A Birkdale mum is relishing time with her young family while she runs her own business and encourages other parents to embrace the work-from-home lifestyle.
Bored during spare time on maternity leave with her eldest daughter, Kirsty Stevens and her husband launched their business Elegant Embers, making luxury soy candles from the comfort of their home, in 2014.
She said she enjoyed the ability to be flexible with her work.
"I have always been a huge advocate of work/life balance and having the ability to run Elegant Embers from home while being a mum at the same time is such a blessing."
"The kids are a huge inspiration for my work, the girls help me to choose new scents and Riley is the ultimate wing man when it comes to lunchtime meetings..."
She said there were still challenges with her working schedule but she was able to make it work.
"The biggest hurdle is that 3-5pm time frame when I have all three kids at home... In that time I completely sign off from work mode. The luxury of running your own show," Ms Stevens said.
"As everyone knows, being a mum consumes an enormous amount of physical and emotional demand.
"Finding that balance between saying 'its time to shut the computer down for the day,' and 'just one more email,' is a challenge for me."
Ms Stevens said the reward was more time with her family at the end of the day.
"These years are so fleeting so its important to me to be present and having the time to do that trumps every other high point of running Elegant Embers," she said.
Fortunately, the work is not something Ms Stevens does alone, with a support network of family and friends who run their own small businesses.
"We lean on each other for so many things, be it a question on marketing, proof reading each other's social media posts and the list goes on," she said.
"Without them I wouldn't be where I am now."
The business also runs fortnightly creative workshops at The Local Bar Raby Bay.
She said any mums who felt they had more potential should jump into something new.
"If you allow yourself to get into the mindset of 'yep I'm doing this for me, but I'm also doing it for them' the world is your oyster."