Meet Nicole Martinez

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Martinez.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started ballooning after I graduated UCF in 2019. GO KNIGHTS! I received a bachelor’s in elementary education. I worked for a few years as a teacher and quickly realized I didn’t want to enforce rules on kiddos and make them follow mandates and such. I always knew I was creative and it didn’t bring me joy to impose rules on kiddos that seem to attack creatives. As a child, I enjoyed things like music and instruments as well as making art with my hands. I wasn’t spectacular at any one medium so I always thought I may just be a connesuir of art rather than an artist. Fast forward to the pandemic of 2020 shutting the entire city down. We started gathering at homes in small settings to celebrate and I began dabbling in balloon art. I catch on to new things very quickly and ballooning was no exception. I began to research techniques, started following famous balloon artists, and watched my fair share of YouTube tutorials. I began getting better and better until one day I said I should and I totally could open a balloon business. That’s exactly what I did! I brainstormed my name with my little sister and her late best friend, they said Bold Balloons because I am known to have a bold and fierce personality. I didn’t receive my first real order until after 6 months and three months after that I landed a gig with Selfie World Orlando in the FL Mall. I ballooned for them for 7 months consecutively, Each month a new balloon installed! A year later and I have officially filed my LLC with the state of FL. I have accomplished a lot in a year and I have no intentions of letting up anytime soon. I am a first-generation college grad. I am the fiat legitimate business owner in my family and I have done a lot of work to change the future for my three daughters and for myself. I have a lot of pride for what I do because my life hasn’t always been great. In fact, I come from a very broken home with parents who abandoned me and my siblings, we spent years in foster care, in facilities that were abusive, and eventually, I dropped out of high school when one of my siblings passed away of suicide. I vowed to live a life I could be proud of. When I became a mother myself I continued to make promises to my children to create a life and a mommy they could be proud of. Bold balloons is my promises come to life.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been easy listening to the creative voices in my head. It was hard living the way I was before – acting normal and ignoring my creativity. Working with balloons is manipulating objects with your hands – blowing them up, tying them etc, so there is a little bit of a learning curve but once I continued staying committed to learning it felt natural after a while. Now I can blow up 100 balloons at a time, tie them and not even flinch.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am Bold Balloons. We are a unique and luxe balloon decor company. We provide opulent balloon decor experiences for any size gathering. We work with families as well as corporate events. As of recently filing our LLC, we are able to begin providing more event prop rentals such as custom walls/panels, neon signs, pedestals to showcase deserts and much much more for a full experience. I am most proud of the fact that I am a one woman show and I can provide a service that is unique, creates lasting impressions and memories and makes people stop and feel inspired. I do all that! Little old me. I am very proud that I have joined a small percentage of not only women but Latina women who become business owners. What sets us apart from others is the experience. I began this business from my home for my children’s celebrations. Creating for my clients is like creating for my family! I will not stop until your event decor is picture perfect. It brings me much joy to be able to provide opulent focal points to special milestones.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
There are not enough good childhood memories for me to choose from. Most of my childhood is marked by trauma and trying to survive. However one year my father was able to gather enough money and get assistance from some church friends to be able to take us on our first and only family vacation. Upon arriving at our residence for the weekend which was a cabin in Maine – a rundown one with lots of insects and everything you can think of while camping on a lake in the summertime, leeches and mosquitoes galore …me and my siblings began to complain. We were city slickers from Massachusetts so this was def a culture shock for us. After a few hours, we began to settle and actually enjoyed it. that weekend was the fondest memory I have of being a child. We were allowed to be carefree. We swam all day and roasted marshmallows by the campfire every night. We had no TVs, cell phones weren’t smart yet and all we had was a little radio to connect us to civilization. Me and my siblings still remember the top 40 songs of that year from that cabin in Maine and anytime we hear Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin we stop and begin to recite our memories from that trip.

Contact Info:

• Email: Nicole..Martinez@boldballoons.com
• Instagram:@bold.balloons
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bold-Balloons-102881332173888/