Maple Mouse Mama

Interview With Simply Fun Families Founder & Mompreneur, Karen!

By: MapleMouseMama57 Comments

Simply Fun Families

MapleMouseMama is excited to share with you this two part interview with the founder of Simply Fun Families, Mompreneur Karen!  There is a little something for everyone in this informative and interesting sit down with Karen. Grab your coffee and settle in…

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1) Tell me a little about yourself please.

 Hi, I’m Karen Peterson, and I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for 13 glorious years.  My first passion is my family, and this goes hand in hand with my newfound passion … helping busy parents find inspiration and ideas for simple family fun. Through my blog, Simply Fun Families, I share ways for parents to recognize opportunities to make a little everyday magic out of ordinary days.

I am a daughter, sister, wife, and mother who has always loved being part of a great big extended family. As such, family traditions and spending time connecting with family have always been important to me. I always knew that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, and I have taken full advantage of being just that!

I have always been a big planner & organizer. As an adult I have become a crafter who delights in projects such as quilt making, furniture refinishing, and doing plain old kid-friendly crafts to warm the home during the various holidays. I love small town living, and the friendships that are so easily cultivated. My favourite thing to do is to steal my family away to a cottage for a 3 night getaway. There, we play board games, snuggle up for evening movies, spend our days building sandcastles or snowmen, and take long daily beachfront walks together any season of the year.

Through Simply Fun Families, I help my community of busy parents find ideas they can use to add a bit of fun to this awesome journey of parenthood. As Gretchen Rubin of “The Happiness Project” aptly puts it, “The days are long, but the years are short.” My sentiments exactly!  When I think about it, through all of my own interests and passions coupled with all these years as a stay-at-home mom, I have been creating little ways to:

  • Build family traditions
  • Steal time as a family in spite of the busy pace of life
  • Connect with each of my children individually
  • Create a happy home

And this is really what I am sharing with other parents through Simply Fun Families’ blog and other offerings.

Simply Fun Families

2) Tell me about your company/website?

Today, Simply Fun Families is significantly different from the company that I had first envisioned in the spring of 2013. At that time, I had set out to build a business through which I could share a few of my own family traditions in the form of a physical product that would be available through retail stores in Canada & the USA. In September of that year, I got the business up and running with the help of one brilliant and inspiring entrepreneur named Monique Kelly at Your Passion Your Brand. She helped me to zone in on my overall branding, and was a tremendous source of knowledge when it came to production, design, and even my online presence.   This was A LOT to take in for a former Chartered Accountant who had been a stay-at home mom for the past dozen years!

By November of 2013, I had unbelievably launched my first product. Through the sale of my Countdown to Christmas Activity Kit (then called 25 Days of Christmas), I was able to share my family’s tradition of a daily mini-treasure hunt which would lead the kids to an activity card explaining a simple, festive activity that we would include in our day to keep us in the spirit of the season. (More to come on that later in the interview) I admit that the later part of 2013 was an absolute whirlwind of learning, growing, and juggling.   It took a lot of support from my husband Todd and Monique to help me achieve those goals and still balance life as a wife and mother of 3 young children.

And that’s when the big transition to the Simply Fun Families of today began.

As I learned about my target market and how to communicate with and reach busy parents, I was awakened to the power of the internet and the amazing world known as the “blogosphere”. It was actually Monique Kelly who again connected the dots and pointed out that she saw both my offerings and my personality as a great fit for reaching out to parents through a blog focused website. Her instincts were dead on, and from that awareness grew many new opportunities to connect with others. I recognized that I had so much more to offer parents than just one or two physical products. There were, in fact, countless ideas for me to share that would help other parents add a bit of fun to their days during their busy parenting years.

By January of 2014, I was beginning to blog regularly.  The funny thing about this path that I was embarking upon was that it brought me a huge “light-bulb moment” which expanded the offerings that I realized I was capable of delivering to the Simply Fun Families community. It hinged on the fact that while I had 2 children who were approaching preteens, I had one little girl who was still just 5 years old at that time. I was painfully aware of how quickly my older children were growing up and becoming more independent. I had a real awareness of how the traditions we had made when they were young now brought so much joy for my littlest one. It is this ever present awareness of how quickly our children grow up that has made me hold so fiercely to the traditions we started so many years ago… and made me realize how important it is to share these little ideas and traditions with other parents.

These days, Simply Fun Families is primarily a blog from which I share many of my favourite old traditions along with new ideas for connecting with our children. My goal is to help parents everywhere, to really make a lot of fun out of these busy and often tiring, (sometimes downright frazzling!) days as parents of young children…

because I know these are the very best years of all.

3) What was your motivation to start Simply Fun Families? How did you come up with the name? 

In the spring of 2013, I was preparing my family’s Summer Fun Calendar which marks the approach of each year’s summer holidays.  I use a giant Bristol board paper that I carefully construct into a larger-than-life, 2-month calendar filled with ideas for having fun and keeping busy. (Read more about it here) The kids always get so excited when they see my head down working on this project, and I feel the thrill of all the possibilities of the summer stretched out before us.  That particular day, my sweet husband Todd commented, “You should really consider offering some of your fun ideas to other families. Parents would love them.”  

I was grateful for his acknowledgement of how much the traditions I had started for our own family meant to him and the kids, but I was skeptical. He persisted in his enthusiasm, citing the Summer Fun Calendar and the Countdown to Christmas activities that we do each year.  Over the summer, I quietly contemplated what it would mean to actually ready these items as products for sale.

With the kids back to school in the fall of 2013 I took the plunge. I remember spending an evening talking through options for a business name with Todd. He knew the overall message I wanted to convey about the offerings I had in store for families. He knew the spirit I was trying to cultivate in our own home. He also knew the strong urge I feel to make our life simpler, slower, and more mindful of taking time to enjoy these early years of parenting. Simply Fun Families was the obvious choice for my company’s name, and we knew it within hours.  I registered Simply Fun Families as a business, set up a website, bank account, Facebook account and the ride began.  

Today, my motivation for building Simply Fun Families has evolved. It is truly a thrill to share ideas, inspiration, tips and tricks with other parents, and to receive their feedback about how my offerings have helped them out or made something special out an ordinary family day shared together.

**You can read Part Two of my interview with Simply Fun Families Mompreneur Karen here. The best is yet to come!

FT& PD

Suz

Comments

  1. 1

    wskelly says

    What a great interview! I love the idea of sharing tips and tricks to making it easier to spend more valuable time with you family. Nice to “meet” you Karen!

    Reply
  3. 5

    Karen says

    Thank you so much for featuring me and my blog Simply Fun Families on Maple Mouse Mama!! I am delighted to connect with your community and look forward to chatting more with parents in the comments!

    Reply
  6. 11

    Karen says

    So happy to hear that you enjoyed the interview (part 1!). It is actually so amazing to me that a little idea has turned out to be such a BIG part of my life and I simply cannot get over the amount I have learned throughout this process. Thank heavens for my patient husband and kids while learning to juggle it all AND some wonderful help from some tech savvy and generous hearted professionals like Monique Kelly!

    Reply
  10. 19

    Karen says

    Ladies, I just have to tell you that I am LOVIN’ THE MAPLE MOUSE MAMA COMMUNITY!!! I am truly grateful for your kinds words and the time you took to read my story in today’s interview! Sometimes it is a very tough road, but when I connect with such enthusiastic and encouraging women, not to mention wonderful Suz who gave me the opportunity to be featured here, I have such a happy and grateful heart.

    Reply
  12. 23

    R U S S says

    As long as you know who your market is, combined with the power of technology & the internet – one or any business can really grow and go far. I admire her for putting her family & children first but at the same time, she is able to put her talents to good use.

    Reply
  14. 27

    Louise says

    Moms are, I believe, the most inspiring people on earth. They are very loving, caring, smart and full of ideas. They can basically do anything for their children and family.

    She’s inspiring! It’s nice to know she thought of that kind of website/community. It would be a big help to busy moms out there. 🙂

    Reply
  21. 39

    Fred Hawson says

    Those four rules about her family activities are so important. My kids are already teens now with their own personalities and likes. Connecting with them individually can get difficult sometimes, but I’m thankful they still enjoy our family activities at the movies and travelling.

    Reply
  22. 41

    Tiffany Yong W.T. (tiffanyyongwt) says

    This is someone all stay home mums should learn from! Instead of lamenting how your life and social circle is cut off after having kids, doing something like that will widen your circle even more and help people who are in the same situation as you!

    Reply
  23. 43

    R U S S says

    What Karen did is admirable, challenging at first but definitely commendable. I also find it inspiring how she still gets to do something meaningful whilst spending more time with her children. I like how she’s able to tap a niche market that benefits from her ideas and work.

    Reply
  26. 49

    Vanessa says

    Wow, first let me tell you I am totally in love with the new look of your blog, and the logo is awesome! I admire the founder of Simply Fun Families, her courage and ambition to develop and idea from scratch and achieve acknowledgement and followers worldwide.

    Reply
    • 50

      MapleMouseMama says

      Aww thank you so much Vanessa, that is very kind 🙂 I am glad you enjoyed reading about Karen and her adventures. She is amazing!

      Reply
  28. 53

    Enzo says

    I couldn’t agree more about the highlighted box here that says time is the best gift we could give our children so if i’ll be given one i’ll make sure to give ample time to my kids.

    Reply

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