I never thought as a kid, “I want to be a candle maker when I grow up”… but life has a funny way of not working out as planned.

At Ruby + Begonia we hand-pour candles, soaps, scrubs, body sprays, room sprays, and more.

I love the creativity of it all. I love the people. I love making things that bring happiness to others.

And most importantly, I love having a business that I can pour into the way my mom poured into me.

I joined the Air Force at 18 and served for almost a decade as an Imagery Analyst. At 27, I left Active Duty and my home on Hickam, AFB in Hawaii to move back to Mount Pleasant, TX where my husband and I could raise our two boys closer to family.

I went to college, received my degree in Education, taught for almost a decade, and then in 2018 I joined one of my childhood BFF’s as the COO of his Real Estate Firm. I quickly discovered that Business/Sales was definitely not my strong suit…but people, creativity, and problem solving were. In the few years that I worked in Real Estate, I soaked in everything I never thought I would need to know about running a business.

In the meantime my mom and dad moved into a tiny home on the back of our property… So by day I helped my friend run his successful company and by night I loved our family dinners, card games, swimming parties, and movie nights.

In the summer of 2020, my mom, my best friend, and the sun that my entire family orbited around was diagnosed with Mixed Hepatocellular Cholangiocarcinoma, an extremely rare, extremely aggressive form of cancer. Over the next six months, I drove her to chemo appointments, helped count and sorted out her immunotherapy pills, took multiple trips to MD Anderson, and began working only part time, and mostly from home, so that I could help take care of her.

Day three after chemo was always her hardest day… she was so incredibly sick and it was almost unbearable to watch. On one particular “third day” she was lying on my bed with me watching Hamilton when she looked at me and said, “Sabrina… I’m so sorry baby… but I just can’t handle the smells in your house.” I didn’t really understand but I jumped up and grabbed every plug-in and candle in my home, put them all in a trash bag, and took them outside.

Over the next few days I started researching some of the “Big Business” candle and soap companies that I had always loved and realized there were so many chemicals and toxins in them that I never knew about. In a time where I felt so little control… experimenting and making my very first soy candle and organic soap while my mom was sick gave me something to focus on.

Mom was the most beautiful soul. She was optimistic, kind, brave, encouraging, colorful, loving, giving, and she fought as hard as she could to stay with us. On December 11th of 2020 she passed away with me, my brother, and my dad holding her hands and telling her goodbye. Our entire family and all of the people that loved my mom so fiercely… well, we were all devastated.

To know her was to love her. I wasn’t ready to go back to work full-time at Mayben Realty so I started reading all about the soap making process to keep my brain occupied. I experimented more and more with different waxes, wicks, and fragrances for candles.

My husband even built me a shop for my new “outlet” where I spent a lot of my time. In August of 2021, and in honor of my mothers nickname, Ruby + Begonia was born. I started with festivals and fairs and then fell in love with a tiny little storefront in downtown Mount Pleasant and decided to go all in on myself.