See you on Tuesday!

New on the shelf at the shop we have a small selection of soaps from Kelly at Fresh Cut Soap Co.  For around $5.50 each these would make great Christmas presents!

The trade day is coming up and the date has been changed slightly.  We have decided it will be on the first Tuesday in December so on the 1st from 10.30.  It is going to be like a pay it forward - in other words anything that you get from the day we would prefer it if when you are finished using the item, that it was forwarded to someone  else who can use it or donated to charity.  It’s just our way of sharing the love, so to speak.

School holidays are coming up fast (along with Christmas - eek!!)
There will be some changes to opening hours over this time - the shop will be open as per usual up until 18/12/2009 and by appointment only through the Christmas/New Year period. If you need something during this time, please don’t hesitate to contact me about coming down to the shop, either via email or on my mobile (0419 144 689). Orders placed through the website/by email will be processed as normal.
We will be closed from 11/1/2010 through to the end of January, re-opening on 1/2/2010. Orders placed via the website or email during this time will not be processed until February.

For next month’s get together we will be holding a ‘trade/swap day’.  So bring all those clothes and other things that are hanging around the house and see if you can swap/trade them for other things that you may be looking for.  The date to mark in your diary is 3rd Tuesday 1st December starting at 10.30am. (see details in housekeeping post above^^)

Ok, so we left off midway through May, just after the Gossamer Dreams stocking.
You may remember it was rather wet at that point in time!

The week after that I was a bridesmaid at my sister’s wedding which was awesome, although a little (ok a lot) wet and muddy.  Despite the floods, everyone got there safely and home again and it made for some seriously cool wedding photos!

Oh, and the family tradition was kept intact, I was sewing Rhiannon’s dress (with the help of a family friend) until the early hours of the morning the night before, and it got finished off on the day! Looked great though! (and who gave my daughter permission to look sooo grown up!!?)

Skip forward to June, we had Mikey’s birthday (wow 10!), followed by school holidays, and the HAIRCUT!

Since then everything seems to have been on fast forward.  Gossamer Dreams stockings have been a little crazy - good, but crazy.

As of July, I’m officially an auntie (bout time, lol!) and my niece is absolutely beautiful! (of course!)

September saw the bi-annual nappy hunt start again with the Cloth Nappy Shop as an extreme site.  For those who are musically challenged, apparantly things will never be the same again! or so I’ve been told by at least one hunter!

September was also time for another birthday, with Lukas turning 7. He had a fantastic party, with cupcakes decorated by the party guests! I’m not sure that a corn chip would be my first choice of cupcake decoration, but then again, I did discover back on New Year’s Eve that sausages with icing are surprisingly yummy, so maybe I shouldn’t knock the corn chip cupcake until I try it!

We then headed north to Hervey Bay for my husband’s highschool reunion, and stayed with family up there for a week, much to the joy of the kids who had a great time! 9 kids in one house is pretty full-on though, I think all the adults were ready for another holiday by the end of the week!

Sadly when we came home, there was still another week of school holidays left to survive…  Ok, so I’m exaggerating slightly, the kids were pretty good on the whole! But with one thing and another, it’s really brought home how hard it can be juggling 4 kids and the shop during the holidays, so there will be some changes happening before the Christmas holidays - stay tuned for more about that later.

So that pretty much takes us up to yesterday, when the kids went back to school (yay!) and supposedly life goes back to ‘normal’! Normal in this instance involves catching up on everything that hasn’t gotten done in the last month or so! Apologies to people who are waiting patiently for nappies - I have my To Do list all typed up officially, and am crossing things off as quickly as I can.

This has ended up much longer than I intended, so I’m going to call it quits for now, and will post again later to tell you all about the exciting new stuff that’s going to be happening!

This month’s theme is hand-dyed, and WOW, there’s some amazing stuff up for grabs! Our guest WAHM Sara from willow and moo has some gorgeous clothes previewing, and oh, how I wish I had a girl small enough for this set from Lesley!

(although if I could persuade people to make beautiful stuff big enough to fit my big girl, lol, that would be even better! cos then there’s a chance that it might fit me too!!)

I’m offering a series of semi-custom options this month, some cuts dyed by me, and some by

Wow, 4 years! I swear it has gone faster than it did with the 3 older kids! I asked him how old he is, and the standard response is “I’m still 4 Mummy!” which considering that at the time he’d been 4 for all of a few hours was rather funny! Very cute though too!

Being the slack mummy that I am, we didn’t have a party for him, but Rhiannon made a birthday cake for him to blow out the candles.

And here’s the birthday boy at the end of the day - obviously tired out by the proceedings! (which unusual in itself, he’s usually a night-owl!)

Cherub’s Kiss - Back into it

We’ve been talking for a while about holding regular ANN get-togethers here in Brisbane, and this week will be the first ‘official’ gathering on the Southside. Fondly dubbed “Nappies Anonymous” by addicts already in (unofficial) attendance, lol, it’s an opportunity for clothies new and old to come along and talk about nappies with other addicts enthusiasts!
The ANN display kit will also be available to look at - it contains a variety of different nappy styles and brands for you to get an idea of what things look like.

We will also be trying to have a topic for discussion at each get-together. This month we’ll be looking at how to find the right size nappy to suit your baby’s size and shape, and tips for how to adjust the nappy to suit your child. Feel free to bring along any nappies from your own stash that may be causing you headaches at the moment!!

So, the when and where details…

We’re hoping to meet up on the first Thursday each month, so this coming Thursday May 7th 2009.
The venue is the Cloth Nappy Shop,
6/76-82 Queens Rd, Kingston Q4114.
From 10am onwards, the ‘official’ meetup will probably finish up around 12pm, but you’re welcome to hang out afterwards until the shop closes at 2pm. If you can bring along a plate of food to share, that would be great. Tea, coffee and water provided.

I think that’s all the crucial details, PLMK if I’ve forgotten something important!

You’re welcome to come along and see what it’s like for your first visit or two, but subscription/membership of the Australian Nappy Network will be preferred after that initial period. Subscription/membership forms are of course available at the meet-up, or you can sign up online.

So as you can see, I have 5 beautiful Auriel nappies available.

All are AIOs, with microfleece inner and bamboo/cotton boosters with BKT as the hidden soaker layers in the body of the nappy. The top two in the photo are Size 2 nappies - the one on the left is a pink/chocolate blur poly PUL outer, the one on the right is a rainbow swirl minkee PUL. The bottom three are Size 1 nappies - the cupcakes and lollipops nappy on the left and the flower nappy in the centre are both cotton or poly/cotton knit PUL, the one on the right is a tie-dye poly PUL. Mostly catering for the girls this time round, but there will potentially be other Cherub’s Kiss nappies (including HoneyBoy!s I think) arriving at some stage in the not too distant future…

The question of how to actually make these nappies available has been perplexing me ever since I got them from the lovely Lesley! Having first-hand experience of what it’s like at an online stocking, the vision of a similar crowd IRL scared me a little! Luckily the ladies at our last unofficial Nappies Anonymous gathering had a brilliant idea for me! (thanks Cel! )

The nappies will be available for sale this coming Thursday, 7th May 2009 at 10.30am (give or take a few seconds cos I’m not the most punctual person around!) The shop opens at 10am, and each person who would like to purchase one of the nappies will be given a raffle ticket when they arrive. At 10.30am we will start drawing numbers out of a hat - as each number is drawn, that person will be able to choose to purchase from the nappies available. At this stage I anticipate that there will be a 1 nappy per customer limit, but if there are any leftover at the end, then double-dipping should be fine!

Hopefully this will make it a less frenzied stocking than most!

If you have suggestions for how to go about any future stockings, please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section!

Hopefully see lots of you on Thursday morning!