Selling subscriptions revolutionized our home business

“Life takes us to unexpected places, and love brings us home.” This quote hangs in our living room surrounded by photos of our children. It was the perfect picture frame for our family and describes the philosophy our family-owned business. In 2006, we adopted two boys from Russia; then in 2013, we brought home our eldest daughter from Bulgaria. Finally, in 2013 we also adopted our youngest daughter from the United States. Adoption doesn’t come without challenges, and as we grew into our roles as a family, we realized that we needed to give these children the attention they deserved. By creating a family run business, we were able to share our love with these beautiful children while also creating an income that was sustainable and in line with our values. 

My husband, Paul, and I run an artisan loose leaf tea business. We hand blend teas featuring Oregon grown ingredients. Some of those we grow on our farm, some we get from other local farms, and some are from various organic herb suppliers. We started our business as a hobby back in 2013 when we moved to our small 2-acre farm, but as I hinted earlier, adoption changed our lives for the better. Bigger things were on the horizon for our growing family. Through Etsy and our blog, we started selling herbal care products including tea and sharing our homestead lifestyle with our followers. Things took off well, so we added a craft show here and there. In 2016, we started doing farmers markets and realized that we could truly turn our hobby into a business with enough hard work and dedication. It was in January of 2017 we realized that if Paul took early retirement to grow the business, we could move forward without sacrificing the needs of our special and homeschooled children. 

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