Want to check out cloth nappies in real life?

Well you can do just that, on the 27th of June Handle With Care will be attending the Mathildas market in Canberra. We will be showcasing a number of our products, not least of all a HUGE selection of Modern Cloth nappies. Come and play with nappies and talk to real mums about their use, pros and cons and for special market deals. This is a fabulous niche market that offers unique, stylish and affordable baby & kids goods that are lovingly handmade or manufactured. The retailers are handpicked to ensure an exciting product range. It's a kid's shopping heaven. Better yet, most of the retailers do not have a shop front, so you know you'll find something special, not available anywhere else. Please come and see our stand at Mathilda’s Market from 9am to 1pm at the Hyatt Hotel Canberra, Commonwealth Ave, Yarralumla (easy pram access at rear). Entry and parking is free. With almost 60 retailers, divine food by the Hyatt Hotel and kids’ entertainment Mathilda’s Market is one of Canberra’s best shopping destinations for the little ones. For a sneak preview, have a look at the website (www.mathildasmarket.com.au) and enjoy a browse through the photos of all participants. I look forward to seeing you there!

Things are cuter in smaller sizes

There are some products we get in store, well actually most of the products we get in store that force me buy for my boys! With Winter on our doorsteps I just had to pop into our store the other morning and buy my little Angus his first pair of shoes (Simply J Crochet loafers). I've blogged about these before, but seriously could you GET any cuter!

Shoes, shoes, shoes...

I must confess, this morning I was pottering in the business room and selecting (in my mind) some items for my inutero baby - not the first nor the last time that this will happen! There are many things I would like and am constantly having to restrain myself. Alison and baby Emma visited to help pack some orders and thankfully Alison did not restrain herself and so satisfied my cluckyness for yet another day! Emma was quickly put into some beautiful crochet Mary Janes. But seriously, how could you resist these?

I've kept busy this morning whilst my little one was out with his grandparents and have finally updated some stock on the website, Aden and Anais wraps, Vanchi extra large wraps and wrap and hat sets are all restocked and a new range to Handle With Care, Pear and Bear has now started to be put on the website. There is still; as always plenty of stock that needs to be put on the website - it is an incredibly difficult task to keep on top of it all but we are doing our best :-)

But for now that is all from me, a morning of busy business tasks has left me ready for a midday nap!

x heather

Web shopping...so many benefits

I've always been a fan of shopping on the wonderful world wide web. As mothers Alison and I knew that providing our shop online and assistance via email would be extremely valuable to our customers as we knew how useful we have found it since we had children!

This Christmas I really threw myself into internet based shopping. Heading into my third trimester and experiencing all the normal aches and pains that come with pregnancy and a 2.5 year old in tow I wasn't so keen on finding the time to walk around the shops finding gifts. Like many I've appreciated the various store newsletters I have received with the Christmas Sales, and let me tell you I have jumped at the opportunity to buy many gifts as a result!

So what have I purchased? Many things including photo canvases and photo books, personalised kids lunch boxes and drink bottles, clothing and more. My latest purchase was this morning; for some weeks now I have been on the hunt for a backpack for my son. Keen to find something different to the mainstream Disney character bags I have searched all the usual sites and just couldn't find something that grabbed me. That was until a friend reminded me of Penny Scallan! I saw these bags a few months ago and was immediately attracted to them, so when I finally came across the website it just took me a couple of days to decide exactly what I was going to get and the order was placed.

These gorgeous bags are made from lined PVC and are just so cute! There are a number of lines available at Penny Scallan to interested you although I did find the boy prints a little restrictive - but this seems to be the case everywhere so I was not in the least surprised or put off! So I placed my order for a Lunchbox, Kindy bag and Wheelie travel bag in the Blue navy star design. So I am now excitedly awaiting another package in the mail :-) I think the postie might know me on a first name basis soon!

Another market has come and gone which has finished up our market run for 2009! It's been a couple of weeks now, the Handle With Care team finished this market and subsequently checked out for a few days, resting and just playing mums for a while!

The Handmade market was held on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November and mother nature was certainly not kind to us! For the Friday twilight market we were left very uncomfortable with sticky 50% humidity and 35+ degree heat. Alison’s little 8 week old Emma tried so hard to just enjoy her night out with the girls but ultimately the heat made it very difficult for her, whilst we were left throwing down the bottles of water and fanning ourselves counting down until the end of the night! Saturday was slightly more comfortable, we came armed with a fan and the humidity was down again.

There is no doubt that the heat kept people away; the September market left us without a minute to spare the entire day but this time we were actually able to have the odd short break and spend a little bit of time with some of our customers. Despite the heat though we still had many many people come through those doors all seriously shopping for Christmas! Our beautiful Bobishi booties were a favourite once again, as were the Little Bean ice packs and Ivy Designs head scarves.

Here are some photos of our set up...unfortunately I was so flustered from the heat I just took a few of the same photos and then resumed my seat by the water bottle, so excuse the poor quality!

Once again I was not in the headspace to shop (well other than for food which once again satisfied me 110%) however Alison did purchase a beautiful lantern from Electric Firefly as well as some gorgeous felt handbags from Heart Felt Australia.

In true form my father checked out what the food vendors had to offer and came to show me some rather interesting looking wine from Disaster Bay Chilis, the wine of course is none other than Chilli Wine. Clearly the handmade market caters for EVERYBODY from young to old!

We are looking forward to the 2010 instalments of markets, we will keep you posted on which ones we decide to attend with March being the big ‘due date’ for myself we are just not sure at this point which markets we will attend and when!

Handmade Market this weekend

Can I preface this with reminding everyone that there are only 37 more sleeps until Santa visits! Needless to say we are excited that another market is on! Canberra's quarterly Upmarket brings together talented artists, designers, stylists, craftspeople and gourmets all at one destination. It is a unique event to connect the makers of beautiful things to people who appreciate the quality, handcrafted and locally designed.

Come along to the Twilight Market, this Friday 20th November from 5-9pm and enjoy a glass of wine, some dinner underneath the 'stars' and a shop around over 50 boutique stalls. Or come along on Saturday between 10am-4pm and enjoy the Eat@Handmade and many many many boutique stalls both indoors and out.

The organisers have really out done themselves this market, with industrial fans organised for within the shed and a free bus running from Civic interchange to the woolshed on the Saturday. Follow this link for more information about the bus service and the market including a vendors page.

I really encourage all Canberrans to venture out and check the market out, there really is something for everyone and it is definitely more of an event than just a market.

Addiction...

This week I am 23 weeks pregnant with my much awaited second beautiful baby. Unfortunately this pregnancy has come with the lovely symptom of reflux. I have been overjoyed to experience it since about week 7 of the pregnancy which left me very ill until I worked out what it was. It’s been managed well since then, but this week I’ve had to use the Zantac and Mylanta together which has left me looking at my diet and wondering if there was something (other than my increasingly active growing baby) that was causing it to worsen. I’m absolutely devastated to work out that it is chocolate. My beloved!

Now Wikipedia describes addiction as an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence and in its most common usage these days for things like chocolate addiction it says the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user themself to their individual health, mental state, or social life. I read this and it occurs to me, I do have an addiction, because despite this awful side effect of heartburn even when I use zantac…I still want to eat it.

Most devastating, is the fact that the Handmade Market is on this weekend. Alison and I have typically eaten our way through each market, conveniently we have had one of us pregnant at each market, and so eating our way through and supporting the food vendors at the markets has been easy.

I was gearing up this week to buy our ever favourite cupcakes from ‘Little Miss Cupcake’.

These Red Velvet and Cherry Ripe cupcakes are absolutely divine…(and chocolate!) and are just one of the huge range of absolutely delicious cupcakes that Little Miss Cupcake offers. At the first Handmade Market we attended Little Miss Cupcake sold out before midday...testament to everything I've said above and more.

And so, I have given this much thought and I have decided that the mylanta will be visiting the markets with us this weekend because I simply CANNOT resist the temptation of Little Miss Cupcake…and I highly suggest everyone try them. But I warn you, once you go there you quite possibly will never come back!

See you there

Heather

The talented West...

Handle With Care is proud to stock a number of product lines from Western Australia. Brusselsprouts, Woddlebots and Green Kids are big sellers at HWC.
Well, Alison and I have been on Etsy and Madeit...again and we have found even more talent that is now on its way from WA and I had to share them with you!

First up are Jingle Sox! It's that time of year again and the moment we saw these we wanted them...needed them in our store! Jingle Sox are the creation of Jenny; wife, mum of four beautiful children and grandmother with an obvious love of fabric, designing and sewing!
Deekie Belle Designs creates fun and funky Jingle Sox made from many fabulous high quality fabrics and quilts. We are so excited to have a parcel on their way to us which we will have at the upcoming Mathilda's and Handmade Markets - unless they sell out before!
Have a look at these gorgeous creations! don't you just love them as much as we do?!!

Our next show off creation Little Bean is designed and made by Emma Little, a mum of 3 girls under the age of 4!
Being mums of 2 year old boys, we are all too familiar with the need for ice packs.
These creations spell cute, fun and highly functional all at once!
These gorgeous children's cold packs by Little Bean have many more uses than for just those little (and not so little) falls! with summer fast approaching we are keen to use them to help keep our children's lunches cold, keep ourselves cool, use on our own aches and pains thanks to lugging toddlers around... the list goes on.
Emma's creation of a smaller ice pack to use on her pulled muscle after having a caesarean section quickly became a cold pack specifically for children. With some gorgeous fabrics to choose from and a high quality finish these cold packs are sure to be a hit (and easily beat any pack of frozen peas!)
We cannot wait to show them to our customers at the upcoming markets!

See you at the markets!

Little Miss Stitch

We are very excited to receive our latest Handcrafted Creation here are Handle with Care!

Sandra from 'Little Miss Stitch' has created these lovely tunics from printed cottons, denims and corduroys contrasting with gorgeous designer fabrics.

The dresses were beautifully packaged and sealed with a 'Little Miss Stitch' sticker and we could see the vibrant colours of the retro style dresses the minute we opened the parcel. As we delved further into our parcel the gorgeous buttons jumped out at us, they were all unique for the different tunics and nicely complimented each piece.

As there are only very small runs of each of the items available at Little Miss Stitch, you can be assured that you are purchasing something that is different and unique.

To see more of the 'Little Miss Stitch' range go to the 'Handcrafted Creations' section of our website: http://handle-with-care.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=78

Enjoy!

Kids in the Shed

On 21st June we will be holding a stall at The Old Bus Depot Markets, the theme of the day being - ‘Kids in the Shed’.

This market has a focus on the little people in our lives. Come by the Kingston Markets and pick up something special for every occasion.

Not only is this a nice thing to do on a Sunday for parents, but it is also enjoyable for the kiddies- Milo the Clown will be there to help entertain them!

We love going to the markets as it gives us an opportunity to show off our beautiful range of hand crafted children’s clothing made by designers such as Ivy Designs, Brusselsprouts, Tikiboo Kids and Evie Lala.
These gorgeous clothing lines are unique and beautifully made by extremely talented people, your little one is sure to stand out in the crowd.

We will also have our Modern Cloth nappies with us and will provide assistance on the use, care and other general information to help people who are converting to cloth or building on their stash.

Attending markets also allows us to meet more of our customers face to face, so please come and say hello and introduce yourself if you happen to make it to the market!

Sleep well and bye for now

Heather and Alison

Canberra Handmade Market...

Well Alison and I have nearly recovered from our big day at the markets on Saturday! The Handmade Market brings together talented artists, designers, stylists, craftspeople and gourmets all at one destination. It is a unique event to connect the makers of beautiful things to people who appreciate the quality, handcrafted and locally designed. The time put in to organising the Handmade Market, not just by each individual stallholder but also the Handmade Market organisers truly shows on the day.

The hall was crowded and certainly exceeded expectations, perhaps a sign that people are keen to spend their money on those unique and high quality items! One particular thing I was impressed with on the day was the choice of music (not that you could hear it that well once the crowd arrived!) Michael Buble and I have had a love affair for many years now so he was the icing on the cake, it made setting up even more enjoyable!

Rack of clothing, Brusselsprouts, Ivy Designs and Tikiboo

Evie lala Reversible baby shoes

Bobishi Newborn baby booties


Wild Things of Noosa Ellie and Ivy Designs Top
Brusselsprouts Cardigan with Buttons

We were so busy we didn’t get much time to search the other stall holders items (probably a good thing for our wallets), I think this was the case for all the stall holders – the crowds astounded us all! We did however get a taste of a delicious White Chocolate and Raspberry cupcake by Little Miss Cupcake before they sold out, we also had enough time to eye of some of Col Ellis’ photographs- his photographs are truly amazing and we wish we had more money to satisfy our children’s clothing obsession and to make our homes look beautiful!

We were familiar with some of the other Stalls items as they have been fellow stallholders at other markets we have attended and whilst we didn’t get to chat to them it was nice to see familiar faces around, it was equally nice to see some other products that we were not familiar with! I really want to know how do all these talented people actually exist? How can there be so many unique items in the one place?! Certainly something to be seen to be believed.

It was lovely to see some of our previous customers come by with their gorgeous little babies and swelling bumps – we really enjoy being a part of our customer’s lives and sorry we couldn’t catch up more during the market! We had some wonderful feedback on our products; it was really nice to see them all so beautifully set up on the racks.

We also discovered that some customers who have seen us at previous markets have had problems contacting us. Once again we apologise for our unreliable email system, this is something I am getting on to first thing tomorrow morning!!! If we do not reply to your emails within 12 hours please chase us up! One of us is online almost all the time!

Well that is it from me tonight, still feeling very weary from a day on my feet and keen to hit the pillow!