Happy Christmas to all our Mimimyne customers, friends and fans!

This is a gentle reminder that the last posting date for second class Royal Mail delivery is on the 18th of December, so if you would like to get any last-minute gifts from Mimimyne this will be your final chance! Best sellers at the East London Design Show and the Eco Design Christmas Fair have been the Mum’s Bag and My Bag (for children) designed by Carry-a-bag (the Saturday Telegraph profiled designer Sally Walton and her husband Stewart in their “Eco-heroes” column recently). Online, Paperpod’s Aeroplane and Toddlers Chairs, Twisted Twee’s “Dad and Son” T-shirts especially the “Pint and Halfpint” T shirt Combo and all of Creative Charlie’s craft kits have been very popular.

For Londoners, Mimimyne is doing our last Sunday stall at Spitalfields UpMarket (we are in the Colour Rooms by the Backyard, which is just off Brick Lane and opposite the Vibe Bar) this Sunday the 21st December, and will have some special seasonal prices!

Jocasta Innes made some home-made pomanders for Mimimyne to sell at the Eco Design Christmas Fair last weekend, which were a hit with shoppers! They are an Old English traditional gift, used for room scenting and natural moth repellents. If you’re stuck for last minute gifts, try making one of these using the following instructions! You will need a small orange, some cloves, a knitting needle or toothpick (to make holes), ground cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice (optional, if you want to scent the fruit), masking tape and a length of pretty ribbon if you wish to hang it up. Take the orange and decorate with cloves, making a hole with the pin and studding the cloves in close together (but not so the holes touch) in a regular pattern. Ideally, they should cover the surface of the fruit to help preserve it indefinitely. If you want to hang it up, use the masking tape to mark off four strips of orange undecorated in a ‘cross’ pattern from top to bottom of the orange (take this off when you have finished studding in the cloves). This is for your ribbon, so imagine you are wrapping a round parcel and you will see what I mean! Dry in an oven at a low temperature, for an hour. If the surface is covered densely with cloves, you can then roll your pomander in cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice once a day for a week, to add to the lovely Christmassy smell. The orange will shrink to a smaller size, so do not fasten the ribbon on until you have baked it.

With thanks to all our customers at Mimimyne! Don’t forget, you can also join our Facebook Fan Page for news and updates! Have a lovely Christmas and New Year,

Love, Mimi and Myne

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We’re mentioned on the Ginlady’s blog (that’s green, independent and natural..) with a link to our Make Jewellery Kit by Creative Charlie! Check out Eco friendly Xmas pressies for under a tenner for more great Fair Trade, organic and ethical stocking fillers and pressies.

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Today’s tip from Jocasta Innes’ DIY Christmas is to spray or paint a plastic doily in gold or silver and hang it on the tree with red ribbon (use the compostable red ribbon from Wild Cherry mentioned in my previous post, or recycle some if you can!). You usually get these when you buy a cake, although they are not as common as they used to be. They look charming, as she says, hung up on tree branches.

A tip Mimimyne has to add to this: have you tried using scratched CD’s as decorations? These tend to clutter up the house otherwise or go into landfill. We decorated some at the Paintbox playgroup I run in East London using glitter glue and added tissue paper ‘angel wings’ (you can use paper doilies, cut in half, for this) and a round sticky paper ‘head’ to make recycled Christmas glittery angels! We now have a flock of them flying around the playgroup, and they look very pretty. I will post some pictures next week!

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A great time was had by all at the East London Design Show. The Mimimyne stand was made up to look like a garden, with an astroturf floor, apples hanging from the ceiling and blue sky walls. The mannequins dressed in clothes by Teenytini looked charming and the cardboard aeroplane by Paperpod, Splat Chair by Spinifex and furnishings by Naomi Dean attracted a lot of attention. Best sellers were the Mums Bag and My Bag by Carry-a-bag!

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I was recently introduced to this site, New Baby Company, which occurred to me would be of interest to Mimimyne readers: it’s a great company which aims to give information to new parents in addition to what you get through your local antenatal programmes and the health visitor after your baby is born. I was impressed that it offers a very reasonably priced First Aid Course for £55 (I attended one at my local library for not much less) and that it has a package aimed at helping adoptive parents of a newborn. I was also impressed that it offers classes for new parents over the whole first year: I found my GP and health visitors often seemed a bit on the impatient side and I think that this service would be a real boon to new mothers in particular who want a bit of extra reassurance.

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With the credit crunch, we are all feeling a little cash-strapped and so I have asked Jocasta Innes, the doyenne of thrifty living (she is the author of classic cooking on the cheap bible, The Pauper’s Cookbook) to allow me to publish some DIY Christmas tips from her book of the same name as my present to Mimimyne fans! I’m her daughter, and as this book was published in 1975 I can remember a lot of these tips being researched in the family home. I am choosing excerpts and adding links and materials that are as green as possible, although my mother always reused and recycled a lot more eco friendly craft and art materials are available nowadays!

“The Tree and Tree Decorations (from DIY Christmas by Jocasta Innes)
Quickies
Gilded Walnuts
Spray walnuts gold. When dry, cut a wire loop, insert both ends into the hole at one end of the nut, twist round, then bring the loop round the nut and twist again to make a small loop to hang it on. Gilded nuts are traditional, and always look charming.

Brass Curtain Rings
If you have any large brass curtain rings, or gilt bangles, use these to frame a shiny bauble, or even a sparkling brooch or earring. Hang the centrepiece from a thread or wire loop, and finish off with a red ribbon bow.”

Mimimyne says it’s very difficult sourcing eco friendly metallic gold paints on the web. So far what I’ve found is a water-based metallic craft paint from decorating direct – it says it is non-toxic and water based paints are more eco friendly. More suggestions welcome! Compostable ribbon is available from Little Cherry at 4.99

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Sunday, November 30. 2008
Mimimyne’s new range

Children’s sustainable living website Mimimyne to introduce new lines at the East London Design Show and Eco Design Fair in December

Introducing a new range of sustainable, ethical eco-friendly children’s products, Mimimyne will be showing new items from Naomi Dean, Teenytini, Spinifex, and a new SPLAT chair prototype, as well as Mimimyne’s own design children’s T shirts at the London Design Show which runs from 5th to 7th December at Shoreditch Town Hall.

They will also be exhibiting at the Eco Design Fair in London’s Brick Lane on 13th and 14th December.

Mimimyne will be showing the following new items at the East London Design show:

Naomi Dean Spin Tables – say goodbye to the Ikea crush with these 100% recycled chipboard bedside/coffee tables come individually or in pairs and can be configured in any way you choose thanks to their ingenious design and coasters giving them portability. Made from reclaimed London office furniture destined for landfill, these quirky tables are perfect for toddlers to teens and with their negligible carbon footprint give you a healthy home and conscience, too!

Spinifex OTA/OTO message boards – keep the whole family in check with the Spinifex wall-mounted message/storage boards – chalk on notes, hang your keys, stash mail and even slip a photograph into the special cut-out section. Made from recycled plastic and using low VOC paint, the boards come in a bright array of colours including blue, magenta, pink and purple to suit boys, girls, mums and dads alike!

Teenytini by top eco fashion designer JK Lange – stunning hand-crocheted one-off clothing creations for babies aged 0-2, you won’t fail to fall in love with the beautiful colours and cute designs including dungarees for boys, pinafore dresses for girls and a stunning range of soft, safe cuddle toys such as a tortoise, bird and mouse. Perfect for winter, Mimimyne will be showing the adorable Teenytini scarves, hats and gloves at the show. Created from natural fibres and dyes, these clothes won’t pollute baby’s skin or the environment. The Gin Lady blog commended these beautiful clothes, saying “we love the teenytini range from Mimimyne.”

Mimimyne will also be exhibiting at the Eco Design Christmas Fair on 13 and 14 December in London’s Brick Lane, where they will be showing other products from the site including Paperpod’s delightful range of recycled corrugated paperboard toys, including an aeroplane, rocket, doll’s house, teepee and fort complete with drawbridge!

They will also be exhibiting and selling Twisted Twee’s matching adult and child T-shirts – the Pint and Half Pint sets for Dads and Sons – made from 100% organic cotton and organic ink, and in army green and toffee brown colour combinations, these make fantastic gifts for man and boy! Mums and daughters will love the Oak Tree and Pine Tree twinsets – why not make the perfect Christmas gift of the Pine Tree twinset, which displays a Christmas tree and pinecone.

http://www.ecodesignfair.co.uk/

Other news – Mimimyne has recently sponsored two rabbits (Orchid and Daisy!) at the Spitalfields City Farm, the company’s designated charity, providing an eco-friendly child-friendly farm in the heart of East London.

Mimimyne is a member of Ethical Junction, to learn more about them, take a look at their Ethical Junction Profile

View official press release on Ethical Pulse

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