A picture of my daughter

This is my daughter
with my granddaughter
Ruby.  They are both so pretty!

I had a chance to interview my daughter, owner and CEO of hustlemamahandmade.com.  Here is the interview!

My Crazy So-Called Life

How to earn a paycheck and still be a stay-at-home mom

            ShannonWoodruff, owner of Hustlemamahandmade.com, is the typical stay-at-home mom on the surface.  If you spend a few minutes with her, though, you appreciate her organization and attention to detail.  She is a happily married mother of three school-aged girls with all that entails – piano lessons, softball and choir as well as homework, birthday parties and a home-cooked meal most nights.  She also is the owner and CEO of Hustlemamahandmade.com, an online boutique that specializes in creative handmade items.  I was recently able to meet with her and I asked her how she got started and what she saw in the future for her home-based business.

 

Q:        Was Hustlemamahandmade.com your first business venture?

A:         No, I owned… a brick-and-mortar store six years ago called Luna Blue.  Right after I opened it the economy tanked.  I had to close the business after only fifteen months.  It was a baby and little children store; we sold high-end clothes, toys and bedding.

Q:        Do you think you will open a business again?

A:        That is my ultimate goal, to have someplace I can leave my mess out and not have anybody care about it!

Q:        What did you do after you closed the business?

A:        I found myself home… with a baby and a toddler.  I was getting depressed.  I felt under-appreciated and started using my creativity to counterbalance that.

Q:        How did your creativity come out?

A:        I started making hair bows for my girls.  We would have ‘play dates’ in the local park.  I would take… bows and sell them to the other mothers.  I got out my sewing machine and started sewing for my girls.

Q:        How did you decide to make and sell other products?

A:        Through the mothers I met at the park, I learned about craft shows and I took my stuff and sold at craft fairs. I got lots of good ideas from other vendors at the craft fairs!  I took my girls to the park once a week.  I sold the other mothers lots of products.  One of them suggested I start an Etsy shop, so I did.

Q:        So is most of your business on Etsy?

A:        I didn’t really have a clear lineup when I started.  I made… whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to.  At the beginning I had very few sales per month but I kept pursuing it.  I developed products and then I offered them on the website and built things from there.

Q:        Is Etsy your “trial” spot?

A:        A lot of times, if I’m not sure of an item, I’ll put it on Etsy first.  My goal… is to eventually just have my website and no Etsy store, but that’s somewhere down the road!

Q:        Is everything on your website original?

A:        No, I purchase patterns on the web. 

Q:        Did your Etsy site see big sales when you introduced a new item?

A:        No.  I continued to have slow online sales.  I asked for feedback from my customers and from friends.  I got… a lot of feedback!  I designed my own reusable snack bag pattern.  It was very efficient and I was able to drastically lower my prices.  Almost immediately my online sales went way up.

Q:        So if your online sales went up, why open a website?

A:        One of my early goals… was to have a website and get away from Etsy.  They charge a lot in fees and processing and I wanted to be able to offer lower prices if I wasn’t absorbing the overhead Etsy has.

Q:        Do you still have things on Etsy?

A:        I do.  My online business is definitely growing but I think I will always have an Etsy shop.  Some people just prefer to shop on Etsy, they think they are shopping more ‘’local’ and helping the little guy.

Q:        Where do you do your sewing? 

A:        I used to just… sew on the kitchen table.  I bought a serger and have added a few other sewing machines to the mix.

Q:        Do you still sew on the kitchen table?  I bet that gets messy when it’s dinner time!

A:        You’re right!  I still use the kitchen table, but now I use it for packaging orders up.  When my husband and I bought this house, we had… a guest room made off of the laundry room.  Eventually, I spread out my sewing in there.  It is a dedicated room and that way, if I don’t finish a project, I don’t have to clean up my mess.  The guest room doesn’t really look like a guest room – the closet is crammed full of fabric and there are three sewing machines in there – but when anyone comes to town to visit, we can put a mattress in there and it is a separate room.  

Q:        Where do you sew now?

A:        I use the kitchen table to bag up and get my orders ready for shipment, but I do all my sewing in the guest bedroom.

Q:        Do you take your shipments to the post office or do you use UPS?

A:        I use the post office.  I laugh when I tell people that the mailman and I are on a first-name basis.  I think I need to get him a Christmas gift this year!  I have a program on my computer that allows me to print shipping labels, I have bins that I fill up and put on my front porch with outgoing packages in them.  There is a Hallmark store nearby with a U.S. Post Office in it.  I will use that if I miss my mailman or someone wants priority shipping.

Q:        You don’t have to leave your house for work, do you?

A:        Technically, I do not have a job but – and this is a big but – I can never get away from work.  People don’t get that I have a full-time job; I just don’t leave the house to do it.  I work… during the day while my girls are in school, after dinner I answer emails, print shipping labels and do other prep work to get ready for the next day. I know I put in more than 40 hours a week!

Q:        What is the best thing about your ‘job’?

A:        Whew!  There are a bunch of things but I think I really like the flexibility I have.  If one of the girls is sick, I rearrange my schedule and stay home with them.  I volunteer at my girls’ school, go to the gym, run errands – usual stuff.  If I was at work, I couldn’t do that.

Q:        What is the worst thing about your job?

A:        If I don’t work, I don’t make… any money.  I can get very busy, back-to-school time and Christmas, right when I am busy with three little girls of my own!

Q:        Are you happy running your business out of your house?

A:        My goal is to ultimately have a store, another building that I can go to and call my ‘shop’.  Right now, I have two part-time employees and one full-time employee – me!  I have an accountant do my taxes to make sure everything I do is legal and aboveboard.

Q:        Any advice for other people that think a home-based business is the way to go?

A:        You can’t beat being able to write your own schedule and be your own boss, but there is no 401(k), no paid time off, no vacation – thankfully, my husband has me and the girls covered on his insurance and if I want time off, I work more hours the week before and the week after to make up for my time.  I love the flexibility and I don’t think I ever want to have a boss again.

 

About me

I am a middle-aged (50) woman at the low end of risk-factors for a stroke.  I did not smoke, I drank very moderately, I exercised, I never took birth-control pills - and yet in the summer of 2011 I was in a coma for almost 2 months due to a sub-arachnoid bleed more commonly known as a stroke.  I have spent the past three years working on recovering from the side-effects of this massive stroke.  I am proof that life not only goes on after an event like that but it can be better than one can ever imagine.

I am currently a student at Grand Canyon University where I am studying Communications.  I feel like I have a very unique story to tell and I want to have the degree to back up my story.