Today I’m happy to share an interview with an inspirational woman who happens to be a sponsor this month.  She owns a fabulous small business called Montana Solar Creations and blogs about natural living, too!  Be sure to visit her Etsy shop and read more on her blog.

I started my business as a way to have a little extra income when I quit my full time job to stay home and raise our daughter last February. I opened an Etsy shop and sold mainly cloth diapers and wool diaper covers but over the year it grew to include so much more. I started blogging last April as a way to share more about our adventures in natural, simple living and connect more with the online community of like-minded folks. We have solar panels on our roof so everything we do from sewing to blogging is done partly by solar power. As I was sewing one day with the sun shining in the window, I realized just how awesome it was that my sewing machine was partly powered by the sun! That experience inspired our business name.

We create eco-friendly creations for babies and families.  Everything we make is made partly by solar power so it is even more eco-friendly and sustainable.  We love to create things that are useful in everyday life and help others to live more sustainably. Our creations range from wool dryer balls to cloth napkins/unpaper towels to wood toys and nature inspired antler buttons.

As a little girl, I loved reading the Little House on the Prairie books and watching the tv shows. I was so intrigued with the homesteading lifestyle that I eventually headed west to Montana with dreams of being able to live more self-sufficiently. I grew up in a family where the majority of the foods we ate throughout the year were canned and preserved so I learned the art of canning and preserving at a young age. I took these skills with me when I left home and cultivated more self-sufficiency skills like gardening, wild harvesting and hunting.

One of my hopes for the future is to live off grid and be able to have our small business grow enough to be able to support our family as the sole income source. We have four solar panels right now and they offset about 1/3 of our power each month. Our hope is to slowly add more panels until one day we can be completely off grid!

Thanks, Annie! 

Now that you’ve met the woman behind Montana Solar Creations, check out her resources!  Visit her Etsy shop, blog, and follow her on Facebook!