east valley
Volume 4 Issue 43 Mesa, AZ
May 8, 2021
What’s Up Buttercup? re�lects mom’s hippy style BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Tribune Staff Writer
W
IN THE BIZ
hen Carina Valenta was young, she and her mother enjoyed teatime at home and restaurants. They discussed their future, which included owning a retail store. Her mom died, but Valenta is keeping her spirit alive with the Northeast Mesa boutique What’s Up Buttercup? At McKellips and Recker roads, What’s Up Buttercup? is a few doors down from Mozzie Fox, the salon owned by her sister, Laurie DeBusk. “My mom (Rosemary Boretsky) would take me out to tea, and it was so much fun,” Valenta said. “I would ask, ‘Do I have to use my pinky now?’ It was really funny. A lot of what I have in here has to do with my mom. I’m honoring her. “Tea is important to me – tea and the fun, bright colors. I have that in here because I know she would really enjoy them.” Valenta described Boretsky as a “hippy gypsy and very free spirited.” Bohemian clothing, along accessories, jewelry, candles, oils and teas, and local artisan items, �ill the cozy store. “We would go around Mill Avenue and have our hair braided, and go to vegan restaurants, which weren’t popular yet, to have hummus and tea,” she recalled about time with her mom. “It was a blast. That’s my memory of the things we used to do back in the ’70s. Having the tea and the scents in the store has a lot to do with Public Notices ............... page 2 © Copyright, 2022 East Valley Tribune
Carina Valenta is keeping her mom’s spirit alive with her Northeast store, What’s Up Buttercup? (David Minton/Tribune Staff Photographer) that.” Opening What’s Up Buttercup? was bittersweet, she said through tears. Boretsky would have loved it. “She would be manning the front and I would be the one in back taking care of all the details,” she said. “I’m more of a detail person. She loved people and merchandise. “People would look for her when she worked in retail. Even when she was semiretired, she was still a hippy gypsy. She always said she had a gypsy spirit.” Even the moniker re�lects Boretsky’s loves. When Valenta was struggling to (USPS 004-616) is published weekly
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come up with a name, she turned to DeBusk. “I have a bit of my brother (Kenny Flanagan) with the music I bring in,” she said. “It’s happy, upbeat music. In talking to my sister, she said, ‘You’ll know it when you know it. It’ll come to you.’ “I work at a hospital and when I was walking around the corner to go into the breakroom, I said to one of my coworkers, ‘What’s Up Buttercup?’ She thought it was so sweet. I went to text my sister and she had just texted me, ‘You should name it What’s Up Buttercup?’ I knew that was it. I knew mom was watching Subscriptions are $26 for 2 years, $14 for one year. Periodicals postage paid at Phoenix, AZ 85026.
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