Last Sunday we attended the Mathilda’s market which was jam packed full of all things beautiful and handmade for kids. They had the most funkiest and most gorgeous clothes, chic bedroom decorations and furnishings, bags and shoes, dreamy vintage-inspired creations, handcrafted musical instruments and jewellery, fabulous dress-up costumes, striking linen … and so much more!

Luckily I was busy at my stall all day, otherwise I could have potentially spent lots of money as the goods on offer were simply stunning.

Our new Plan Toys Airport was set up on display which a lot of people fell in love with! We had so much fun demonstrating how the elevator and backage claim worked to customers, who of course also shared in our delight!

Our Eco Dollhouse was also very popular and definitely caught people’s attention as they admired the solar panels on the roof!

A huge thanks to my wonderful friend Natalie from Moederkip who helped me out on the day & Alison from Alipants who also popped in to say hello and help out.

This Friday 27th November we do it all again & will be at the Surrey Hills Twilight Christmas market, from 6pm - 9pm. There will be free children’s entertainment & live jazz music with a focus on speciality craft and gift stalls. Come along & bring your kids to see Santa (we’ll be right next to him!), the animal farm or join in the many fun activities available during this brillant night market.

It’s at the Surrey Hills Neighbourhood Centre, 157 Uninion Road & 1 Bedford Avenue, Surrey Hills.

Hope to see you there!

Eco Toys is excited to introduce another fantastic eco toy range to our store!

Green Toys is a US company that makes environmentally friendly children’s toys from 100% recycled milk containers. They use milk containers because it is completely free from Phthalates & BPA and one of the safest & cleanest plastics around. I‘I be honest, I was a bit hesitant at first to add them to my store due to them being made out of plastic, but the more research I did on them, the more I realised that they were an exceptional, high quality, 100% green product!

One of the things that I love about Green Toys is that they are FDA (food contact standards) certified. If your child is like mine and loves to have tea parties pouring with real water then you can be rest assured that it is safe and unlike wooden tea and cooking sets can get wet. It is also dishwasher safe and meets the highest international standards ( EN71 and ISO 8124) for safety.

The outdoors toys are extremelley durable and strong, so although you might initially pay more for a sandpit play set or jump rope, they will last much longer. Unlike the cheap bucket & spade we bought my daughter last Christmas for the sand pit which has literally broken down in the sun! The jump rope is made from  100% pure and soft cotton so won’t hurt your child’s legs.

Oh and one more thing! They come packaged in the coolest, 100% recycled gift boxes that look fantastic and you know you are doing something good for the environment when you buy a Green Toy.

So they have a big thumbs up from me, Green Toys are good for the environment!

Click here to view our full range of Green Toys.

Eco Toys will be at the Mathilda’s Market this Sunday 22 November, from 9am to 1pm at Hawthorn Town Hall, 360 Burwood Road, Hawthorn.

We will be showcasing our new range of Plan Toys, our ever so popular cooking centre and many of our other fabulous Eco Toys on the day!

Mathilda’s market is a boutique baby & kids market that sells beautiful handcrafted and limited production baby and kids goods. Carefully handpicked stallholders bring the most divine and original clothing, accessories, homewares and toys for the little ones. Exquisite wares are lovingly made by some of Australia’s most talented crafters and designers – many of them parents themselves.

It’s a shopper’s heaven for those who want to stylishly dress their children or decorate their kids’ home environment, but don’t want to buy mass produced, chain store items. At Mathilda’s Market you’ll see the funkiest and most gorgeous of outfits for the kids, chic bedroom decorations and furnishings, bright and brilliant toys, must-have accessories, pretty and practical bags and shoes, dreamy vintage-inspired creations, handcrafted musical instruments and jewellery, fabulous dress-up costumes, striking linen … and so much more!

As most of the stallholders don’t have a shop front, you are guaranteed to find something truly unique.

With over 80 stallholders and yummy food this will be a fantastic day out for young & old. For a sneak preview, check out their website Mathilda’s market.

We hope to see you there! xx

Eco Toys is proud to introduced a whole new & exciting range of environmentally friendly toys to our store!

Plan Toys is the first green toy company to manufacturer toys from organic & untreated rubber-wood and use solar energy and low emission bio-fuels to power their machinery. They have won numerous awards for their  toys that inspire children’s imagination and promote their physical and intellectual development.

As well as producing high quality, eco friendly toys they focus on toys that teach children about sustainable living. Children can now have hours of fun creating and living in their very own Eco Town that has environmentally friendly transportation and buildings. You buy the accessories separately or purchase it all together and save over $50!

Other awarding winning toys & best sellers are the Plan Toys Parking Garage which won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award in 2008 & Education.com A+ Award

Crane Set

Awarded with the Parents Choice Award and the Child’s Best Toy Award from USA.

Build N Roll

Winner of Homeschool.com’s Best Educational Gift Award

Education.com A+ Award

To read more about Plan toys or to view their entire range of toys, check out our new imaginative play category which is sure to inspire and delight any parent! I know their fantastic range of products has really impressed me as a parent who wants beautiful, eco friendly toys for her child.

Plan Toys Pirate Ship

A customer recently bought some of our rattles for her son Ari and sent me some gorgeous photos of him playing with them!

“Both Ari and I have really loved the Eco Toys rattles and teethers!  The Nature wooden teethers have a “soft” quality to them, even though they’re made from wood, they’re so smooth and warm to the touch, and they smell nice, no chemical smell!”

“We have the organic cotton carrot and Ari has really enjoy chewing on it when we wet one end and then stick it in the freezer!  He started having teething symptoms at 4 months of age, but only got his first tooth at 11.5 months, so the carrot has been an invaluable source of comfort to him!

As you can see from the photos, he particulary LOVES the wooden Bell rattle, and I love that the tinkling bell is not very loud!” Sif, mother to Ari

Our myrtle wood Nature rattle is on sale this month for $22 (RRP $25)!

Look who I found in the garden?

Meet our newest edition . . . Cozy Lime organic cotton doll! Isn’t she (or he) just gorgeous?

I love these Keptin Jr dolls because they have no facial features which encourages your child to use their imagination and express their feelings through this doll.

It is super soft as it is made from certified organic cotton and filled with 100% pure wool so its makes a lovely comforter, perfectly safe teether and is also a rattle.

The designs of these dolls are actually inspired by children’s drawings so they are simple and make the perfect gift for a newborn baby.

Yesterday we had such a lovely day out at a friend’s house. The sun was shining and we all enjoyed a relaxing walk on her property while the kid’s ran and played outdoors, we even got to see some newly born foals!

My friend Lauren had recently bought our block trolley and walker for her son Zaviar when he started to learn how to walk and she takes it everywhere they go and he happily pushes it around the streets.

Today my daughter Safari pushed him around the property and he loved it!

Bradley got a turn too and by the end the walker had been pushed over every bump and rock we could find!

This locally made block trolley and walker is very strong, sturdy and built to last! It can be used to store building blocks, as a trolley for pretend play shopping, as a pram for teddies and dolls or to help toddlers who are learning to walk.

All three kid’s had so much fun pushing it around.

I feel really blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful friends and the day reminded me that it’s those simple moments in nature that bring us so much pleasure and fulfillment.

Last weekend we attended the Stringybark Sustainability festival in Rowville, Victoria and I really wanted to share some photos with you all as it was one of the best child friendly eco festivals I have ever been too!

It was absolutely huge (over 20,000 visitors last year) with so many different areas of interest to visitors, all focusing on the same theme - sustainability!

There was a fantastic fair trade market area and I got to meet so many wonderful and inspiring business owners, all doing their bit to help make our world a better place.  There were handmade crafts, entertainment, music and dancing, a low impact children’s fairground, roving performers, native animal displays, fresh produce market and cooking demonstrations and heaps of eco and recycled activities for kids.

We made it a family event (as we always do!) and enjoyed the festival atmosphere while watching my daughter learn so much about her amazing world!

Learning about native animals and their habitats . . .

Patting a lizard . . .

Meeting a Stick insect . . .

Even an eagle!!

We learnt about the Orangutans and how their environment needs to be protected . . .

There was some great flora and fauna displays for kids . .  . .

And we even managed to stop and do some craft activities from recycled materials!

We ran out of time so took some natural materials back to our stall to play with . . .

Safari was so excited to tell Daddy about all the fun things we did!

Daddy time!

And after all that we still manage to have a quiet moment of play . . .

This gorgeous wooden cash register arrived the other day and was a huge hit with my daughter!

I like to test all toys before I sell them to ensure they are top quality and also so that I have a better understanding of the play benefits of each toy.

This has got to be one of the best new toys I have gotten recently and my daughter Safari just loved it. She gathered all her felt fruit and played pretend shopping for hours!

It has large bright red buttons with numbers to press, a great way to learn counting.

When you press the largest red button the register opens and makes a ping sound! Just like a real register.

It evens comes with a wooden credit card and a roll of paper.

Look at her dear little face and the look of pure joy as she swipes her card! Priceless . . .

Many parents are now choosing to use cloth nappies over disposable ones because they are a safer and a much more environmentally friendly option.

• It is estimated that a single nappy could take up to 500 years to break down … that means that every nappy that has ever been used are still in existence and will be for a long time

• 2.2 million disposable nappies are thrown out in Australia every single day, that is approximately 800 million a year

• One child in disposable nappies full time from birth to toilet training produces about 2 tonnes of landfill waste

• It takes one cup of crude oil to produce the plastics used in one disposable nappy

That is quite the environmental impact our little ones have right from when they are born, simply through the nappies we choose for them.

Most cloth nappies are shaped like a disposable, they do not require pinning and they are certainly a lot less time consuming than old cloth nappies, for starters you do not soak them in harsh chemicals! In fact you do not soak them at all. A study conducted in the UK concluded that using cloth nappies reduces carbon emissions by 40% as compared to using disposables.

Some people do have concerns about the impact of washing nappies on our water supplies however many do not realise that far more water is consumed during the manufacturing phase of disposable nappies than will ever be used to wash modern cloth nappies. Advances in washing machine technology have resulted in washing machines that use significantly less water and take the hard work out of washing cloth nappies. Also there are many water wise strategies you can adopt around your home to counteract any increase in water consumption you may have.

Bamboo is an ideal material for modern cloth nappies and many nappies use this fabulous material. One of the most important reasons bamboo is now widely used is that it has serious eco credentials. The production of bamboo is much kinder to the environment than cotton. Growing cotton requires a significant amount of water and if the cotton is not grown organically then it would have been grown using harmful pesticides for the crop. Bamboo on the other hand is very fast growing crop that regenerates itself once it has been harvested and does not require pesticides. The bamboo plant can tolerate both drought conditions as well as being flooded (very versatile indeed). Another benefit for the environment is that the bamboo plant produces large volumes of oxygen, more than trees! And the panda’s are safe too …. the species of bamboo used to produce material is not the species that panda’s feast upon!

If cloth nappies are not for you but you still want to do your bit for the environment? An Australian company, Eenee has just released the first fully compostable disposable nappy.

For more information on modern cloth nappies and to see some of the gorgeous nappies available visit the following sites:
Oz cloth nappies
Australian nappy network
Alipants

Alternatively if you live in Melbourne then the City of Casey will be holding a cloth nappy expo this Saturday. So if you want to find out more then come along and learn about the benefits of using cloth nappies and see for yourself the many different types there are available on the market. Eco Toys will also be there selling our huge range of baby toys including our handmade wooden baby rattles and organic cotton teethers.

2009 Casey Cloth nappy expo
Including ‘Green Kids’ organic clothing, toys and more!
Saturday 10 October 10 am - 4 pm
Balla Balla Centre
65 Berwick-Cranbourne Rd, Cranbourne

FREE ENTRY!
Cloth nappy stalls
Organic baby and children’s clothing
Giveaways and vouchers
Door prizes
Children’s activities
Make your own cloth nappy workshop and more!

Alipants is a new company supplying modern cloth nappies to the Macedon Ranges and surrounding areas. Our website is currently under development and should be launched within 3 weeks. In the mean time visit Alipants blog or email Alison at ali@alipants.com.au for further information.

Cheers Ali & Melinda