Episode 22: Inspiration: The What, Who, and Where, Interview with Ellie LaFever
What exactly is "inspo"? When Flower Clique's graphic designer Ellie LaFever kept dropping the word into Slack messages, Lori had to work it out from context clues — and it sparked this episode. Vonda and Lori invite Ellie on to unpack inspiration through three lenses: the what, the who, and the where. Along the way, Ellie shares a design-school principle that will change how you plan your next bridal bouquet, and the three generations of perspective make for one of the most personal conversations the podcast has had.
Inspiration is the spark — not the work
The three land on complementary definitions. Vonda's is the textbook one: being mentally stimulated to do something creative. Lori's is more soulful — a divine influence exerted on your mind and inner soul. Ellie's is the most useful for business owners: inspiration is an energy, an exciting spark that "marks a beginning." Vonda ties it to Thomas Edison's famous line that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration — the spark starts it, but you have to take it from there.
Ellie adds a practical filter for separating good ideas from random sparks: give an idea a week, or even a month. If it still sticks with you — if you wake up still thinking about it, as Lori says of her late-night Pinterest scrolls — that's the one worth pursuing.
Don't source inspiration from the medium you're designing in
The centerpiece of the episode is advice Ellie carries from a college professor: when you're looking for inspiration, don't source it from the same medium you're trying to create in. Designing an office? Don't study photos of offices — go through architectural books, patterns, textures, even music. Ellie once designed an office floor plan for a multigenerational workforce around a song titled "Next," literally shaping the walls to spell N-E-X-T from above. Planning wedding centerpieces? Don't type "flower centerpiece" into Pinterest — study dinner-table styling from home decor catalogs, noticing the containers, foliage textures, and metals, then translate those seeds into an arrangement.
The reason matters for florists: when you start from someone else's bouquet photo, you end up copying and pasting — "trying to do it better and it just doesn't turn out the same." Start from somewhere unexpected, and the result is genuinely your own. Vonda traces her version of the lesson back to a junior-high teacher who used the "one of these things is not like the other" song to teach students that different is good — her first encouragement to think outside the box.
The what and the who
Each host shares what's currently sparking them. Lori lights up watching flower shop owners step far outside their comfort zones — going live on Facebook for the first time after a Flower Clique webinar. Ellie pulls from vintage record covers and their typefaces, vivid descriptions in books, MasterClass (both the lessons and the video editing style, which is shaping Flower Clique's design school videos for Prep School), and high-end fashion branding. Vonda is inspired by projects — visualizing how to make an arrangement work better all the way from farm to website to consumer.
The who list runs deep. Lori names the Society of American Florists, whose tireless Covid advocacy inspired her to stop fearing "legal language," and a Teleflora education specialist named Renee, whose simple flower-care videos taught Lori to change vase water daily — advice she promptly passed to three friends whose peonies were fading. She also honors personal heroes: a missionary friend separated from her daughter by borders and Covid who still radiates joy, and a friend who turned unimaginable loss into nonprofit work. Ellie cites architect Zaha Hadid, filmmaker Wes Anderson, lifestyle creators — and her mother, Vonda. Vonda points to Bill LaFever for flower business brilliance, her son Sayer for business strategy, designers Joyce Mason-Monheim and Julie for technique and creative surprises, and Ellie for fashion-forward instincts.
The where: showers, Home Depot, and a box of surprises
Sources are everywhere once you look. Ellie wanders new neighborhoods, travels (a Paris flower shop's pastel multicolored baby's breath flipped her opinion of a flower she'd grown up mocking), and takes 6:30 a.m. trips to Home Depot, leaving with a cart full of paints and stains that belie her one-bedroom apartment. Vonda seconds the big-box-store walk — plumbing parts and electrical wire become floral art components. Lori goes to books (Everything Is Figureoutable, Tell Me More), podcasts, and her Bible. And all three agree on the shower as idea headquarters — you're at your most relaxed, not forcing anything. Ellie's produce-box habit becomes the perfect florist metaphor: opening a box of mystery ingredients and asking "wow, what can I make with all of this?" — exactly the mindset a designer should bring to a fresh flower delivery.
Key takeaways
- Inspiration is only the 1 percent spark — filter ideas by whether they still excite you a week later, then do the work.
- Never source inspiration from the medium you're creating in; pull from music, fashion, architecture, and home decor instead of other florists' Pinterest boards.
- Build a "who" list — the driven people, in and out of the industry, who reliably light you up — and spend time with them.
- Treat every flower shipment like a mystery box: "what can I make with these ingredients?" beats "what am I supposed to do with this?"
- Surround your team with each other's work; at Flower Clique, designs inspire graphics, graphics inspire presentations, and the energy compounds.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist