Meet Melissa Robbins and Tammy Martinez of Mama Llama Balloons in Wichita Falls

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Robbins and Tammy Martinez.

Mama Llama balloons is a mom (Tammy) and daughter (Melissa) adventure! Even though they are a mother-daughter duo, they are also best friends! Originally from Quanah, Texas, Tammy and Melissa have always loved doing creative projects together. Melissa moved to Wichita Falls, Texas after college where she got involved in photography and insurance sales. Melissa hit the ground running with her insurance business and within months, she was running Southern Oklahoma with a successful team of agents. Now, five years later, she owns her own insurance brokerage in Wichita Falls, Sense Insurance Group. They are partnered with Colonial Life who allows them to help other business owners leverage their benefit packages for their employees. She has always enjoyed helping others and has been able to turn her passion into a career. Tammy resides in Quanah where she is the branch manager of Security Bank as well as owner and broker of her own successful real estate business, Rolling Plains Realty.

Melissa and Tammy are always looking for things to do together and both have bounced several ideas around but the other never seemed to agree. After all, they are mother and daughter! That mother, daughter relationship would soon pay off however because coincidentally they had both been thinking the same thing! After realizing they had the same idea, they absolutely could not wait to get their own balloon business started! This was only the beginning of Mama Llama Balloons. The duo would soon grow their business so quickly they almost couldn’t keep up! After lots of trial and error, they finally figured it out and got their first booking for the grand opening of a boutique in Wichita Falls. They were soon overwhelmed with people wanting to book parties. Whether you are needing a balloon design for a birthday, anniversary, gender reveal, graduation, business celebration, grand opening, or a school event, they can do it all!

At first, the business began just as something for Melissa and Tammy to do together; however, it soon became something more. Initially, the pair wanted to use the income from their business for family vacations so they could spend quality time together. However, Lincoln, Melissa’s 18-month-old son was recently diagnosed with JIA (Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis), which is an autoimmune disease with no cure. Melissa now has to frequently travel to Ft. Worth to Cook Children’s Medical Center for Lincoln’s doctor visits. In addition to the travel expenses her and her husband, Brent, are also faced with the numerous out of pocket expenses that are not covered by their major medical insurance like medicines, diagnostic testing, and more. With these new medical expenses, the business quickly turned into a necessity. Although the business turned into more than just a hobby as initially planned, Tammy and Melissa are both very grateful as it is something they both absolutely love to do! They truly believe God brought them this business!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There are always challenges! Our biggest obstacle would be scheduling. We never want to turn anyone down. There is also the challenge of being located so far apart which sometimes makes it difficult for both of us to be available to set up. We always do what we can to make it work though!

Please tell us about Mama Llama Balloons.
We love to decorate for all events! We specialize in balloon arches, columns, garland, streamer backdrops, table arrangements, and more. We also work with several non-profit organizations as well as schools. We are also currently learning how to create balloon mosaics! We have decorated for just about any occasion you can imagine! We are always looking for ways to better our business and stay up to date with the latest trends. We hope to make every party bright and fun with unique designs. We are always learning something new and love when our customers ask us to come up with new ideas. In the future, we would like to expand our business to full party planning!

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If we could go back we would not do anything differently. We have learned so many things along the road that has helped us grow. One thing we have learned is to never take the little celebrations in life for granted. Soon after, we started our business, not only did we discover Lincoln’s medical issues but we also lost a very important person in our family to pancreatic cancer. We now celebrate the smallest victories! We are so blessed to meet and get to know all of our amazing customers!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mamallamaballoons.com
• Phone: (940)839-5855
• Email: mamallamaballoons@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/mamallamaballoons
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/mamallamaballoons

Image Credit:
Photographer Cheyenne H., editing done by Photos by Melissa

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