Our Journey: A Family Behind the Website

We want to share our story with you so you know there's a real family behind this website.

                           

Sixteen years ago, my husband and I moved to the United States from Eastern Europe, driven by the promise of higher education and better opportunities. Despite our degrees, we started from scratch, working as servers for two years. We toiled away, often putting in 16-hour days, and our hard work paid off when we opened our restaurant in 2012. Three years later, in 2015, we ventured into opening our own escape rooms.

We did it all ourselves—building walls, creating puzzles, brainstorming ideas, handling electronics, and decorating.

In 2020, our lives changed with the birth of our baby girl. Balancing a newborn, a restaurant, and an escape room business during the COVID-19 pandemic was incredibly challenging. We couldn't manage both businesses and had to sell the restaurant.

As a new mom, I knew I couldn't work as much, but my entrepreneurial spirit wouldn't let me be a stay-at-home mom without a project. In the spring of 2021, I created "Find the Gift" game boxes, which aligned with our escape room themes but could be sold separately.

The idea for these games came from realizing that creating memories and moments together is more important than buying stuff. As our daughter grew, I needed more quiet time to develop ideas and puzzles. When she turned two, I wanted to involve her in my work. That's when the idea of making candles came to me, and later, we added home décor to our offerings.

Our passion for puzzles and desire to give our daughter as many learning opportunities as possible led us to create a section with puzzles for families and games for little ones. Selling the products that we use as well.

I love designing and implementing my ideas, and I love doing it with my daughter. We get to spend productive time together, teaching her that she can enjoy what she does and earn a living without working for someone else.

This site showcases all the products I've created, each reflecting my core values:

  • Family emotional connections (creating memories together)
  • Freedom to be who you are
  • Financial freedom
  • Freedom to travel

We are passionate about traveling and showing our daughter the world. We strive to protect nature (recycling as much as we can) so our kids can enjoy its beauty. For this reason, 10% of all proceeds from this website go towards protecting nature and wildlife.

If you love to travel, follow my travel blog Travel Clever with Kate for more adventures and tips