It was a wonderful surprise to find out this month that I had won the Greenest Trader Award 2011 as part of the How Green is Your Market competition run by the National Market Traders Federation. I regularly run a stall at the famous Old Spitalfields Market on Sundays where the old fruit and vegetable market used to be. I love trading there partly because I am a proud East Ender (my mother moved to Spitalfields in the late 70′s) and used to visit the fruit and veg market as well as Brick Lane market every Sunday. I also love it because it’s enclosed, bright and spacious, has wonderful food stalls and restaurants and makes a great retail space for small independent designers who want to reach customers directly. The other stallholders are great fun and sell all kinds of interesting products, especially handicrafts, jewellery and clothing – I bought several of my Christmas presents there this year. I won the Award because I sell organic, recycled and biodegradable products and because I transport my goods by bicycle – no carbon emissions there! I wasn’t able to go to the Awards Ceremony so the award judges visited my stall and presented it to me in person this December. I’m proud to be Greenest Trader 2011, thanks again to the NMTF!

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While I was away on my family holiday I received two wonderful emails from Mimimyne customers who had bought Fairbourn Furniture’s wooden words with photographs that I’m really looking forward to sharing with you. One was from Charlotte, a newly-wed who bought the words ‘Thank You’ when she was planning her wedding. She wanted to have a photograph of her and her husband taken on their wedding day holding the words so the photograph could be sent to all their wedding guests afterwards. I think you’ll agree that this is a lovely gesture which must have been much appreciated by the wedding guests and made a perfect souvenir of the day. Congratulations to the beautiful bride and her very dashing husband!

Another email came from Louise Jones, a wedding planner who runs Veils and Vows and wanted her company name made in wood for wedding fayres and events where she appears. She says in her email “Here is a photo of the beautiful wooden words you did for me. I think they look great on the brown tablecloth.” Apparently the wooden words were a real hit with other exhibitors too, with several asking her where they were from! It’s always lovely to hear from happy customers so this was a real treat for me. Here’s a photo of Veils and Vows’ very attractive stand.

The wooden words are hand carved from FSC wood with the combination of letters and words that you choose and can be painted in Fairbourn Furniture’s favourite colourways cream, pale blue, pale pink and pale green. Although the designer recommends them for children’s nurseries and bedrooms, as you can see the only limits to their use is your own imagination!

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I’ve been running a competition exclusively for Facebook fans of Mimimyne and today I’m happy to announce we have a winner selected with the help of Random.org. The winner is Kohtrad Silk! Congratulations and I’ll be in touch to arrange your £15 voucher. There’ll be another competition soon!

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Hi, sorry it’s taken me such a while to post, I usually try and keep my blog bang up to date but have been very busy! Mimimyne has been on the road at the Vintage Festival run by Wayne Hemingway – it was a special festival held at the South Bank celebrating British culture, style and design. I was in the Upcycled marquee along with two other fabulous companies, Paperpom, who hand-make beautiful paper pom poms from FSC tissue paper, and Sparrowkids, who make fantastic felt craft kits for children (and adults). Our section of the marquee was full of colourful paper pom poms, beautiful craft kits and colourful baby clothes, so we got lots of visitors! I was very impressed by all the period outfits on display, we were encouraged to wear 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s gear and some people wore unbelievably complex, creative and unique outfits, I saw one women with two toy chicks woven into her beehive and another wearing cherries on her head. Hairdressers were on hand to give us makeovers so I had a 50′s hairdo to match my 50′s style dress. If I hadn’t been running my stall, I’d probably have had 50′s makeup done as well!

There’s a fantastic slideshow of images by street photographer Scott Hortop which shows the glamour and vintage style of the festival better than my photos could! I sold several of my beautiful upcycled Mimimyne romper suits which have been a huge hit at festivals and market stalls, as well as some Moomin baby clothes by Green Eyed Monster and lots of Pint and Half Pint T Shirts by Twisted Twee. It was a very hot weekend but we were under a marquee and had lots of delicious food stalls nearby, always very important for me as I am rarely organised enough to bring lunch. All in all it was a great three days and though it’s always hard taking such a lot of time out during the school holidays, I got a visit from my husband and lovely boys and spent some time with my sister who helped out on the stall. I really enjoyed this festival, there was a great party atmosphere and it’s reminded me what fun dressing up, trying out different outfits and being thoroughly girly is occasionally!

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I just wanted to let you know that I’ve created a news App, Mimimyne Eco News, to help people interested in Mimimyne to keep track of Mimimyne’s news, Youtube videos, tweets and photos when they are out and about. It is available for free in the Android Market so will work on any Android phone such as the HTC Desire. You can download Mimimyne Eco News from the Android Market from your phone or on your computer or you can scan the QR code below with any bar code scanning app like Barcode Scanner or Google Shopper to install it straight to your phone. Please rate it if you do download it, it is very new in the Android Market and needs some reviews and ratings!

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I just wanted to share with you the exciting news that Mimimyne has just been chosen along with five other companies to be retweeted by Theo Paphitis as part of his “Small Business Sunday” competition. Theo Paphitis the legendary retail Dragon needs, I’m sure, no introduction but “Small Business Sunday” may not be known to everyone. To support small business in the UK, Theo asks small businesses to tweet @TheoPaphitis every Sunday between 5pm and 7.30[, with the special #SBS hashtag somewhere in the tweet. Although this sounds as though it should be easy, it's actually trickier than you'd think to remember to send a tweet at a certain time once a week, and on several occasions I'd actually tweeted too early and missed the slot, or left it too late, and ended up kicking myself on Monday. Anyway, last Sunday night I sent a Small Business Sunday tweet, but as I had an old friend coming round for dinner I turned my mobile off and didn't look at my computer (I've learned my lesson now! Never turn off Twitter!). Anyway, to cut a long story short I woke up to lots of wonderful messages on my Twitter page from other people who'd seen his #SBS tweet and I am absolutely thrilled to have won and would like to thank Theo Paphitis for doing so much to support small businesses like mine and those of the five other winners. I've already seen some amazing results - doubling of visits to my home page and a five-fold increase in visits to my blog! So thanks again to Theo Paphitis and Small Business Sunday.

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Our next meeting date is finally confirmed! We will be meeting at the fabulous, purpose built space at the Women’s Business Centre in East Ham on Tuesday the 17th of May 2011 between 10am and 12noon for informal presentations, networking and tea and coffee with likeminded entrepreneurs and business women. The Women’s Business Centre is a venue designed specifically to help women in business and we are very grateful for their support. Our first Confirmed Speaker is Alex Tham of the fabulous Green Eyed Monster who will tell us about setting up a shop in East London: this will be of interest to everyone thinking of opening a shop and anyone who is thinking of designing childrenswear, as Alex also runs a clothing company. Tabitha Potts of Mimimyne (that’s me!) will also be giving an introductory talk on using social media to promote your business. Other speakers to be confirmed.

You will be able to learn about how to set up a small business, work from home and be your own boss AND have a family life: not an easy thing to do and best learned from people like you who’ve been there and done it! We’re happy for men and women without children to come along too, of course – all are welcome. The Women’s Business Centre has arranged a private area where you can feed or change your baby if necessary. We will have a comfortable conference room to relax in. Older children are welcome but are parents’ responsibility!

ADDRESS
Women’s Business Centre
Newham College of Further Education
High Street South
East Ham
London E6 6ER

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We will be charging £4 entry fee per visitor to cover admin costs and there will free tea and coffee while the networking meeting and expert speaker sessions go on. You can pay online through Eventbrite or pay on the door.

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Just a quick post to say thanks to all my newsletter subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers who voted for me in the Virtual Business Awards – I was shortlisted along with many other fabulous companies but sadly didn’t get a prize this time. I really appreciated all your votes and will definitely enter again next year! Thanks again and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday – and I’d like to wish you a Happy New Year as well!

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I was thrilled to find out that I’ve been nominated for the Virtual Business of the Year Awards. This is an exciting award run by People Per Hour to reward virtual businesses like mine and I would LOVE your vote! Please visit my page and vote for me if you would like to support green businesses like Mimimyne!

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I was nominated for Best Online Business at the Mumpreneur Conference and Awards 2010 and although I didn’t win, it was afantastic event as always with a lot of my favourite speakers, including Alison Rothwell of SEO Training Club, there to motivate, inform and inspire the audience of businesswomen. I went to two seminars, one ‘break-out session’ on SEO and listened to two motivational speakers. More info and links coming soon, meanwhile there’s an interview with me below by Family Friendly Working which talks about what I most enjoyed at the conference.

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