Hand Made Christmas Pressies

One of the things about being into hand-made craft is that you become a little over obsessed with using up every little last bit of scrap fabric or paper. That's where this little product came from:



A one off of scrap leftover, but oh so cute!

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Bag a bargain for Christmas

Christmas is rushing at me like a freight train and I've just realised we are almost in December. What with school functions for the kids, fundraisers, dance concerts and markets, it's a crazy, crazy time@!!! But all good fun! No bah humbugging from me at this time of year... I love it! And, because I'm in such a 'love it kind of mood' and want to pass on the Christmas vibe. I'm offering a FREE beach bag, with every backpack ordered online before 15th December!!!

Remember, we are at the Esplanade Market in St Kilda every Sunday between 10am and 4pm if you want to get down and bag a bargain. AND, you get to see our NEW day bags with zips. We are discontinuing the day bags with studs and replacing them with zips... as we've heard you people... you want a zip!!! :) We have finally listened!

One of our enthusiastic customers recently sent me this lovely testimonial about our quilted nappy bags, which I had to share with you all:

"They really are fantastic - I can't imagine why so many people lug around heavy designer bags - and I was almost one of those people. Your bag has the perfect amount of pockets - one for the keys, the drink bottle, the phone, diary, and importantly one for my stuff and one for the kids - so I feel at least that I have a little of my own space! The backpack option - while I don't use it often, has saved the day enough times - including jsut recently having to carry a sick three year old into casualty from the not-very-conviently located carpark."

Naomi also runs her own business which sells these amazing fruit juices, which I will give a huge plug to for Christmas. Infact friends, be warned you may be getting some of these for Christmas! Frou Frou Cordials can be found here: froufroucordials.com.au


Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

Winner of St Kilda Stencil Design Competition

Fat Mumma's is proud to announce their winning entry in to the St Kilda Stencil Design Festival. Keep you eyes peeled around Port Phillip Bay, for this winning entry popping up around the place.

Fat Mumma does Luna Park!

New Daylesford Retailer

Yay, a new retailer in Daylesford!

The girls at Can't Think Straight contacted us recently to order some or our bags for their store. They seem so lovely, and the shop sounds great and such a good fit! I love the ethos of the store concept and hope they do really well :)))

They even have an online shop which has some brilliantly, different and unique gifts and products.

You can find out more about them and shop online at their online store:

www.cantthinkstraight.com.au

Or next time you're in Daylesford pop in and have a look.

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

FAT MUMMA'S 2010 BAG SALE...

Where: Westgarth Books, 77 High Street, Northcote.
When: FRIDAY 22ND OCTOBER 2010
Time: between 10.30am and 9pm

Come and join us for a daytime coffee or an evening glass of wine.

We will be selling off bits of leftover fabrics, kids clothing, sale prices bags and other bits and bobs. You will be sure to pick up a bargain. The great thing is you can also go out for dinner after, to one of the lovely restaurants along the Westgarth Strip... or grab a movie at the cinema. What more could a budding Fat Mumma ask for???? :)

See you there :)

Love and Peace

FAT MUMMA XX

Challenges facing a craft business

One of the challenges of running your own craft business is firstly staying on track and making sure you don't stray in to 'play around land'. That is, when you get a bit tired of making the same product over and over again, you suddenly decide you might make yourself a dress, or a cushion or something equally unsellable! The second is that you often find a great fabric, make it up in to a bag and then decide that you would look better wearing it! Inevitiably, this ends up being the road to not much money land!!!! LOL! Another challenge is not spending all the money you do make on fabrics....
saying that...here are some of our latest and greatest :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma's

Sweatshop Free Labour

Ever wondered what the Fat Mumma's sweatshop looks like? Here a good example of bags on the go in the dining room :))

There is a tiny peak in to the works in progress, including a few 'coffees-in-progress as well :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

Eco-Friendly kids toys.

This great stuff from the UK came to my attention the other day! Having half my family over there still, I thought I'd introduce you to it, as it's gorgeous looking stuff and oh, so eco!

www.thetravellingsouk.com

The model of the business reminds me a lot of what we are trying to do here in Australia with the travelling craft markets, but this idea takes it to a whole new level. It would be great if there was a way of making this kind of thing viable in Australia. Ethikl (www.ethikl.com.au) are trying to do it here, I hope they make it work :)

The cuddly toys (pictured) look cute, feel good and are very reasonably priced – so in this case green doesn’t mean expensive! Most are made from organic cotton and rubber wood from a sustainable source – and where possible made from eco friendly paint or colour. The filling is polyester made of recycled plastic bottles. If you have any UK family or friends, this might be worth a look!!!

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

More Cool Fabrics from Hawaii-Five-O

More of those gorgeous fabrics from Hawaii!

Hey, we will also be doing a special winter Twilight fair at MLC in Kew, Melbourne. It's indoor, which is what we are most excited about!!! :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mummas xx

New bag fabrics

Half of the Fat Mumma's team just returned from Hawaii, where (as hard as they tried) they couldn't stay away from fabric stores!!!!! It drove her family insane... but it did mean there are some brilliant, bright new fabrics on offer to brighten up some dull winter days.

Why not come down the St Kilda market on Sunday's throughout the year to have a browse... or just contact me about any that take your fancy and I'll rustle up a quick bag for you :)))

On a more altruistic note, if you are feeling you need to get rid of some money (donating to a good cause), check out this website: project18.org.au. Beware though, you may need to keep some tissues handy :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Hand Made Market Week

I just wanted to put in a quick reminder that we do have a stall every week at the Esplanade Market in St Kilda, Melbourne. If you are in the area and want to come and touch and feel our products, that's the best place to come. We are always happy to have people come and say hello as it can be a long cold day, especially at this time of year! Come and check out our nappy bags, or take advantage of our great special prices :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

By the way, I picked up an amazing little 'Peace' badge this week Catriona McLean, who also did this amazing little paper cut illustration which you can buy at her etsy store:

Sometimes there is a need to think of something other than Nappy Bags, and so I have to say how excited I was to meet the childrens' book illustrator Andrew McLean the other day. I think his illustrations are beautiful including this recent release, 'There's a Goat in my Coat" which was written by the now deceased Rosemary Milne.

I'm always really inspired by creatives that have stuck to creating beautiful things and have made a living from them! That's our hope one day :))

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Free Nappy Bag

Did you know we have this great offer where you get a free quilted nappy bag with every vinyl nappy bag you buy? I know, you may say, "Why do I need two nappy bags?" Well let me give you a list of why:

1. Because this is a backpack, so when you are travelling it's really handy.
2. It's unisex and stylish for dad, so that you don't have to make him wear the floral pattern.
3. It's really, really, lightweight, so is great for wearing across the body.
4. You may need to ride your bike with bub, so you can wear this on your back.
5. It's handy for giving to grandma and grandad so they have a spare bag when they are babysitting!

I could go on, but you get the drift :) Basically, it's two nappy bags for the price of one AND you can buy the accessories to match!

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Video showing more detail of nappy bags and handbags

I've now got two videos up online about our bags. One shows the nappy bag in more detail, and

the other shows our range of messenger, day and zip-up shoulder bag.

If you are interested in seeing how big the bags are and what they hold, these are great little vids to get you started on the Fat Mumma range! :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Day Bags and Zip-Up-Shoulder Bags

I've had a few enquiries recently about some of our bag ranges that aren't currently for sale via the web. Basically I'm getting photos together, but that always seems like a much bigger task than it needs to be :) I currently have been talking to a friend studying photography, so hopefully
we'll continue to get better at offering a greater, changeable range :)

Here is an image of each of the zip-up-shoulder bag and the day bag so at least there is an example! :)

These are also some of our new(ish) fabrics here are a couple of new ones...

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

Messenger Bag Style - Nappy Bag Use...

Well thank god school holidays are over. I feel I can finally start thinking again. As much as I love the peace again, it was a fun Easter holidays! There was plenty of creative fun to be had, and we even got down and got dirty with the fabric paint! Here is a great t-shirt dress that my youngest and I put together! She did such a great job! If you want instructions on how to make one, just email me and I'll send you the instructions! I can even sell you a plain t-shirt for a cheap price (although I don't have many plain ones left!).

I also got more photos to put up on the website, as soon as I get chance! These messenger style nappy bags have been a popular seller lately!

The beauty of all of our Fat Mumma's bags are that they are versatile. They are all designed with the idea that they you can use them as a beautiful handbag OR as a nappy bag. All the bags have a large zip pocket on the back, which is perfect for storing all a parents needs when it comes to nappy bags.

These Messenger style bags have a studded flap, a large zip pocket inside, as well as a phone pocket. They also have an adjustable strap, and as mentioned above, that beautiful big zip pocket on the back!!!

The bags you see here are made up and raring to go and you can choose any of the fabrics on the website. The RRP is $110.00, with postage and packaging included :) If you're after one, please email me, as I'm a slow coach at getting them up on the online shop!

Peace and Love

Fat Mumma xxx

Ebay Specials

We have had an Ebay site for a while where we sell off our overstocked fabrics, etc. We currently have green nylon which we bought thousands of metres of in order to get the 'right' colour. Of course, in true manufacturing style, as soon as we bought these thousands, they then started stocking 'said' colour and selling in much smaller amounts!!!! :) Ahh.. the life of small hand-making business!! One day we'll be able to stick it to them.... (or not, as the case may be! LOL!!)

http://stores.shop.ebay.com.au/Fat-Mummas

Peace and Love

Fat Mumma xxxx

More made up bags!!!

I finally managed to get the light box set up the other day and have taken a few more product shots of our hand bags which are due to put on the website for sale in the next few days. Here's a sneak preview before they go up.

Just a little teaser of our day bags, and two of our zip-up shoulder bags. I'll also be putting us a couple of our messenger bags as well as some new backpack designs :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

Found this great Lantern Site from the UK

Have been looking for something interesting to replace the old rice paper lanterns in the girls bedroom. I came across this site, which has some beautiful designs and thought it presented a new spin on the flat colours of the one's I currently have.


You can find them at: www.hanginglanterns.co.uk

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Great Designs and $50.00 Nappy Bags

My 'find for the day' was this great website: www.threadless.com, which has some brilliant (and varied) t-shirts to choose from, AND at really reasonable prices! This was one of my personal favourites:

As far as our own creative juices are concerned, Kathy has been busy making tonnes and tonnes of mini bags and buying brand new (soon to be seen) fabrics and I've been busy putting some ideas together for the mother day stall at school, including this design for a mothers' day card:

I've also been coming up with some screen ideas, which I will make you privvy to very soon.

In the meantime, the special offer for this week is:

$50.00 BLACK QUILTED NAPPY BAGS WITH RED LINING. Email us directly ontracy@fatmummas.com.au to take advantage of this great value offer!

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma's xx

Mentally Sexy Dad Competition

Reservoir Dad has been running a 'Mentally Sexy Dad' competition, which looks like a lot of fun for those deserving 'stay-at-home-dads'... as well as the 'not-so-stay-at-home' types. If you know anyone who might want to enter, point them in the direction of the website!!! :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma's xxx

New Nappy Bag Photos...

I haven't had chance to put these nappy bag photos up on the website, but here they are for your viewing pleasure! If you'd like to enquire about them, just email me on tracy@fatmummas.com.au.

The design on these nappy bags are hand-screenprinted and are our own design :)

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xx

Nappy Bag Price Slash!!!

We have decided to slash the price of our vinyl nappy bags by a massive $26.00, which means you can now snap one up for ONLY $150.00!!!

You may ask why we've decided to do it???? Well, we are no longer wholesaling this product, which means we can offer it to our customers directly for a price that is much more competitive with the low-quality, cheap, imported goods we all love to hate, but can't afford to live without! So, please help keep Australian manufacturing up and running and spread the word that Fat Mumma's nappy bags are now only $150.00!!!!

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

More Mini Bags... still on offer for $35.00

Fabric 1 (8/2/2010)Fabric 2 (8/2/2010)

Fabric 3 (8/02/2010)
Fabric 4 (8/02/2010)
Fabric 5 (8/02/2010)

If you're interested in purchasing one of these lovely little numbers, just email me (tracy@fatmummas.com.au) the fabric number with the date posted (8/2/2010).

Love and Peace

Fat Mumma xxx

Special Mini Bag Offer - ONLY $35.00

Fabric 1

Fabric 2

Fabric 3

Fabric 4
Fabric 5
Fabric 6

Fabric 7
Fabric 8
Fabric 9

Fabric 10


January special on mini bags...

We have these bags made up and raring to go. If you want one for ONLY $35.00, email me the Fabric Number and we'll make it happen!



Love and peace

FAT MUMMA xxxx