Sometimes I almost forget how long Hippe Girls has been a part of my life.
I started it in 2014. It was just a small project, born out of enthusiasm, with lots of ideas and, above all, a strong desire to build something. Now, several years later, Hippe Girls has grown into so much more than just an online store.
And luckily, I haven't been doing it alone for a long time now.
Still, Hippe Girls still feels very much like my baby. I’m always working on new ideas, collections, products, photos, customers, copy, packaging, and a thousand things at once. I love it. Running my own business really gives me energy.
But there's always the other side, too.
The eternal quest for balance.
When I'm at work, I sometimes think, "I should actually be at home right now." And when I'm at home, something suddenly pops into my head that I still need to take care of for Hippe Girls.
That's probably something that will never go away completely.
I absolutely love my job, but in the end, my family is what matters most.
I love my husband and my girls. I really do. They are my home.
I love it when everyone is just hanging out with me. We don’t necessarily have to do anything special. Just eating together, sitting on the couch, watching a movie, messing around a bit around the house, chatting, and laughing. Those are often the moments I enjoy the most.
And of course, our little dog Spot is a part of the family, too. Such a sweetheart—a bit insecure, but so incredibly sweet!
I also love traveling so much. Seeing new places, staying in nice hotels, enjoying good food, and exploring places I’ve never been to before. I really enjoy that—discovering the world together with my family.
But funny enough, I'm also the kind of person who's really happy to be back home afterward.
Maybe even more so since we just moved.
We now live in our dream home, and I realize how much that means to me. I love being at home—making things beautiful, changing things up, and so on. I love tackling a new project every now and then: rearranging a corner, adding something new to the house, making plans for the garden, or just enjoying how wonderful it feels to come home.
Home really feels like my place.
Besides work, family, and travel, it doesn't take much to make me happy.
A good movie.
A great book.
Delicious food.
A good glass of wine.
And, above all, a fun time.
I don't always have to be on... but then again, my mind is always working.
Maybe that's why I wanted to start this blog.
Because Hippe Girls is, of course, all about earrings, jewelry, and accessories, but behind Hippe Girls there’s also just a life. A family. A home. Travel. Doubts. Plans. Busyness. Beautiful moments. Ordinary days.
And I'd like to show a little more of that here.
By the way, there's something else that's very much a part of running a business and that I still can't quite get used to: negative reviews.
Fortunately, we receive so many kind messages, wonderful comments, and customers who really take the time to tell us how happy they are with their order. That genuinely makes me very happy.
And yet, sometimes it works in strange ways.
A negative review can still get to me.
Especially when I feel like we've really done our best to resolve an issue, or when there's a whole story behind an order that, of course, doesn't come across in a review like that.
I take my work very personally. Maybe even a little too personally at times.
Hippe Girls isn't just some company I observe from a distance. I'm right in the thick of it every day. I know the products, I read the emails, I see what's going well, and I get frustrated when something goes wrong.
And so sometimes a negative reaction just hurts.
Of course, I also know that you can never please everyone. Sometimes things go wrong with a carrier, a product may not live up to expectations, or a customer may perceive a situation very differently than we do.
That's just part of it.
But it won't be easy.
Perhaps precisely because I value the people who order from us so much.
Fortunately, there are always those sweet emails, messages, and reviews that remind me why I’ve been doing this with such joy since 2014.
So on *Binnenkijken bij Hippe Girls*, I don't just want to write about products and new collections.
I also want to share my thoughts on entrepreneurship, balancing work and family, travel, where I live, things that make me happy, and everything else that falls in between.
Just the way it is.
Because Hippe Girls has been a big part of my life since 2014.
And maybe this is a nice place to share a little more of that from time to time.
Love,
Gwen