It’s been such a busy time in the run up to Christmas that I’ve had little chance to update my blog and let you all know Mimimyne’s news! First of all, I’m happy to say that it has been a good Christmas for my customers with nearly every single order getting to customers on time. I still have a little further to go to be 100% perfect, and there are sometimes problems with mail – couriers or Royal Mail – which are out of my control. For these glitches, I do apologise to any customers who have been affected. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to work on customer service and make some much-needed improvements to the website, as you requested in the customer survey, to make it easier and more convenient to use.

Secondly, Mimimyne’s Mumpreneurs meetup has been going great guns and I’m happy to say that BTTradespace have offered to sponsor this informal networking lunch for mums and women in business, or looking to start a business, for all of next year! Setting up a Tradespace has been a great help to me in terms of publicity, sales and traffic, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their offer to sponsor this event in 2010. I hope plenty of you will be able to come! It’s been a great opportunity to meet in person and chat with some of my favourite bloggers, ‘mumpreneurs’ and business owners and a chance to give back to the online community of businesswomen that has been so welcoming to me. Thank you everyone for being part of this event!

If you’d like to see some of our brilliant speakers at the last event, Dr Nicola Thomas of eco style blog The Ginlady, Natalie Lue of contemporary kids design review site Bambinogoodies and Birgit Medele of Clear of Clutter, visit Mimimyne’s Youtube Channel to watch their videos!

Mimimyne also benefited from some great publicity in November and December, including a fabulous article in the Sunday Times just after Christmas! The boys modelled some beautiful t shirts by Green Eyed Monster (shortly to be available on Mimimyne) and the cushions we are holding are limited edition ones by another company we love, Minimoderns.

The photo shoot was great fun, although I had difficulty stopping the boys making faces!

I was also featured with my puppy Dexter on BT Tradespace’s mini site with an article and a video interview with me about what inspired me to set up Mimimyne.

So with a successful – if challenging – 2009 under Mimimyne’s belt, what does the future hold? As I said, I’m hoping to make the changes requested by my customers such as enabling customer reviews, shipping to Europe and maybe the US as well, offering free shipping in the UK and so on. What’s really been holding me back is time and money, those old barriers, and I’m hoping for more of each in 2010!

I’ve also been lucky enough to win 500 bags from Smartbags and am trying to think of the perfect slogan for them: if anyone can come up with one for me, I will give them 10 bags for free! These eco friendly reusable shopping bags will be a great addition to my range.

I’m also planning to add some great new designs and eco friendly products to the Mimimyne range next year. I’m particularly excited about the Wattson, a very cool-looking device that helps families monitor their energy usage. I will be using it myself in my new home office. Because – at last! – I am moving house in January and will have a ‘room of my own’ rather than a corner of the kitchen to run things from. Don’t worry, your orders will all be processed as usual, though I might be a little slower than usual to respond to emails!

Finally, as a member of 10:10 I will be working hard on energy saving in my new office. I hope to save 10% of my carbon footprint in 2010 – like all the other 10:10 companies and individuals – and have had a detailed assessment of my energy usage from LCRN which offers small businesses in London a free energy audit. I hope to reduce my carbon footprint as a business and my family’s as a household and will keep you updated on how this is going. I think most of us who care about the environment were disappointed by the Copenhagen summit and the failure of our leaders to reach a truly binding agreement on carbon emissions. Let’s hope that by continuing to do our bit as businesses and individuals we can make the difference that our governments have been too timid to make on our behalf. I think that’s the most important New Year’s resolution any of us can make!

Happy New Year to all customers, readers and friends of Mimimyne!

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Wednesday 9th December 12 noon to 2pm
Venue: Ping Pong Dim Sum (Private Room) 3 Appold Street London EC2A 2AF tel: 020 7422 0780 Nearest Town: London

Reserve your free ticket to the Mumpreneurs Meetup on Eventbrite here

After the great success of our first Mumpreneurs Meetup as part of Business Mum Week, Mimimyne is running another informal networking lunch for mumpreneurs/ businessmums and all women running or interested in running their own businesses.This event is aimed at encouraging women who might not otherwise have considered attending a networking event to consider starting their own businesses, however men are also welcome.

Speakers (to be confirmed) will include Sadie Knight from Glassraven to talk about ecommerce and web design and Natalie Lue of Self Employed Mum to talk about how to make a living as a blogger. These are informal ten minute talks and there will be opportunities to network as well.

BTTradespace will also give a short presentation about how to create your free Tradespace and maximise your online presence.

The event, in the gorgeous private dining room at Ping Pong Dim Sum (www.pingpongdimsum.com), is free to attend and includes a delicious Dim Sum buffet sponsored by BTTradespace! Spaces are limited but babies are welcome (there will be hot drinks served, so we ask all attendees to watch their children carefully) and there is space to leave prams.

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We were thrilled to get a lovely write-up from thegreenfamilia, the light green shopping blog for families, with her suggestions for the best gifts from Mimimyne! Check it out below:

Christmas Gifts from Mimimyne.

The Ginlady (Green, Independent and Natural) blog also mentioned two of our fabulous products in her round ups of the best gifts for boys and girls:

The Ginlady’s Eco friendly gift guide for little boys

The Ginlady’s Eco friendly gift guide for little girls.

Finally, we also made Greenmystyle’s Christmas list with a mention on their Top 10 Eco Board Games: Family Christmas Fun!

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Sarah from Boogles, a book keeping firm for businesses that Mimimyne has been working with, just sent me some copies of her fabulous maths game (on CD, suitable for PC only) for young people aged 5-11. There are a choice of questions – addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. And 3 levels – easy, medium and hard. Players need to answer as many questions as possible before the time runs out. In addition there are over 150 worksheet excercises which cover various math concepts – including shapes, ratios, fractions, weights and measures. This normally retails at £4.97 so you’ll be getting yourself a bargain, as shoppers on Mimimyne will get a free copy of this game with their next 5 orders! So come on, do the maths and get your Christmas shopping sorted out at the same time

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The Everywoman Conference was a very inspiring day for me. I was speaking on a panel, “Build Your Online Presence for Business Success” with two entrepreneurs I really admire, Paula Wynne of Remote Employment, Carol Savage of MyDish. Judith Lewis of i-Level was the panel moderator.

Paula Wynne talked about her business Remote Employment, which helps remote workers find jobs, how it is important for businesses to ‘punch above their weight’ (making sure your website is professional and attractive, for example) and making sure your search engine optimisation works right from the start. She also talked about how important it is to work hard at PR.

Carol Savage gave a fantastic account of the tough time she had facing the Dragon’s Den with her MyDish concept (helping people share recipes with each other) but showed how it was worth it in terms of publicity and increased visits to her site. I am planning to get on it straight away and share some of our family recipes: I’m lucky enough to have some of my mother’s already printed in her Pauper’s Cookbook but as most of my family are good cooks there are lots of family standbys I’d like to share with others.

Judith gave a very useful analysis of how important it is to build a good online presence on the web, pointing out that if you don’t put yourself on the web, someone else will, and talked of the importance of monitoring what other people say about you online. My talk was about how I have built up a presence online using Twitter, BTTradespace and Facebook and I mentioned some of the tools I have used to make it easier and quicker.

We also listened to some great talks, including Allegra McEvedy’s sometimes hilarious story of her life and adventures as a chef. Her main points were that you should build a great team, that hard times define you, that respect is important (never treat people badly) and that you should enjoy what you do. There were also some fascinating panel discussions and workshops, I didn’t have time to attend everything but all-in-all it was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking day. I will be back next year!

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Today I was lucky enough to have a visit from LCRN who help small businesses like mine audit their energy use and environmental policy. They went through my gas and electricity bills and had a look around my home office to assess my energy consumption. It was a bit shaming to admit I didn’t realise my boiler had a timer function but I was proud of the fact that I recycle absolutely everything I can (garden waste, food waste, plastic, tins, cardboard and paper) and have a low energy computer and low energy lightbulbs. They will tell me my carbon footprint and then I will be working on my environmental policy with them and building up a list of targets (which will also count towards Mimimyne’s 10:10 commitment as a business) on which my progress will be assessed in a year’s time.

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Mimimyne is proud to announce that we are now stocking the beautiful, hand made organic cotton baby clothes made by designer Maggie Gibbs from Daisy Dumpling.

I particularly recommend her newborn baby gift sets (there’s an organic cotton baby boy gift set in blue and an organic cotton baby girl gift set in pink as well as a neutral organic cotton baby gift set in white) as a tremendous bargain at £30 plus free delivery! These would make great gifts for a christening, a new born baby girl or boy or for a special occasion. Other treats for young babies in her range include beautiful organic cotton baby bootees, organic baby shoes, hats and organic baby mittens, all in a complementary range of colours so you can mix and match. Daisy Dumpling is a really exceptional addition to Mimimyne’s range of organic baby products and I think you will be delighted with your purchases!

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Mimimyne is very excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with Funky Little Darlings to sell their gorgeous eco friendly, funky kids wallpaper and wall stickers. These bright, modern designs are perfect for personalising your kids’ bedroom, nursery or playroom, and some of them work very well for grown ups too… We will have some more products from them coming soon, watch this space!

Who are you?
We are Mandy Colliss and David Quinton and we established Funky Little Darlings in 2006 as a high-end luxury interiors brand… exclusively for children.

Tell us more about your design background
Having designed for children for most of our careers, we are passionate about creating environments and products that encourage children’s creative development. Our expertise is in interior design, graphics, 3D and packaging design. Working in the children’s toys and computer games industry, we have designed for the BBC, Disney, Hasbro and Endemol and on global brands such as Monopoly, Teletubbies, In The Night Garden, Playskool, Action Man, Big Brother, Purple Ronnie and Sindy.

What’s your environmental policy?
As parents ourselves, we want our children to inherit a cleaner and less exploited planet. We strive to be as eco-friendly as possible and work with suppliers who share our ethos.

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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!

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Christmas is getting closer! I know a lot of you won’t be hearing jingle bells yet but as it is now November I thought I’d pass on some of Mimimyne’s ethical gift ideas for Christmas and I’ll keep this up over November with festive ideas you might like for your family and friends.

Firstly, if you want some Christmas decorations, Mimimyne has a beautiful eco friendly Christmas tree made from recycled cardboard from award-winning designers kidsonroof. It’s an alternative Christmas tree which makes a great talking point for guests – and it won’t drop pine needles on your floor! This is not sent by Royal Mail.

The Merry Mache Nativity Set and the Merry Mache Christmas Decoration kit are fun for the whole family to decorate. These are both made using recycled and recyclable materials and come in a reusable wooden box. These are sent direct to you by courier, so no need to worry about the postal strikes.

Eco friendly board games (made from recycled materials, fully recyclable and using non-toxic inks) from Bioviva including Operation Survival, the Mission Range and Bioviva as well as wooden games like Hot Cocot from the Lil’wood range for younger children (made from certified wood) are great for involving the whole family, boys, girls and parents! Again, these are all sent by courier and will not cause any difficulties during the strikes. These board games make great gifts for families.

Creative Charlie is an eco friendly craft design company operating from East London. Again, every component of a Creative Charlie craft kit is either recycled, recyclable or reusable. Kerri Sellers, the company director, decided early on that she wanted to use materials that were
eco-friendly to create her craft kits, to introduce environmental
awareness to young children in a fun and creative way. We recommend her eco friendly Make Jewellery Kit,using beads from recycled magazines, as a fun stocking filler for a little girl.

The Twisted Twee Pine Tree and Cone tee shirt set for dad and baby in organic cotton is a sure fire winner for a new dad. It has a Christmassy image but the T-shirt will continue to delight until long after the festive season is over. These T-shirt sets for dad and baby are best sellers on Mimimyne and make great gifts!

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