Today, I bring you a giveaway from a new SouleMama Sponsor, Nurtured. In the words of mom and shop owner, April:
"Nurtured is a natural parenting shop based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Having started as an online mail-order store for cloth diapers and baby carriers, we have since expanded our product offerings to including natural toys, products for pregnancy, post-partum and breastfeeding support, along with books, resources, classes and workshops. We have now become a destination shop providing education and resources to our local families, and by mail order across Canada.
We have a blog that I began back in 2007, shortly after the arrival of my second child, to document the change going on in our lives and our adventures in cloth diapering and natural parenting. Over the years the blog has hosted many “guest entries” from child birth educators, staff and friends to include craft tutorials, parenting advice, and share experiences. Even the blog is now a wonderful community effort! Nurtured also has a sister company, Anointment Natural Skin Care, a company that makes soap and skin care products by hand, using food grade natural and organic ingredients."
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April: Before my children were born, I was a civil environmental engineer. I designed sewage treatment plants and landfills, among other things. The principles I learned here taught me a lot about the “business” of garbage, and what happens when we throw things away. This, along with a very frugal upbringing, shaped my environmental principles immensely. When I became a mother, I felt compelled to “be the change I wanted to see”, to paraphrase Gandhi. We chose to use cloth diapers on our baby and were very concerned about the ingredients in many skin care products marketed for babies and children. There weren’t many local resources for these products, and I felt compelled by a desire to educate others with what I had learned about natural family living, so I decided to leave my career to start my own business. It has been an exciting, challenging and very intense road over the last four years, but I feel so satisfied by my work with Nurtured and Anointment, I can’t imagine doing anything else!
SouleMama:
How long have you been in business?
April: Nurtured has been in business since 2006, my daughter was 10 months old when the company began. I continued to work a part-time job as an engineer while building Nurtured as an online mail-order business, and was pregnant with my second child - all at the same time. In 2007 I became a mother-of-two and began working for Nurtured full time. I took on a part-time employee in Spring 2008, and by Fall 2008 it was evident that there was a need for a physical presence for a store like ours in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In April 2009 Nurtured opened in the up-and-coming North End neighbourhood of Halifax with a staff of four. We now have a staff of eight mothers who all believe very strongly in the Nurtured desire to support the mothers in our community. We traditionally have a very poor breastfeeding culture here, something I personally would like to see improve. We are very breastfeeding friendly, and offer breastfeeding support groups on a weekly basis. We are very active with doulas and midwives in our community, as well as being the go-to destination for cloth diapers and baby carriers in our region.
SouleMama: What is your favorite spot in your home?
April: My dining room table. This is where I enjoy quality time with my family every night. We have specific traditions at dinner time, like lighting a candle, holding hands, and calming down before each meal. I also love to do beadwork with teeny, tiny Japanese delica beads, and my favourite place to sit is in the sun at the dining room table. This is also where I cut out sewing patterns, draw and do crafts with my kids, and relax with a book or a magazine. I have a very small home, so each space does a lot of multi-tasking, and the dining room table is probably the hardest working spot in the house!
SouleMama: How do you avoid burnout and keep yourself motivated?
April: I have a HUGE amount of support from my husband, Jeff. We are partners in every sense: from housework to parenting to business. He is instrumental in helping with Anointment in particular. I avoid burnout by working as a maximum four days per week, though sometimes those four days are 18 hours long. I have recently (and finally) started taking "me" time and have started running with some girlfriends three nights a week, this helps me burn off nervous energy and stress and makes me feel so much better.
I also have a wonderfully dedicated staff of eight ladies that are amazing, efficient and passionate about what they do. They are all mothers of young children and together we're all able to balance and support each other. This energy is intensely motivating for me.
For today's giveaway, Nurtured is offering the following gift to one winner:
"We’re giving away a copy of the Expectant Knitter, a knitting tower, a bar of coffee and cocoa, cinnamon and patchouli scented soap from Anointment Natural Skin Care, a jar of Anointment Healing Skin Ointment to calm rough gardeners hands or relieve any irritated skin condition, and the cutest retro-style hair clip by Ollie Golightly."
In addition, Nurtured is offering
SouleMama readers 10% off all orders until June 30th. Use the coupon
code soulemama at checkout. (Local readers can use the discount too by using that quote in the store.)
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Thank you to Nurtured!
To enter, please leave a comment in today's post (one entry per person, please). Comments will close and winners will be announced on Sunday by 8am EST. Comments closed! The winner is....
so many lovely goodies...what an opportunity! Fingers crossed :-)
Posted by: willow osborn
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