Deck the halls ...

What an exciting time of year! It's almost time to put the Christmas tree up and decorate the house for the festive season. I love thinking about different ways to decorate, challenging as it is with two toddlers around!

Here are some great finds to deck your halls from Made It!

1. Christmas Tissue Paper Pom Poms - Tiddley Pom

2. Christmas Tree Wall Decal - Vinyl Design

3. Merry Christmas Bunting - The Earthly Creature

4. Christmas Rules - Vintage Bus Roll Poster - anroldesigns

5. Merry Christmas Banner - Banners and Bags

6. Raggy Christmas Wreath - bekahdu

Funky Friday Finds - Putting the Mo in Movember

We are right in the middle of Mo-vember so to help celebrate a good cause, here are some Funky 'Mo' Friday Finds!

Can't grow a Mo for Movember but still want to be involved? Then you need a Mo Sista Brooch/Necklace available from LittleNikita on Made It

Joining Movember in their annual quest to raise awareness of depression and prostate cancer in 2010, is new Mr. Men character, Mr. Mo…! These tee's are now available at Target and 25% of the proceeds from their sales will be donated to Movember.

Felt black moustache on a stick by feltsogood on Made It

Set of 12 Moustache Crayons Complete Disguise Upcycled/Recycled from chasedreams on Etsy

A ‘Fruity Mustache’ blank greetings card featuring crunchy, fresh ALBERTO APPLE with a real hairy, 100% new wool mustache! Available from Kikichoo on Etsy

Funky Monsters Features

Our Funky Monsters booties are getting around! We have been featured on two fabulous blogs over the last couple of days.

Jo from 'The Crafty Nomad' loves my booties. Having travelled to and lived in various parts of the world, she is currently living in outback WA and has a love of all things crafty especially sewing and papercraft. Our Reindeer Games Baby Booties were featured as part of her 'Made It Friday Focus: Rudolph the Reindeer' post.

Robyn from 'Robyn Lee Handmade' also loves my booties! She featured our gorgeous Space Invaders Baby Booties in her 'Christmas Time at Made It: Something for everyone, beautifully Australian made' post.

Thank you lovely ladies!

'Tis the season

Christmas is creeping up on us, only 6 weeks until the bearded one visits bearing gifts galore!

To celebrate the festive season, I have released some Limited Edition Christmas Baby Booties, ideal for Baby's 1st (or 2nd!) Christmas. There are two different styles to choose from and both are reversible designs. These booties make great gifts for bubs and are the perfect finish to their little Christmas outfit.

These limited edition booties are available in sizes 0-6mths, 6-12mths & 12-18mths and are $20 a pair.

'Christmas Cheer' Baby Booties

'Reindeer Games' Baby Booties

You can order them now in my Made It store or via my Facebook page using my 'Contact Us' tab.

Funky Monsters Baby Bootie Collection

Since our humble beginnings (all of 12mths ago!) Funky Monsters bootie range has grown and grown. Most of our designs are limited in quantity as most fabric prints become discontinued over time, but we also like to keep our range fresh and exciting. In saying that, we have some old favourites that have been with us from the start like our signature Coloured Skulls booties, these are definitely still my all time favourite!

Not only have we had many different designs, we now have different styles of booties for your funky bubbas. Thought I would share our latest and our greatest with you all.

Our popular 'All Stars' Reversible booties in our original style

Our new Baby Booties for boys with elastic strap in 'Space Invaders', 'All Stars (Green)' and 'Pirate Booty'

Our new Baby Booties for girls with elastic strap in our gorgeous 'Leopard Print'

Our ever-so-sweet Mary Jane style booties in 'Funky Floral', 'Zebra Print', 'Cherry-licious' and 'Sweet Butterflies'

Our new Non-Slip range made with suede soles which also come in a larger size 12-18mths

Check out our Facebook page for more details & prices of the current range we have available. There are a number of ways you can order: by emailing funkymonsters@live.com, via our 'Contact Us' tab on our Facebook page or through our Made It store.

Sugar & Spice .... and all things nice!

Early on Sunday 12th September, Funky Monsters took a lovely drive down to Woodend. I was taking Funky Monsters to the Sugar & Spice Childrens Market. It was our very first market we were attending as a retailer!

The Sugar & Spice Childrens Market is a boutique childrens market held in Woodend every 3mths. Here you will find lovely unique items for your children, most of them handmade. The lovely Ali runs the market and once again put on a fantastic and well-organised day.

The crowds were lined up early ready to shop and came steadily through the doors throughout the day. Not only did Funky Monsters have a great time, we made quite a few sales and to top it off, met some lovely fellow stallholders. Funky Monsters new friends include:

• OOAKLY - run by the lovely Jenny, who creates custom artwork for the precious little ones in your life
• Milk & Honey - Cath & her sister came all the way from Echuca to showcase their precious goodies
• Robin Street Market - Sharon has an online store and specialises is sourcing unique and handmade gifts from around the world. You never know what you might find in Sharon's store in the near future (wink wink) !!

Jenny from OOAKLY

Here are some other pics taken from our big day out (taken by me, Jenny from OOAKLY and Kim Selby Photography)

The next Sugar & Spice Childrens Market will be held in Woodend on 12th December (venue TBC) and Ali is also launching in Ballarat on 28th November at St Pat's Hall from 9am-1pm. We hope to see you there!

Funky Friday Finds - Crocodiles & Al E Gator!

Here are some snappy Funky Friday Finds!

1. Kojo the Croc - Zoobies Pets (3-in-1 plush character, pillow & blanket)

2. Crocodile Magnet Clip - Kids Gift List (Bright & funky jungle animal magnet)

3. Al E Gator - sarahsewta.etsy.com (Minky dot boo boo rice heat bag)

4. Fabler Krokodil - Ikea (soft toy)

5. 'Snippy' the baby crocodile - Secret Gully (Interactive and educational soft stuffed Aust Wildlife toys for imaginative play)

6. Crocodile Isle - Jump City (Inflatable water park)

Funky Friday Finds - Spooky Scary Monsters

Keeping with our Monster theme this week, here are some spooky scary Funky Friday Finds!

1. Monster Couture Captain Shaggy Red Bean Bag (Ten Little Indians)

2. Mono Tee by Cried Wolf (About A Boy)

3. Little Bird DecorMonsters Decal (Everything Boys)

4. Munster Baby Fight Night Pants (Ten Little Indians)

Wednesday Wish List

Having a love of all things monsters, especially with two little monsters of my own, I couldn't resist sharing this absolutely gorgeous find from MiniStyle. What little boy wouldn't love a set of these Monster Lights lighting up in their room. These quirky felt puppet lights are cute & friendly by day, spooooky scary by night! There are 20 mini monster puppet lights hanging on a 6 metre light string and can be all yours (or mine!) for $49.95

MiniStyle is a chic online boutique who stock gorgeous designer kids clothing, beautiful gifts, unique toys and more. Check out their website at www.ministyle.com.au for a whole range of gorgeous items for your kids! You can also follow their blog at www.ministyle.com.au/blog. The Monster Lights are a Best Seller on their site and have just been restocked. They were even featured in the Shop 4 Kids 09 magazine. They are definitely being added to the boys birthday/christmas wish list this year!

I'm baaaaaaack!

Wow, what a long time between posts and what a busy little bee I have been! But I'm excited to be back in the land of blogging!!

Let's see where I left off ...

April was a very busy month for Funky Monsters. It started with our support for the RCH Good Friday Appeal. $5 from every pair of booties sold until midnight on Good Friday was donated to the Appeal. We ended up raising a total of $35 from these sales. So I was a little busy making booties as a start! I also donated 3x Funky Monsters Gift Sets to the Tungamah Hotel to auction off in their annual fundraising event to support the Appeal as well. We were so pleased to have contributed to the record total of $14,462,000 raised in 2010.

The winners of the March MWWAH Mini Hunt competition and the MWAHH Online Easter Hunt were also announced and claimed their prizes. Winners were able to choose a pair of our baby booties & a Funky Onesie in their choice of design. I also supported another great cause Relay for Life - Team Tequila Slammers by donating one of my 'Aqua Polka Dot Gift Sets' for them to auction online via their Facebook Fan Page. The Relay for Life fundraising event is organised by The Cancer Council (Perth). It was a fun 24hr event to raise funds for the Cancer Council for education, research and supporting those & their families living with cancer.

So, between all of this, a number of Made It sales and a few custom orders, I had little time to spare!

During the month of April I also took the bulls by the horns and decided to start a fresh with a brand new Funky Monsters Facebook Fan page. I already had a fan page set up when I initially started out as 'mini monsters' which had grown to over 300 fans! But unfortunately Facebook does not allow you to change the name of your group and it was getting a little confusing running this page seeing our old name with our new name & logo. To encourage new fans to come across and existing fans to spread the word I ran a giveaway to help us reach the milestone of 150 fans. This was a great success and the lucky winner, which I'm pleased to say was Michael (a male!!), won himself a Pink Polka Dot Taggie and matching booties for his daughter. He was so pleased to have won and to be able to give his daughter a special gift from himself.

Funky Monsters now has 331 fans! If you are not a fan of our Facebook page already, why not head over and 'like' our page by clicking here.

Then the dreaded lurgey hit us in May :( May was a dreary old month in our house. The kids and I were pretty much out of action for the whole month. What started out as runny noses ended up as nasty coughs, colds and horrible gastro. Plenty of sleepless nights for us all. Need I say more.

But somehow during all of this, I still managed to find the time to start working on my new reversible style booties. It's taken a while but our reversible booties are finally here! My sewing skills are on the up and with a bit of practice my new booties now have a more professional finish. The new booties have no exposed seams, the elastic is all encased and they can be turned inside out and made reversible. So you can now get 2 great styles in

one shoe! There are currently 2 new reversible styles listed in my Made It store with more on the way! Check them out here. The picture below shows a pair of our new 'All Stars' Reversible Baby Booties. More on our new booties soon.

And now, half the year is almost gone!! Can you believe it! Where did it go?

Plenty of work has been happening behind-the-scenes here at Funky Monsters including more great designs for our funky baby booties, additions to our Toddler Range and our very first wholesale order! I can't wait to show you more of what's to come! Stay tuned ...

March MWWAH Mini Hunt Comp - WINNER!

Congratulations Kirsty Shepherd! You are the lucky winner of the Funky Monsters prize in the MWWAH Mini Hunt Competition! Kirsty has won a pair of Funky Monsters Baby Booties of her choice. Thank you for entering our competition and well done on getting all the answers right!!

Enter the MWWAH Online Easter Egg Hunt Now!

The MWWAH Online Easter Egg Hunt has started! Ends 7th April at 5pm. Enter now for your chance to win some great prizes

MWWAH Online Easter Egg Hunt

Starting 9am 1st April MWWAH are running a fun Easter competition for the week. Such a fun & easy competition to be involved in and you could be in the running for many fantastic prizes ... including a Funky Monsters 'Army Patch' Funky Onesie in your choice of size!

All you need to do is find where the MWWAH Easter logo is hidden on the participating businesses site and answer one or two easy questions. That's it! All correct answers then go into the draw for the fabulous prize on offer. This is the logo you need to find (pictured right):

We are ever so grateful to Jess from MWWAH (again!) for running this Online Easter Egg Hunt. Promotions such as this help to introduce our mwwah/wahm businesses to a whole range of potential customers.

Some of the other businesses involved & the great prizes you could win include:

• Seventh Heaven Creations: Heat Bag, Soothing Eye Pillow & Matching Carry Pouch
• Swish Lily: $20 gift voucher to spend in store
• WAHM Connect: 1 free year of advertsing on WAHM Connect
• Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids: 2x Kids Camping Chairs
• PurpleX Design & Print: $30 gift voucher that can be used towards the purchase of one of their canvas prints

There will also be daily spot prizes up for grabs too! For more details & how to enter check out the MWWAH site by clicking here. Competition runs from 9am 1st April until 5pm 7th April 2010. Good Luck!

Sneak Peak - Rock Chick Skulls & Dragonfly appliques

Here is a little sneak peak of some applique designs I am working on for the little ladies. We have Rock Chick Skulls and Dragonflies which can be appliqued on singlets, onesies and tees. I can't wait to put the first sample together!

Here are our funky Rock Chick Skulls - they will have black or white felt eyes appliqued to them. How much do they rock! I will also be doing some for the boys.

And here are our gorgeous Dragonflies, so sweet!

I'm hoping these will be listed in my Made It store next week, stay tuned.

Pre-orders are welcome! If you like one of our designs, please contact me (funkymonsters@live.com) and let me know what image you would like, if you would like it applied to a singlet, onesie or tee and what colour as well as which size you require.

I Heart Baby

As the winner of the I Heart Baby giveaway on the Little Sooti blog, my prize is a beanie and pair of leg warmers of choice. Thought I would share the goodies I have chosen for The Cheeky Monster. He is getting the Little Boy Blue beanie and Blue Stripe leg warmers. What a funky little monster he will be this winter!

I Heart Baby designs accessories for babies & toddlers. I Heart Baby was created by a proud mother of one baby boy and it all started with beanies. But beanies were only the beginning! Their range now also includes leg warmers and mesh trucker hats and they will continue to introduce new styles and products! I Heart Baby is determined to create the absolute most stylish and fabulous clothing and accessories for all babies. Take a look for yourself - here!

Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal

The 2010 Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal will be held on Friday 2nd April. As well all know, the aim is to raise money for The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, and to ensure that all children with life threatening illnesses receive the best possible medical and clinical care.

Although we are fortunate enough that our children are not suffering serious or life threatening illnesses, we have spent time at the RCH and know many others that have done the same. If you have ever been to the RCH you will know the fantastic work they do and the wonderful people that make it happen. They treat more than 280,000 children each year. They really make it a place for children to feel like they have some sort of normal life and to keep entertained and have some fun. Just the way they set up the waiting rooms shows you how they feel about their little patients. They also make an enormous effort to look after the parents of sick children as well.

This year Funky Monsters will be supporting the RCH Good Friday Appeal in a number of ways:

• From today until midnight on Good Friday, $5 from every pair of booties we sell will be donated to the appeal.
• To encourage you to buy more booties, we also have a special offer -buy any 2 pair of booties for $25 (normally $32) and $10 will be donated.

So if you need booties for your little monster, a baby shower gift, a gift for a newborn or you just want to spoil your grand kids, nieces or nephews now is a better time than any to get your hands on a pair of our booties. There are many great styles to choose from with more to come throughout the week & custom orders are also welcome. To start shopping click here.

We will also be donating a number of booties and appliqued onesies & tees to be sold or auctioned off at a RCH Good Friday Appeal fundraiser at the Tungamah Hotel (held on Good Friday). Last year the pub raised $16,000 for the appeal, #16th in the Top Pubs & Clubs list. This appeal is close to the hearts of owners Peter & Helen Chisnall and many of the locals in the Tungamah and surrounding areas.

Please help us support this great cause and also help to spread the word! Be sure to check out the RCH Good Friday Appeal website for information on ways you can make a donation, events & activities leading up to and on the day, merchandise available and much more here.

If taking advantage of our special offer, please wait for an updated invoice to be sent with updated costs prior to making payment. Offer excludes postage costs.