Day 8 of A Home Spun Christmas and Giveaway from Kleine's Country Farm! Wahooo!

You know, as I sit here blogging, I am reflecting on how blessed I am.

I have the best friends, really I do.

And God has blessed me with leading me to some really awesome and amazing people.

From people like Ginny over at The Joyful Cottage...

to Kristina, my college friend who is now a very successful mom,
 business-woman, and who smacks of creative ability,
in each and every circumstance I can see how God was forging the bond.

Isnt that a neat thought?

YOU are not here by accident either.

YOU are supposed to be here, supposed to be reading this, supposed to be having fun this week participating in all our small business giveaways.

I am glad you are here, glad that God is forging our bonds together. :)

Don't forget, that the giveaway for the most adorable doll on earth is still going strong until tonight, and you can find the post simply by scrolling to the one beneath this. Enter away. I saw lots of shares over on Facebook, so I think its going to be a heated competition! And remember, some of those things you can do today all over again to improve your odds,
so be sure to check.

Today, I am excited, happy and blessed to announce the newest giveaway from my friend Chelsea, who (along with her husband) owns and operates Kleine's Country Farm.

She is really amazing, fun, and has the most adorable little girls. We were blessed to meet through a cloth diaper swap, her kids played with mine, we started talking homeschooling, and the bond was made! We have been out to their farm and have seen their adorable Pyrenees puppies, and watched their sheep, admired their chickens, and drank some amazing grape Kombucha. Chelsea is a whiz at doing so many things that for all of you who talk about ME being the WonderWoman, should watch what SHE can accomplish in a single day.

I am thrilled to bring her business to you,
 and show you some of her products.
 Chelsea is passionate, articulate, and very careful about quality in her business. We went through a similar interview for this process as I did with the other ladies you have heard from,
and here is what she had to say.

How long have you had your business?
We started Kleine's Country Farm with just a bunch of laying hens and began selling eggs and hay bales in 2007. The past couple years we have added the mini bales, Icelandic wool & Meat, and this past summer I started to actually sell my soap. I had been making soap before just for our own use but thought: "Hey, I might as well try and sell some of it too. Then I can buy more scents to make MORE soap!" (sounds like a true crafter, right everyone?)

Has your inventory changed over the years? 

In other words, did you used to sew and now you crochet?
We;ve steadily grown the inventory over the years. Going from 50 to 200 chickens, upgrading machinery, working on better genetics in the flock. I have slowly been adding more and more soap scents and also a few foaming soaps and lip balms.

no, they don't dress like this all the time, this is their family tradition of taking "hillbilly pictures". :)

Why did you start your business in the first place?
We started selling eggs and hay as a way to pay for the feed for the chickens and livestock. We bought our first mini baler after my dad decided to sell his, since he wasnt using it. We have since then upgraded to a better built mini-baler as Dad's was kind of a prototype and hadn't had all the kinks ironed out of it yet. I started making my own soap as a way to save money and have a better useable product. I started to sell it just to help with the cost of making it, and to have a little extra money to use on things.

Tell me more about yourself. 

What does having a small home-based business allow you to do

 that otherwise you would not be able to do?
I am a SAHM to 3 little girls, 4,3,1. I am the oldest of 13 kids ranging from 24-9mths. I was homeschooled the last 3 yrs of school. My mom still currently homeschools all the kids at home yet. My husband is a Hog farmer, and trying to get into crop farming. We have a farm with a flock of 20 Icelandic sheep, a couple Great Pyrenees dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, a llama, a goat, a milk cow and the pigs. We put up a couple thousand small sqaure bales of hay to feed the critters and sell the rest. We also make a couple thousand mini bales a year. Right now we are trying to get our minis into the Menards stores. We currently sell to the local nurseries, farm stores and orchards. Having a home based business helps bring in a little extra money to support my animal love, and be able to give people a product that is all natural and safe to use. In the future, the income from the soaps and sheep products will also help us be able to homeschool our girls. We are a conservative Christian family, and try to raise our girls up to be God-fearing women. We want to raise them to be wonderful help meets to their future husbands, and wonderful mothers to their children. Thay have already started "mothering" their stuffies (stuffed animals and dolls). We attend the local Christian Community Baptist Church. We try to live a mostly self sufficent lifestyle w/ gardening, canning, own meat, made from scratch, mostly organic.

Why are you participating in this giveaway?
I am participating in the giveway to help get our name and our products out to people who might not know about us otherwise. And to help people understand the need to support small businesses and farm families, instead of rushing off to the nearest big box store.

  
What are you offering for the giveaway? 

I am offering a bar of my homemade soap-Almond Cookie scent. I am also offering a 15% discount on my etsy store or can also be used on our FB- Kleine's Country Farm & Mini Bales or our website- www.kleinescountryfarm.weebly.com. depending on what people pefer.

What is your favorite thing about your craft?
My favorite thing about the soap is the scents, some of them are good enough to eat, and that you can take a few oils and transform them into something completly different. I love the sheep wool because it is some of the fluffiest wool I have seen, and I love the mini bales because the kids have a blast hoisting them around.

  

If there was one thing you would like to tell the Welcoming House readers, what would it be? 

 I would like to tell WH readers, it would be this: I can't stress enough the importance of supporting your local businesses, and also your local farm families. There are a lot of local farm families that have great farm products. They take pride in their work and what they produce, and for a lot of them its not just a job but a way of life...the one that several generations before them had been living. Same with local businesses, a lot of them have been in the family for years. I know times are hard right now for a lot of people, but that doesnt mean you should just run off to the big box stores like Walmart or Target for your every need. There are a lot of local people that can supply almost the same products at a better quality. Sure, they might cost a little more, but you are supporting real Americans and not companies that are basically running sweat shops, where the workers get paid basically nothing and work horrendous hours. I also want to point out the importance of buying and using mostly organic and Natural foods, cleaners, cosmetics. There is alot of gunk in the store bought stuff. If you can't pronouce it you probably shouldn't be putting it in your mouth, or on your body. A lot of the worlds cancers and diseases are caused by a lack of good REAL food, and not using natural cleaners and cosmetics. So give your local farmer a try and support you local small businesses, because once they're gone you'll realize that you actually needed them and miss them

OK, so did you catch all that? I completely agree with her on buying local, supporting your farmers and small businesses. If we dont do that, once they are gone, they are gone forever. 
 Chelsea is giving away a bar of Almond Cookie Soap (NUM!!!) as well as offering ALL WELCOMING HOUSE READERS a 15% DISCOUNT in either her Etsy Shop or Weebly Shop simply by using the code WELCOMINGHOUSE while checking out.
How awesome is that?
So to enter the giveaway, start clicking!
More extra points for the sharing and pinning options today too! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Many blessings to you and yours,

see you back tomorrow for the next AWESOME giveaway!

~Heather