Sponsor Giveaway: $25 Hip Mountain Mama Gift Certificate

.:Earth Loving Clothespins:.

Today I welcome the lovely and wonderful lady, Suzy Hawbaker from Hip Mountain Mama to share this space with me. Suzy is the author of the Hip Mountain Mama blog where she writes about life with her beautiful family and the efforts they partake in to live a peaceful green life together. She also features many of the wonderful items from her and her husband, Andy’s shop, Hip Mountain Mama on her blog. Welcome Suzy! I am so happy to be here with you today!

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When did the idea of opening your own shop first come into play?

Suzy: I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit, so opening my own shop had been in the back of my mind for quite a few years. After my second child was born I decided I wanted to work from home and opening my own on line shop seemed like a great way to do this. I thought it would just be a part time thing, but over the years it has turned into a full time family business!

.:Reusable Glass Straws:.

Can you share what qualities you look for in the items you carry in your shop?

Suzy: We have evolved as a business quite a lot over the past 3 years. We started out as a shop for Natural Moms and are now a shop for Boho, hippie, eco Mamas. A large part of our shop is now fair trade women’s clothing, bags, accessories, and jewelry with a bohemian flare. It is very important to us that our clothing is made in good conditions, by women who make a fair wage and are treated well. We also have a nice section of women’s products that are handmade by Hip Mamas in the USA. We are also very passionate about our reusable section and will continue to add to this as we go. We look for products that are high quality, made with natural materials, serve an eco friendly purpose, and most of the time we look for products that are hand made. Several of our products in this section are also hand made by Hip Mamas in the USA. We love supporting other small businesses and this is a major factor when searching out new products.

.:Sun Ray Patchwork Skirt:.

What does the typical “work day” look like for you?

Suzy: Honestly, it is all over the place. We tried to schedule our days, but I have come to learn that with kids and a small business, schedules just don’t work. One day my 4 year old may be playing with her toys so I will hop on the computer and answer some emails and other other days she may need me all day so I get to my emails at night. Our customers have come to expect us to answer emails at random times on the weekend or from my blackberry while at the park, or even answering their calls while at my daughter’s soccer practice. We are really flexible and are learning how to manage our time well. One of the things we have learned recently is to keep our shop small. We grew really fast and had dreams of creating a huge store with tons of goodies. As time has passed we realized we needed to keep things simple and more focused rather than being all over the place. We are always changing, evolving, and keeping things fresh, but as we narrow down our dream store we are finding our work days to be much more fun and manageable!

.:Wooden Memory Game:.

Can you tell us a bit about what was it like when your husband Andy, quit his job to join you as part of the Hip Mountain Mama team? Was there anything particular that helped you make the leap?

Suzy: This was a major change for us personally and professionally. First of all, giving up his income was really scary. We had a lot of talks about what life would look like and what we would have to give up. Our main question to ourselves was, “what is the worst thing that could happen if we fail?” We kept coming back to, if it doesn’t work out, we could go back to work or sell a car or our home. It didn’t seem like a horrible outcome, so we went for it. We decided to give it a shot for 6 months and see what happens. We didn’t have a back up or much money saved, so it was a pretty risky move. But simplifying our lives was actually a lot of fun and it really gave us that extra push to start living more sustainably and get back to the basics. Having Andy work for HMM allowed us to grow our business and give it 100%. It has now been 1.5 years and we are both still working for HMM full time. Andy picks up jobs here and there to help with the slow season, but for the most part HMM supports our family. Our customers are so supportive of our small business and it is because of them we are able to create our dream shop. I think more and more people are realizing the importance of keeping their dollars out of the big box chains and spending them in little Ma and Pa shops…this is what will stimulate our economy!

I know that traveling and adventuring together as a family is important to both you and Andy. What is your favorite spot that you have gotten to explore in this past year together?

Suzy: There are so many! I think the Sand Dunes are my favorite! We have been going to the Sand Dunes for the past 3 years and everyone just loves it! We camp out for 3 nights and spend our days playing in the sand and water. It’s the closest thing us Coloradoans have to being at the beach.

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Suzy, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to share a little bit about what goes on behind the Hip Mountian Mama shop. It is always very inspiring to me to hear about the different ways cool people like you, make what they love to do, work for them. You are a true inspiration!

Today, Suzy is giving away a $25 Hip Mountain Mama gift certificate. To enter, hop on over and check out all the goodies at the Hip Mountain Mama shop, then come back here and leave a comment below letting us know of something you liked.

**For an additional entry your can share this post (facebook, twitter, on your blog, email some friends, etc.) and leave another comment letting us know.**

Suzy is also graciously offering all Earth Mama readers $5.00 off on all orders $30 and over until April 24th. Just use the code: “Earth5″ at checkout.

This giveaway will close Monday morning 8am EST. The winner will be chosen via random number generator and announced in this post shortly after. Thanks so much everyone! Good Luck!

And the winner is: Charlotte, “I love Hip Mountain Mama… before them we still had a lot of trash in our lunches… Suzy is a blessing and is so inspiring… My big wish list includes the coffee filters and straws!!”