Craft Re-Stash and The Handmade Expo

We at The Handmade Expo were thinking of something really productive to do to help likeminded people in our specific field, we thought of how devistating it must be for someone who lost their stash in the recent floods, after years of collecting bits and pieces........
Bring on the Craft Re- Stash !
Between Liesa at Handmade Heaven, The Handmade Expo market this Saturday and myself at mimmis, we will all act as collection points, then after the market have the donations available for collection for anyone who lost stuff in the recent floods.

My good friends over at Brisstyle have come on board too to help spread the word and support this effort to re-stash the community. Thanks girls for your support.

So please pop along to the market on Saturday with your donations to help heal the devastation in a small way.
Good excuse for a clean up people !

Thanks for your support. Please share this info in any way you can.

Facebook !

Have you been to check out mimmis at Forest Hill ?

Thats my bricks and mortar shop !

I have just put up an album of some stock available, but I also have old furniture for sale. Some pieces have been restored, some au naturale, some shabbied up a bit.

I also have vintage collectables like, salt and pepper shakers, plates, teapots, vintage linens, doilies, tablecloths, aprons and fabrics!

It"s also the place to purchase all the bubbachenille range !

Mimmis doesn't have a blog or website and, but mimmis is on facebook!

Recovered and back on deck

Not with all guns blazing but it's my first real day back at mimmis today and after checking millions of emails and trying to catch up I thought I should do a post to get it all out there so I can start afresh.

Well after having a relaxing and wet Christmas, a couple of days later Liesa, Micky, my mum, sister and niece headed off on a holiday to Melbourne. This was not a sign of things to come but what we had for breaky at 5.30am on the plane.

Funny hey ?

Then remembering last time we were in Melbourne, one of our favourite spots for coffee was

After filling up on coffee and pastries we had 8 nights in the city, running around everywhere, with one day actually walking for about 8 hours. We did some wonderful shopping, ate delicious food as only melbourne can dish up, caught up with family, saw wierd and wonderful things busking and putting on shows in the streets!

We caught up with Jay from Finki and some other blogging buddies in Brunswick and had a private shopping tour of their little piece of Handmade shop space.

I can hardly even remember that much of that long awaited holiday.

I came home on the Wednesday to celebrate a milestone birthday on the Saturday and the girls had organised a surprise party for Jeff ( hubbys birthday on the same day as mine ! ) and I with people coming from as far away as Darwin, Townsville, Burpengary, NSW, Redcliffe, Brisbane, That was awesome !

It was still raining all this time and then Monday we were getting text messages from the SES to evacuate our homes, Toowoomba had its flood down the main street and surrounds and it just kept coming and coming!

In the end we were evacuated by helicopter to an evacuation centre where we stayed the night. We returned home the following day once it was announced safe to do so to find no damage at all to our homes. This was the start of it though in Liesas back yard. Sadly mimmis shop wasnt so lucky, but we managed to clean up most of it in a day.

Yep, thats all mud ! So everything went out on the footpath while the shop was hosed and swept out, then everything cleand of mud and put back into the shop. Thanks to my DH, my SIL and friend Nicole for doing this for me, oh how much I appreciated how quickly it was done.

Then Liesa and I went off to Ipswich a couple of days to do some helping out there, to people who have lost everything, their whole worlds....But they are OK and their kids are OK in the most, so thats the main thing.

I just look at it and say " It's just stuff " It can be replaced.

I lost maybe 20 bedspreads all up, but its only about 2/3rds of my stash, I can just buy some more !

I hope you and yours are all safe and well. X X X

Miriam

Merry Christmas Joyeux New Year

Counting down now until 1pm when I can start getting into the Chrissy spirit, Something happened this year and I am not really " into " it yet !

5 sleeps and I'll be in Melbourne for a girls family holiday so we hope to catch up with some blogging buddies then and break bread with them, we hope you can make it along, details unknown exactly yet but you'll hear on the Melbourne bloggy grapevine ! ( pleeeeeeeeeease come :-) )

Thanks to everyone this year for your support of bubbachenille and The Handmade Expo, and now mimmis, without you all, your friendship and your creativity and support and encouragement none of these things would be possible, I love a lot of you for different reasons !

mimmis is closed from today until the 12th January, when it all starts over again, all refreshed with lots of new inspiration !

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and have a great New Year !
X X X

Promoting HANDMADE

Liesa was presented on Bris31 a few weeks ago promoting Handmade and The Handmade Expo as well as Handmade Heaven. She has done such a great job as our " Media Queen ". See what you think ! Click here to view. And if that doesn't work, ( which at time of posting was not working grrrr ) then here it is again.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os1pwksbWhs
Love ya Lizzy :-)

Getting Close

I seriously cant believe it's almost Christmas, holidays, last market for the year and just for the fact that everything seems to come to a massive build up and then........the end of the year and time to re- assess the next year, a bit ground hog day, but ground hog year !

When I opened mimmis on the 11th November I had already planned, booked and paid for a lovely girly holiday in Melbourne with my mum, sister, and daughters so I will be closing mimmis from 1 pm Christmas Eve and re opening on Wednesday 12th January 2011. Next year my weekend will be Mondays and Tuesdays and will be open Wed to Sun every week.



I am finding it hard to find time to blog as regularly as I did pre mimmis, but I dont want to stop blogging. I am still reading all the blogs I follow and trying to keep up with all the wonderful things you do, but alas, too much commenting takes up a lot of time. I am a Facebook addict and tend to keep up with lots of creative people on there more than in blog land these days.

mimmis is quite full at the moment with about 25 creative people contributing to beautiful things for sale in mimmis and customers are truely delighted at the quality and cleverness of all my contributors, so congrats to all those handmadies, you know who you are !


Theres always an opportunity to have your lovely things in mimmis on commission or wholesale purchase, so if you are interested in having mimmis as one of your stockists then please get in touch with me.

Theres a big night planned here in Forest Hill tonight with the closure of the street this afternoon and I'm told around 5000 people flood into this tiny village for the annual Christmas Festival, I have some helpers coming in and lots of new stock, the main attraction to this festival is the hundreds of hams and turkeys raffled off by way of the good old "Ham Wheels ".


All proceeds go to each group in town like the SES, the school, Fire Dept etc.

Busy behind the scenes with the last Handmade Expo for 2010 too, It's on next Saturday 18th and you can expect at least 120 stalls, A long visit from the Jolly man in the red suit, Carolers and Pioneer Steam Train rides too. Great for last minute Christmas shopping.


I will catch you before Christmas, enjoy your day !

Weekend wrap up

Friday night saw four generations of my family head into the city ( Brisbane ) to have a look at the Brisstyle Twilight Market in King George Square, being a member of Brisstyle I thought it was about time I did this and I was blown away, as were Liesa, Micky and Mum. ( My grandson was the fourth generation and he was indifferent ! )

Well done to all the girls who had stalls and a special well done to the girls who organise this market, Hasn't it taken off in the city ? The music was great, the lighting and atmosphere electric. Awesome...

Oh WOW WOW WOW NUMBER TWO

Was our very own Handmade Expo Market held on Saturday, Up at 10 to 4 in the morning makes us tired for days !

It was the best market we have ever had for customers and stallholders alike. We had 137 stalls and over 2500 people come through the gate to enjoy the market offerings, steam train rides, Soulman singing his great soul music, great food, flowers, fruit and just a huge array of lovely handmade things, oh not forgetting Wayne the Fireman, ( I'm sure he attracted a few people on the day ). Thanks to the Mayor, for supporting us once again, and to Councillor Andrew Antonelli for coming to judge our Christmas Stall winner too. Dorothy the Dinasoar won the best dressed stall and chose Ipswich Hospice to be the reciprient of the $100 donation.

There'll be more market wrap up on The Handmade Expo blog once all the pics come through from our new photographer, Paula from Minta Entertainment.

Gosh thanks to all who visited bubbachenille on the day, you are awesome too.

It's been so long, so much has happened !

I hardly know where to start, from someone who was blogging every few days to almost nothing the last month or so.

Since opening my shop one week ago today I have been overwhelmed with busy-ness ! Since day 1 of setting up and opening it's been three weeks of non stop on the go.

My first week was amazing for lots of reasons, sales, support from friends, family, aquaintances, customers and total strangers, locals, holiday makers, online likers, friends and buddies and you all need a massive thank you, so THANK YOU and I hope you all know who you are !

I also need to give a massive THANK YOU to all the lovely "handmadies" who have put their faith in me and allowed me to showcase their creations, My shop would be nothing without all of you and I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart too.

I will start to promote all those creative talents soon, ( when I can master the light issue with my camera! )

I do have some pics to show you courtesy of Paula from Minta Entertainment and a few of mine that are reasonable...( just ) Thanks Paula X

I will be at The Handmade Expo on Saturday as I am still creating for bubbachenille. It's the biggest market of the year, with over 130 stalls booked in for a fantastic day of shopping for Christmas, lots of food and entertainment too, pop over to the blog for more info.

Thanks again for supporting mimmis on the journey of my life !

Childrens Cupboard
Nicole from Hot Toffee has set up her studio at the back of mimmis and is creating all her gorgeous fused glass creations as well as some other items you may not have seen before.
Beautiful Miss Rose Sister Violet pieces, the flower on the top is a hair pin, the second is a wrist pincushion for the sewer who has everything, the third is another hair pin and the fourth is a lace embellished glasses case.

These gorgeous hair accessories from Sewn Sentiments are made from vintage fabric and pre-loved ties. You can find Sewn Sentiments on facebook.

Bags by Lilly Cottage and Handmade atWoolshed Creek, both attending The Handmade Expo on Saturday.

mimmis opening tomorrow

Yes thats the end of the setting up ! Well almost...

Hope you'll be able to make it some time soon to mimmis, I'm opening the big double doors tomorrow.

A lovely addition to mimmis will be the very talented Nicole from Hot Toffee who has set up her studio in mimmis. For those of you who are familiar with Hot Toffee you'll know Nicole works in various mediums including fused glass. You can view her work here or pop into mimmis.

At the moment mimmis is only on facebook and unsure as to whether there will be a blog in the future, but you'll be the first to know.

mimmis update

Forgive me blogging buddies for I have sinned, It's been ages since I last blogged.

Just reading my last post it was 23 days until I open mimmis and now its only 11 days ! eeks eeks and double eeks !

What is left to do? Only organise internet connection so I can Facebook all the exciting happenings, new stock and sewing updates and hopefully be really busy! Not too busy though, I would still like to take some time to smell the roses !

Speaking of Roses, I will be stocking lovely goodies from Miss Rose Sister Violet, oh yummo ! ( and some other special places that I totally cant decide on !) I have some super creative people helping me stock mimmis on commission as well and this excites the pants off me. I will let you know who they all are soon but you can definately keep up to date on this new journey of mine by following on facebook, It's awesome ! I have a mimmis page and a Miriam Bain page, so I'll see you over there really soon.

If you would like to come to mimmis opening on 11th November, Then please accept this as your prsonal invitation, I'd love for you to come and see what I'm doing, and have a gorgeous lunch across the road at Caffe Sorella.

The address is Victoria St, Forest Hill, QLD 4342 in your GPS . Theres only one street with shops so you cant miss it !

If you dont get to opening day but need a bubbachenille fix, I still have my things in Handmade Heaven, I am attending Gatton Christmas in the Country next Friday and Sat and will have my usual stall at The Handmade Expo Market on 20th Nov.

Busy busy busy and hopefully worth it, worth it, worth it !!