Who came out to our one-day Kai Kids Organic Baby Sale on Saturday!  Peter and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to you in person, and also seeing and playing with your kids. We had an excellent turnout on the Danforth and really appreciated those of you who came from other parts of town to shop and take advantage of our sale.

We also met some great new customers from the Danforth and Greenwood neighbourhood, many of whom were expecting their first babies! Thank you for shopping with us and we hope you’ll consider us if you need any other planet-friendly baby items down the road.

It seemed that our colourful new bibs, placemats and splash mats by Mimi the Sardine were the hit of the day, which was great feedback, as they are a brand new product line for us, so we are happy they were selling and popular with our customers.

For those of you who missed it, we are hosting another upcoming sale closer to  the holidays, on Saturday Dec. 6, 2008, in the same location at 1390 Danforth.  We hope to see you there!

It’s back – this weekend we are hosting our second Kai Kids Organic Baby Sale on the Danforth!

If you are in the Toronto-area, we hope you can make it out to our first of two holiday shopping days on Sat. Nov 1, 2008! (the next one will be on Saturday Dec. 6, 2008).

Taking place in a funky retail space on Danforth Avenue near Greenwood, we will have all of our organic, recycled, upcycled, eco-friendly and Fair Trade products on display to help you with your holiday shopping. Plus, for this one day only, we will have special sales on many items, from BornFree glass baby bottles to organic cotton onesies and sleepers to sexy, eco-friendly maternity and nursing wear!

You can place orders in advance for pickup at our one-day location, or shop in person. Come on out and try things on, have a good look at items you might be curious about and take advantage of our special sale prices.

You’ll also get a look at our newest products:

- Stainless Seal non-toxic, non-leaching, recyclable food containers:

- Dress Me Up’s charming, handmade organic teething bon bons, soft cloth balls blocks, bibs and burp cloths

- Adorable organic cotton fruit and veggie-printed PJ’s from New Jammies:

- Eco-Me’s make your own non-toxic cleaning kits for home and baby:

-Unscented, organic, allergy and eczema-friendly Little Twig bodywash/shampoo, bubble bath and lotion:

Tell your friends, bring along your kids (we’ll have some toys and colouring books to keep the wee ones occupied), and mark your calendars! Join us for green parenting tips, conversation and some fantastic holiday shopping!

Saturday Nov. 1, 2006 at 1390 Danforth Avenue (just east of Linsmore Avenue, one-minute from Greenwood subway station) from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

For more information, email us at info@kaikids.com

Even though my babies aren’t actually babies anymore, sigh, I still want to make sure that the items closest to their skin aren’t dosing them with any toxic chemicals. But although you can easily find organic cotton, soy and bamboo sleepers for babies, eco-friendly pjs for toddlers, preschoolers and older kids haved proved harder to find.

Until now! I haven’t yet posted them up on our online store, Kai Kids yet, but later today I plan to add the latest addition to our range of organic, non-toxic clothing for little ones: New Jammies. This U.S. company makes super-cute, super-soft sleepers, short and long pj sets for babies and preschoolers made from 100% certified organic cotton. With absolutely no flame retardents or finishing chemicals, they are soft on the skin, and soft on the earth too. My Big Boy and Little Guy are each getting a pair of the geckos print! Each pair comes in a reusable, eco-friendly cloth bag.

Coming soon!

We are always on the lookout for great new organic and earth-friendly products for our store, our own family and our customers. The past few months I’ve been especially interested in handmade, Canadian and mom-made baby products, and I’ve been hunting for artisans that use vintage or recycled fabrics. A few months ago I discovered some gorgeous upcycled baby items made by a Victoria, B.C., mom who runs a small company called Dress Me Up.

In July we added her popular Organic Teething Bonbon TM, to our Kai Kids online store and they’ve been selling well and are also starting to get some great media attention! We were excited to add another safe, non-toxic and Canadian teething toy to our lineup, as the Ringley Natural Teether has been such a hit with our customers since last winter!

I blog about our business and family here, and it turns out that Tressa from Dress Me Up also has a great blog over at her site. While reading her blog I found out that she would be making a trip to Naramata, B.C. this summer, which is where my family is and where I am spending this summer with Big Boy and the Little Guy! A few email exchanges and voila, a while back the two of us, both moms with new businesses and small children, found ourselves sitting in the sun at the only coffee shop in Naramata (a tiny village in the Okanagan Valley), drinking lattes and eating sour cherry muffins and homemade granola. It was my kind of breakfast meeting!

We talked kids, retailing and all about the struggles and truimphs we’ve both had so far navigating the previously unknown territory of starting up a business. Tressa and her lovely husband Nathanial also showed me her new lineup of products – some upcycled from vintage fabric finds, and many from oh-so-soft organic cotton flannel. Her products are finished to perfection, no flaws, with lovely modern, subtle designs of leaves and flowers embroidered on the flannel.

I’ll soon be putting in an order for some fun organic soft blocks (great for wee hands to grab, and safe to chew on as well!), adorable leaf bibs, soft balls and burb cloths sets. I am so excited to be carrying Tressa’s line, as everything is beautiful, unique, safe for babies and sustainable! And I’m also happy to have found another Canadian mompreneur to support with our business. I hope you’ll support her and us with your purchases, if you like her organic baby gear as much as i do!

Watch for the new additions soon!

Just a reminder that tomorrow is our special summer Kai Kids sale at a retail spot here in Toronto on the Danforth! It will be a first for us, as although we’ve done baby and eco shopping events with many vendors before, we’ve never hosted our own shopping day!

We will have a play area for the wee ones, a change room so you can try on our sexy maternitywear and comfy nursing tops, and lots of items on sale for tomorrow only!

So come on out and meet Peter and I and other like-minded parents trying to raise their kids in a way that’s healthier for them and better for our planet! We hope to see you!

Tuesday, July 8. 10 a.m. -6 p.m. 1390 Danforth Avenue, just east of Greenwood. 416-318-1501 for more information.

Peter and I love to do shopping shows, as we get to meet our customers, answer your questions, hear feedback about the products we carry and sell face to face. But most shows are seasonal and there are long gaps in between when it’s just us and our laptops, answering emails and shipping off parcels.

But that’s about to change! We’ve been offered an amazing retail space here in Toronto where we can host a shopping day! If it goes well, we’d like to make it a regular event and have a Kai Kids shopping day every month and eventually once a week.

For those of you in the Toronto-area who have been thinking about buying a Kai Kids item but want the chance to see and feel it, or ask some questions before you buy, this is a great opportunity! Especially if you are pregnant or nursing, as we have some funky, colourful and of course, earth-friendly maternity and nursing wear that you can try on as we will have a changeroom and mirror set up in the space. And we promise to have some special sales that day as well, available only to those customers who come out to visit us. We’ll be showcasing some amazing new products: Fleurville diaper bags:

Echoes in the Attic’s funky purses and totes:

Little Soles funky shoes for babies and toddlers:

and organic OneZees in a rainbow of colours.

So mark Tuesday July 8 on your calendars! We will be at 1390 Danforth Avenue, on the north side, just west of Greenwood Avenue (and subway stop) and east of Monarch Park Avenue. Hours are from 10-6 p.m. Email us at info@kaikids.com if you’d like more information, and please, tell all of your friends!

The Canada Day weekend is just around the corner and many of us will be heading camping, to the beach or to the cottage to get away and celebrate summer with family. In the woods, you’ll want to protect you and your little ones from pesky bugs and at Kai Kids, we now have just the thing! Seems when I ask other moms to recommend a natural, Deet-free, chemical-free outdoor spray, everyone in my neighbourhood uses the same kind: In the Bush Citronella Body Oil by Butterfly Weed Herbals. It’s been around for seven years, been used with apparent great success by tree-planters and campers (who should be experts in the stuff), and is all natural. It’s made by two herbalists in Scarborough Ontario, and is in a handy spray pump. Plus, it’s safe for kids and pets too! So we decided to add it to our store for summer. Coming soon, a fantastic, baby-safe, all natural sunscreen . . .

Many parents love to shop online, as once you are comfortable with it, and you trust the store you are dealing with, it is very fast and easy to fit into a hectic parent’s schedule! We notice that a lot of our customers make their purchases at night, once their wee ones are tucked into bed.

But there is a lot to be said for seeing and touching products in person, especially if they are made from eco-friendly fabrics such as soy and bamboo and organic cotton. These materials are so soft, you can feel it the moment you fingers rest upon them. They immediately feel different than those made from conventional fabrics.

Plus, if you are unsure about sizing, especially for maternity wear, shows give our customers the chance to try clothing on.

All this to say, that if you live in the Toronto area, we’d like to invite you to come meet us and check out all of our newest products, such as Natursutten natural rubber soothers, Bambu bowls and cutlery, the gorgeous and funky Fleurville diaper bags, sweet handknit organic booties and more!

We are part of two great shows coming up this month! On Friday May 30, we are thrilled to be taking part in the amazing Children’s Trunk Show at the historic Distillery District from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Look for our booth in the show’s brand new Green Room, a sure sign that low-impact, earth-friendly living is on the rise.

The next day, Saturday May 31, we will be at the GreenMom Green Spring Market. This will be our second time at the show; in fact, it’s where we launched Kai Kids last November! This one-day show isn’t all baby-focused. There will be a variety of vendors, with products for your home, skin, pets etc., all of them ethical and eco-friendly and many made in Canada and locally. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Needless to say, it’s going to be an exhausting weekend for me and Peter, and we are happy Peter’s mother will be back in town to take good care of our boys. But we are so looking forward to meeting our customers face-to-face! That’s been a fun part of running this business: we’ve met many lovely people along the way, via email, phone and some who come and pick up their orders in person. We’ve discovered that most are just like us — caring young parents, or grandparents, who want to do and buy better for their children and for the planet.

So please come out and meet us the last weekend in May! And for those of you outside Toronto, let’s hope that someday our business will have grown to the point where we can afford to do shows in other Canadian cities!

We’ve carried BornFree baby bottles since the beginning of January. When we first ordered, they were sold out of glass bottles. We just placed an order today and should have some 9 oz glass bottles in at Kai Kids soon! We will let you know when they have arrived. In the meantime, if you want to reserve some in advance, please email us at info@kaikids.com and we can make sure we put some aside for you as soon as they come in.

New product alert: We have some super cute new Babysoy clothes in now: cute new fleece pants and layered long-sleeved shirts with animal screenprints in toddler sizes! Check them out!