mellimoomoo 

style & sustainability for the modern child

Unique wall art on the way...

Mellimoomoo is soon to introduce a wonderful range of unique "vintage originals" wall art. More news on this soon...

This brightened up our day!

It's been raining so heavily here in Byron Bay lately... but this brightened up my day. We're very chuffed to see The Noosa Journal has chosen a bunch of Mellimoomoo's finest products to feature in their Weekender magazine. Look closely and you'll see our wonderful Barefoot witchety grub(one of our most popular toys, by the way), a Bajo racing car, Meemoh hand-made babooshka and bunny and of course our wonderful Small One eco-furniture set. Don't they all look fabulous!!

Mellimoomoo supports originality and ethics in design 

Mellimoomoo wholeheartedly supports ethical manufacturing of children's products. In fact, it is our passion to promote the work of those working towards a more ethical production model for children's products. Our ethical concerns cover the environmental impact of making the toys and sourcing materials, the treatment of workers, the safety of the toys AND ethical design.

WE DO NOT support manufacturers copying the original work of talented artists and designers and "passing off" the work as their own without the original designer's permission.

Tuesday 11 March, 2008

We've been blogged!

Our lovely little babooshka dolls from Byron Bay designers, Meemoh, are creating quite a stir! These cuddly baby toys made an appearance last week on the brilliant Australian blog site www.babyology.com.au. The review was wonderful and we were thrilled to see these hand-made beauties get the attention they deserve. Our very first online product review! If you haven't visited this blog site I highly recommend it - they have a knack of finding amazing products from around the globe.

Mellimoomoo launches children's eco-furniture range

For some time now we have been searching for children's furniture to add to the mellimoomoo range that is made ethically from sustainable materials, had excellent design qualities and was lightweight enough for us to ship without too much cost to customers.  And... we are delighted to say we've found it!! This week we are very proud to announce the launch of Small One tables and chairs.

Hand-made in Australia from sustainably harvested timber and finished in a delicious blend of food safe natural oils (the oil used on this furniture happens to be from Organoil, an environmentally freindly company from our neck of the woods, Byron Bay!) this is furniture built to last, and designed for fun!

With their organic curves and animal-like shapes, I'm sure you will agree Small One is children's furniture that you will not want to hide away!!

To find out more about Small One, visit our nursery and bedroom category here.

Tuesday 5 February, 2008

We love this keepsake idea!

I love hearing from parents with great ideas like this one.

Anneliese is a mum in South Carolina who happens to be part of a large "extended family" connected through her husband's helicopter squadron. Whenever one of the couples from the squadron has a new baby - Anneliese creates a beautiful keepsake for them by hand-painting the baby's name and date of birth and the squadron's name onto a little toy - and she has stocked up on our wonderful Bajo wooden helicopters to get through the next batch of new squadron arrivals.

Annelise described her first painted chopper as "nothing special" - but I have to disagree!! What a beautiful way to celebrate a birth and remember the squadron by. Well done Anneliese! And welcome to the world little Diamond Lee!

Help for parents searching for healthy toys

I have come across a fantastic website that has been set up to help parents make healthy choices when choosing toys for children. The site: www.healthytoys.org has an extensive list of toys that have been tested for harmful chemicals and toxic heavy metals. Some of the results will shock you. Some of the toxic chemicals they found in children's products include: lead, arsenic, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and cadmium.

So far they have tested 1,200 toys and they are continuing their project. The research is scientifically thorough and clear explanations are included describing the harm these particular chemicals can cause to growing bodies.

The site is compiled by researchers at the not-for-profit Ecology Center based in Michigan, US. (*worth visitng their website too for some great sustainable living ideas)

As well as the findings, the site has an action plan encouraging parents to lobby governments into increasing toy safety regulations to include chemical safety. Mellimoomoo fully supports this idea and I hope 2008 sees some action on this front in Australia. Our children deserve to be safe and toy manufacturers, and retailers (and I include mellimoomoo here), must be transparent and accountable for the products they sell.

I would be very interested to hear back from parents who visit this site.

New Year fresh start

I love New Year!  New Year equals hope and a fresh start.

For me this New Year has a special joy to it  as the first anniversary of giving birth to my daughter Melody on January 6, 2006. Christmas and New Year are now entwined with glorious memories of being fully pregnant, eagerly anticipating her arrival, and the beautiful homebirth itself. Now we are gearing up for her first birthday - and every day we marvel at how much she has grown, so, so quickly.

New Year is also a perfect time to take stock – both internally looking back on what I achieved over the past year- and this New Year’s day involved a physical stock take. Boxes were unpacked and re-packed and toys counted and noted as I got myself up-to-date with stock levels after the busy Christmas season.

The fruits of my New Year “stocktake/clean-up” will become apparent over the next week as I start adding some new products and a few sale items to the site. Stay tuned… and Happy New Year!

Here are the first "New Year" toys I have added:

These lovely wooden rattles are from our German toymakers - Hess Spielzeug. Perfect for young hands to grip and safe and non-toxic as well. I particularly love how simple these classic designs are.

mellimoomoo natural toys - christmas market schedule

Can you believe it's so close to Christmas already? I can't. Since launching mellimoomoo in October we've been run off our feet, and here we with Christmas less than three weeks away. Time flies when you're having as much fun as we are!

There are a lot of North Coast NSW locals who visit mellimoomoo's natural toy stall at the weekly craft markets - as well as visitors to the region, so I thought I'd post the details of next few markets we will be attending before Christmas.

Sunday December 9 - Lennox Head markets (starts at Surf Club and runs along Lake Ainsworth)

Sunday Decmber 16 - Ballina markets (Ballina Oval, Canal Street)

Wednesday December 19 - Brunswick Heads Twighlight markets - from 4pm.

Hope to see you there!

new arrival of natural wooden toys at mellimoomoo

After my spray last week about another dangerous toy being out there in the Australian market place I promised I would come back with some good news in the next blog. Well, here I am delivering!

I'm so thrilled to be able to offer to mellimoomoo customers these all-natural wooden toys (pictured above) from my favourite designer - Bajo. I ordered these natural planes and racing cars especially to complement mellimoomoo's growing range of non-toxic toys, and as soon as I opened the box I knew they'd be a hit!  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE Bajo's coloured toys too, but I am really fond of naturally finished wooden toys. And Bajo fits all of my ethical requirements - ethically and fairly made, certified sustainable forestry practices, non-toxic finishes, strict safety certification... but best of all they are simply beautiful designs.

I'm a firm believer in bringing aesthetically pleasing toys to children. Children are such sensory beings - they appreciate natural beauty and these Bajo toys are perfect. The designs are the best I've seen in wooden toys and the toys have been made to feel so good to touch- everything is rounded, smooth and just the right size and shape for small hands. Even if you have never given wooden toys a go before - give these toys a whirl. You will be 100% satisfied. Kids adore them and for parents the cost won't break the bank - and could even save you money in the long run because they are so strong and sturdy, you won't be having to fork out more $ on replacing broken toys (the same can't be said for plastic toys generally).

Ok, that's enough gushing about Bajo... again!

Can I also thank everyone who has sent back their positive feedback to me recently. It's so rewarding to know that mellimoomoo products are out there being loved and played with - and that everyone has been so happy with their purchases. Every product you see on mellimoomoo has been personally selected by me - and every company has been carefully examined and analysed to determine their ethics before I buy from them. It's a long process - believe me - and many suppliers are rejected because their products just don't make the grade. So, after being so careful, it's so good to hear from customers that you appreciate that effort... Thanks.

One last mention - I can't help myself... I'm fanatical about toy safety. Please visit our resources pages as and take a quick look through the product recall links. In the past week there have been more toys recalled because of lead paint and more Fisher-Price toys recalled beacuse of dangerous choking hazards. It only takes a minute or two to read these lists, but they could save your child's, or a friend or family member's, life.

parents need to know about another highly dangerous toy recall...

We have been absolutely horrified to hear in the media today of yet another dangerous toy that has poisoned young children.  Following on from the massive recalls of Chinese-made toys containing lead paint, two Australian children have been hospitalised after eating the beads from the Chinese-made Bindeez toy. It is believed the beads from this toy contain toxins which are metabolised by the body into the toxic illegal drug GHB (fantasy). If ingested these beads have the potential to induce seizures, drowsiness and comas... This is a potentially life-threatening situation.

While these little plastic toys are not something you would ever find at mellimoomoo -  they are very popular, even winning a Toy of the Year Award at the Melbourne Toy Fair. I understand these toys were available from Target stores mainly. If you have purchased these toys - take them out of reach of your child immediately and remove them from your home. The Bindeez toys have been recalled across Australia and the Office of Fair Trading is investigating.

It angers me to think how many more children must be hurt before toy safety becomes a strictly controlled issue in this country... I for one would support tighter national legislation to protect our kids from toxic toys. Even when I was looking up this issue on the web tonight there are still online sellers who still have the Bindeez products available for sale. How dare people make a profit out of a product that could injure a child.

I hope the following media links with information on the Bindeez recall may be of assitance to parents:

news.com.au news article, ABC news article, The Age news article

And I hope I can bring some happier news to you in my next blog entry...