By Briget Heidmous

A decade of friendship and a shared love of crafts roots Rock Paper Plant, co-owned by Alicia Mazzara and Cielo Contreras. These ladies identified a common issue for DC residents - small spaces and few places for our beloved plants to flourish. The solution: mount the plants. And, hang them on the wall.

Together Alicia and Cielo have brought joy to many people with mounted plants, workshops and educational experiences.  

BEGIN INTERVIEW: 

You are a two lady team of non-profit organizers and plant enthusiasts: What brought you two together? And, why this name: Rock Paper Plant? 

We’ve been friends for over 10 years and have always loved crafts. We’re also definitely the kind of kids who were in too many extracurricular activities. Why simply create with your bestie when you can start a whole business, right? 

The name came to Alicia in a dream (seriously). We’d originally thought the business could include hand lettering, hence the paper, in addition to plants. That didn’t pan out for a variety of reasons, but the plants stuck. Sometimes we joke that we need to add crystals into the mix to get the “rock” in there.  

Let’s get nostalgic: How did you get started with Rock Paper Plant? And, why plants? 

There’s this thing called the “biophilia hypothesis” which theorizes that humans are innately drawn to other living things. And there have been studies showing that indoor plants can improve our physical and mental health, reduce stress, and boost creativity. There’s even an entire architectural movement called biophilic design, which is partly the inspiration for our work. 

Rock Paper Plant came about when Alicia ran out of windowsill space for her rapidly growing orchid collection. Most orchids are epiphytes--plants that naturally grow on trees and not in soil--and orchid nerds will often grow them mounted on wood to mimic their natural habitat. A few YouTube videos and experiments later, she learned how to mount plants and from there, Rock Paper Plant was born. 

Our hunch was that other folks in DC were also trying to get the benefits of an indoor jungle but were also struggling with a lack of space. So we started teaching classes on how to mount plants, a technique that’s both beautiful and perfect for small spaces. 

But while Alicia is from a long line of avid gardeners, Cielo is from a family of plant killers. This balance really helps our business, as learning how to care for plants is a journey that isn’t intuitive for everyone. This is partly why we decided to add felted succulents and cacti to our class offerings. We use a technique called needle-felting, which lets you sculpt virtually anything out of wool. Now people can tap into the beauty of plants without the actual growing part. Whether you’ve got a green thumb or not, we firmly believe that everyone can benefit from exploring their creative side.   

What were some of your first offerings, and how did you scale? 

We started with workshops and grew from there. Our very first workshop was a mounted orchid class in October 2017 at The Lemon Collective. We had seven participants, and we’re thrilled to share that at least two of those orchids are still thriving! From there we started to diversify our class offerings, exploring different types of epiphytic plants, and adding felting classes as well. We’re really grateful to those first participants as they really helped us hone our teaching skills. 

We also owe Holley Simmons and the team at The Lemon Collective a lot of our success. Thanks to their network, we were able to build our first base of students and customers. We also met Lily Cox through The Lemon Collective. She now co-owns REWILD DC, where you can buy some of our products and/or take our workshops. 

In March 2018, we had what we think was a game-changing event. We had a booth at Rooting DC, and it was there that we were able to sell a lot of our mounted plants and grow our mailing list. From there we started to dip our toe further into the world of retail, selling at other markets and eventually joining the Femme Fatale DC Columbia Heights pop-up. 

How are you navigating the uncertainty of COVID-19 in your business?  What are you finding to be true? 

We’re proud that we were able to rapidly pivot to teaching virtual workshops and offering DIY mail-order kits, which had been a goal of ours for a long time. In summer 2019, we started partnering with Equity Residential, which manages several apartment buildings in the DC area and hosts workshops and other events for their residents. Thankfully, Equity has been able to continue the partnership, which has given the opportunity to do a lot of virtual classes and build our remote teaching skills. 

We had just started working with Steadfast Supply and Shop Made in DC right before things started shutting down. We’ve thankfully been able to continue those relationships by selling our products at Steadfast Supply and teaching a few virtual workshops with Shop Made in DC. Each new partner exposes our brand to a new audience. And while we miss teaching and offering our full range of plants in the beautiful Femme Fatale space at 425 Mass Ave, we’re so glad to be offering our felting kits in the online shop and at the Saturday markets. 

We know this much is true: Treating others with respect, consistently delivering high-quality work, and lots of hustle will get you places. It’s really important for us to be good partners in business and in teaching. As business owners, we always want to make sure that we’re responsive to folks, that we do what we say we’re going to do, and that we make it easy for people to work with us. As teachers, we strive to do all of those things, and provide clear, accurate, high-quality instruction in a fun and inclusive environment. Just because someone is talented doesn’t mean they’re good at explaining their craft. We really try to put ourselves in the shoes of our partners and students. This approach has served us well.

What are some of your greatest business wins? How do you celebrate your success? 

We were absolutely stunned when the Smithsonian American Art Museum invited us to give a Beyond the Studio talk and workshop last winter. It was a blast, and we’re so grateful for the wonderful opportunity to work with them. 

We also got to meet one of our favorite stars of plant Instagram, Hilton Carter, at a book talk for Wild at Home. Trust us, this is like meeting a major celebrity if you’re into house plants!  

Some of our biggest wins are somewhat nerdy business milestones. We were really excited to hire an accountant because it meant (1) we had earned enough money that it needed to be accounted for, and (2) we had the money to hire someone! The same goes for hiring a graphic designer to create a new look for our brand, which we’re looking forward to rolling out in the next few months. 

Last summer, we celebrated closing out a successful year of RPP by going to high tea at The Line Hotel. We wore fun jumpsuits, had what we called a “fancy lady afternoon,” and then capped it off with a screening of Xanadu at Sun’s Cinema. 

In what ways has Femme Fatale DC been part of your entrepreneurial progress?

We joined Femme Fatale DC in Spring 2019, and it has opened us up to a whole new world of local makers and customers. FFDC has also helped us build some practical business skills with workshops and connections to companies like Little Fish Accounting, CollabCreate DC, and The Patrice Effect. We’re not sure anyone would start a small business if they realized how many hats they’d have to wear to make it work. 

Retail was very intimidating to us at first, but we’ve felt so welcomed by this community. Being part of a collective like FFDC has helped us build skills and confidence, as well as allowed us to experiment with new products or classes. We also think it’s really important to support our fellow womxn entrepreneurs, particularly our fellow womxn of color. Racial and gender equity is a key part of why we work for mission-driven non-profits, and we want to reflect those values with our business decisions as well. 

Rock Paper Plant is truly here thanks to a whole community of awesome womxn entrepreneurs. We can’t wait to pay it forward soon.