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Mimimyne got a lovely write-up by columnist Andrew Williams in the Wharf newspaper this week! He recommended the Wattson by DIY Kyoto and also mentioned Cosytots Organics gorgeous chick toys, perfect for Easter.
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The Green Web Awards run by Nigel’s Eco Store, the grandaddy of ethical shopping sites, are back and they are open for the public to vote this year! If you have a favourite sustainable brand, charity, business or person you would like to vote for (you can also nominate companies for the Wooden Spoon: Worst Greenwash award!) then go ahead and visit.
Mimimyne has been nominated in the Green Fashion category, we’d love your votes if you’re a fan!
Green Web Awards logo
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If you’re a Mimimyne fan, or enjoy the website, or just think it’s a good website – please vote for Mimimyne at the Good Website Guide Awards! Thanks so much!
If you think we deserve to win, tell the GWG why!
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We were delighted to see the Splat Chair by Spinifex got a fantastic review by Natalie at Bambino Goodies, the design site for parents which reviews products for children under 4.
Natalie says”It’s amazing what you can do with recycled cardboard (I featured a chopping board made from it over on Nest Goodies a couple of days back) and one of my favourite pieces is the Splat Child’s Chair…”.
The Splat is also shortly going to be part of the Eco-Home exhibition at the Geffrye Museum! 
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We are very excited to announce our new range of funky, organic baby and kids clothes from Animal Tails. Animal Tails clothes are all certified organic and ethically produced. They use lovely, vivid colours (often hard to find in organic inks!) to tell a story about endangered species, their habitat and a little about them. You can be sure that your baby or child will be safe and snug in these beautiful organic romper suits and t shirts. Animal Tails also stock a range of organic, designer kids clothing which are coming to Mimimyne shortly!
Here are some questions about Animal Tails, and their answers!
Why are Animal Tails ethical?
At Animal Tails we value people, and their potential. Therefore the founding principle of Animal Tails was to trade ethically, to protect lives and improve livelihoods. We are so pleased that we are able to present to you a collection that we can say without doubt was produced ethically.
You may well say, surely all companies manufacture ethically? Well some do, but not nearly enough, and unethical trading is a particularly acute problem in the garment (clothing) sector.
What grieves us most is that it is usually the most vulnerable young girls and women who find themselves working excessive hours for wages they cannot even start to live on, but because there is no other work available, they must work in these terrible conditions or live in even more extreme poverty.
You may think this is a problem confined to the developing world, where it is less hidden, but the reality is that the problem of sweat shops is endemic across the world, and one of the greatest offenders is the garment industry.
All Animal Tails clothing is certified against the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). GOTS has a robust tracking method through the supply chain to ensure that the International Labour Organisations minimum standards are met, and in most instances exceeded. The GOTs certification is currently the most robust available in ensuring that an entire organic textile supply chain meets an internationally accepted standard for workers.
GOTs certification standards are met by several international organic certification bodies, one of whom is the Soil Association in the UK. That is why our licence is from the Soil Association.
Why did you choose organic cotton and ink?
At Animal Tails we would not be valuing people properly if we did not care about the environment we all live in. It was therefore an obvious choice for us to use organic cotton.
In exploring the benefits of organic cotton we where staggered to learn of all the absolutely horrendous chemicals, a number of which are known carcinogens (cause cancer) that go on non-organic cotton.
We were even more shocked to learn that the production of non-organic cotton absorbs 25% of the worlds usage of pesticides and insecticides, for a crop that accounts for only 2.5% ( yes that is right, two point five percent … we had to read it several times too) of world crops! That is a lot of deadly chemicals to say the least…
With organic cotton you will encounter none of these nasties – all you have is beautiful, pure, wonderfully soft cotton – and the knowledge that no one was exposed to poisonous chemicals in their cotton field or during its production.
Why is Fair Trade important?
We are trading in a fair and open way at all levels. We have worked hard to make our supply chain as good as it can be. We pay a premium price for our organic cotton, and the Soil Association (GOTS) certification provides assurance for you that we are paying workers properly and that their rights are respected.
We are trading as we should from the field to you. That is why we say, have fun, enjoy wearing your beautiful organic, ethically manufactured, and fantastically designed Animal Tails T-shirt. It’s fair to people, animals and the environment.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases, it will never pass nothingness….” So goes the famous poem by John Keats. Yet the tragedy of our times is that there is an accelerating loss of many of our World’s most wonderful and beautiful species, through loss of their habitat from human activity and climate change.
It would seem if we don’t do something quickly many beautiful things will pass into nothingness. Ours and future generations will be poorer for the loss of so much of the beauty and diversity the animal kingdom offers us.
Buying a beautiful Animal Tails T-shirt means you’re directly helping to preserve these things of beauty, as we are giving 1% of our net profits to the AfriCat Foundation which seeks to preserve some of Southern Africa’s most endangered animals; so making Keats words come true, ‘it will never pass into nothingness…’
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I was thrilled (as was Sally Walton of Carry-a-bag, the designer of these gorgeous bags and lots of other beautiful, hand-made bags and other eco friendly gift and homeware items) to find the Mum’s Bag and My Bag she designed featuring as No 1 ethical tote bags for yummy mummies on the excellent www.greenmystyle.com! This is what they say:
“Carrying around your baby’s nappies, dummies and rattles need not be an unglamorous affair. Here we take our pick of the top 10 tote bags that are guaranteed to spark off a yummy mummy war.
1. Mimi Myne mother and child tote
Mimi Myne has taken an innovative approach to the tote bag by creating one for kids. The two bags are made from vintage cotton, are fully reversible and retail at £25 and £15.”
Read the whole article Top 10 Ethical Tote Bags on greenmystyle.com
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Hi, I am very proud to announce that the SPLAT chair by Spinifex, which created such a buzz at the East London Design Show, is now available at Mimimyne. Like all of Spinifex’s products, it is created using reclaimed and recyclable materials (cardboard and postage tubes) and is also biodegradable. This modern, stylish little chair comes in natural brown with a range of different seat colours and can be customised by painting or fabric. It has a storage space on top for pens and art materials as well as a flat space for storing paper, so it’s very versatile.
Click here for more info
!
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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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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
