12 • September 2017 •
GET CRAFTY THE HIPPIE HOBBY PROMOTES SELF-CARE THROUGH CRAFTING
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oo often, we compromise our needs for the demands that life seems to bring. One of the most pivotal and essential concepts that we at The Hippie Hobby believe in is the importance of self-care. Below, we’ll discuss the nature of selfcare and its place within The Hippie Hobby with Co-Owner Heidi Koffman. Read along and learn how to love the most important person of all: Yourself. To start, could you please discuss your involvement with The Hippie Hobby? I’m a co-owner of the Hippie Hobby. My friend Jen is the other owner. My specific role in the business is testing and trying different crafts and working with my partner to figure out the best craft for the upcoming months. I also work with local bar and restaurant managers who are open to hosting craft nights. Jen and I work well together on dividing up how the process works. How did The Hippie Hobby start? We started this just over two years ago, when I was burned out from another
business I own – and having a hard time being the entrepreneur with a limited social life at the time. I missed getting together with friends and wanted to find something new. I put a post out on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to come learn how to make soap, saying I would provide the materials and go from there. I love wine, so we had a girls wine night with four friends and learned how to make soap. My friend Jen suggested we learn to make lip balm and have little kits, so we did another girls night the following month and more people came. When others couldn’t make our craft night, they asked us to mail them a kit… and so we began mailing “craft kits” to our friends. We started offering the subscription option and have continued to grow ever since. Wow, what an awesome start! In addition to essential oils, HH promotes self-care as part of its mission. What exactly is self-care? We truly believe you just need a time out. Whether that’s from work, life, kids, being a mom or wife or being a stressed out entrepreneur. Life is hard. Self-care
can be a bath with candles, a book, crafting, drinking wine and listening to music…or spending it with a friend on their back patio. It’s basically MAKING time for you. How did the practice of self-care come into your life? This is a two-part answer. When I started the thought of Hippie Hobby, it was because I was sick of owning businesses LOL. I owned 3 at the time. I needed a hobby. I wanted be more than my companies, which is when I started to learn how to craft. About a year after we launched our girl’s nights, my best friend Mary Fa’anunu was murdered in an act of domestic violence. I fell into a huge depression and was more overwhelmed with business than anything else. Thank you so much for sharing, I can’t imagine the pain of such a horrific tragedy. How do you continue to get through this? I thought about everything in my life, and if it didn’t bring me joy, I got rid of
it. I sold one business, cut my role out of another one and really tried to get more involved in The Hippie Hobby. Mainly because crafting and spending time with friends makes me happy. I also realized I needed to be extra forgiving of myself and very patient. I love how you look at growth and focus on small wins. Overall, why do you advocate for self-care? I advocate for self-care because I know what it’s like to not take care of you. I know how depressed and anxious I felt when I took care of everyone else but me. I gained weight, my skin looked like crap, my attitude sucked and life just seemed overwhelming. What an incredible story, and what makes it all the more magical is how everything connects back with The Hippie Hobby. So many of these experiences show themselves in the message. Thank you! We invite you to take a little time out for you, join us at a local craft night and bring a friend! Visit thehippiehobby.com/craftnights for more information
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