chandelier and a nearby floor lamp make this area a perfect reading and study nook. “We have a group of high school girls that comes every week,” Beth says of the growing band of regulars the Valles nurture. “To take a break, they wander around, smell things and have tea.” They’re so cute,” Arielle adds.
Arielle started making candles as a way to unwind after years of working multiple jobs in her 20s. She was living at her parents’ house with her brothers, sisters-in-law and a few close family friends. “It was like everyone decided, ‘Well, she's got this big house, we’ve got to fill the rooms,’” Beth says with a laugh.
To help Arielle out of a funk, she and her sister-in-law went to Hobby Lobby on a whim for candle-making supplies. Soon, Arielle started selling her organic, minimalist products at local markets. Mom would often help, and she brought along expertise from her lifelong interest in healing essential oils. After Beth retired from her career as a firefighter-paramedic in Broward County earlier this year, she moved to Cape Coral and went all in on her daughter’s venture.
Behind the coffee bar, two separate workspaces help the tight-knit duo keep up with Wallflower production. In the lab to the right, Beth translates her obsession with plant-derived oils into a beauty line, with an aloe-based shampoo and conditioner, moisturizing cold-pressed face oils and vitamin E-infused hand scrubs. Both women produce the flagship coconut soy-wax candles, and Arielle hand-casts the containers for their Signature Concrete Candles line. The younger Valle woman added concrete pottery to her repertoire a few years ago, eager to offer eco-friendly, refillable vessels.
Working on-site, Arielle mixes rapid cement concrete with water to pour into molds, sourced from a fellow artist on Etsy. She manipulates the industrial material into organic shapes using plant-based pigments to yield earthy hues and marbled effects on miniature busts of Michaelangelo’s David, sculptural vases inspired by historic aristocrats, and an assortment of dinnerware and trinket catchalls. She’s now also dabbling in furniture-making, starting with a concrete tabletop for her home kitchen.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
Arielle Valle opened the artisan-chic boutique with her mom, Beth, late last year. The space is set up like a cozy home, with vintage furnishings and rows of shelves showing off the women's handmade concrete pottery, candles and beauty products.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
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Photography by Christina Bankson
Arielle finds magic in the craft. “Literally, it was a bag of frickin’ sand a few hours ago, and now look how pretty it is,” she says, palming an in-process desert-hued candle jar. A water-based, food-safe sealant—her ‘secret ingredient’—gives the pieces their satin appearance, a nod to the collection’s Old World sensibility.
On the opposite side of the Valles’ workspaces, a moody hallway covered in dark, botanical wallpaper leads guests to a more experiential side of Wallflower: a yoga studio and workshop. The intimate studio—outfitted with 42 Birds’ biodegradable, chemical-free, grippy cork mats—hosts yoga classes and full moon meditation sessions. In the nearby candle-making workshop, another mural by Gabrielle cheekily plays off the shop’s name with the title of Stephen Chbosky’s book The Perks of Being a Wallflower. There, small groups learn mindfulness-centric practices, like the Hindi tradition of henna tattooing, terrarium building and candle-making. “If you take a candle class with me, I give you the science—the firefighter in me comes out—the measurement and why we do this,” Beth says, laughing. “[Arielle’s] just like ‘Eh, pour it in.’”
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Photography by Christina Bankson
The Valles promote a sustainable and holistic ethos. Every product at Wallflower hints at mindful, self-care rituals, and the shop doubles as a gathering space. There are nooks for locals to linger, a coffee bar with gluten-free treats from the next-door Sweet Real bakery, and ongoing candle-making and yoga classes.
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Photography by Christina Bankson
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Photography by Christina Bankson
The space also serves as a DIY refill station for regulars who’ve got the process down and like to experiment with the add-ons from the shelf, stocked with scented oils, crystals, dried flowers and aromatic herbs. Everything in the space is designed around the women’s mission to promote holistic, Earth-friendly practices locally. “It’s always about the community,” Arielle says.