Check out the great Organic teething Bonbon review on Cool Mom Picks!

Cool Mom Picks – Bonbons for babies

It’s only Tuesday, but it’s already been a busy week for Kai Kids. First we were featured in the Toronto Star’s Sunday edition, which brought us lots of online traffic and kept us busy shipping parcels off to new customers, yippee!

Plus,  I was invited to be the guest blogger over at Canadian Family’s blog for the week, in honour of Earth Day! My first post went up today: fun ways you can help your kids grow up green. Check it out, and if you haven’t already, spend some time on their site: it’s an excellent magazine and web resource for parents, full of Canadian content, and over the past few months, they’ve really beefed up their coverage of three of my favourite topics: the environment, mompreneurs and social media!

Check out The Toronto Star today for an excellent, personal piece by reporter Francine Kopun on trying to get through a typical family’s week without plastic. It sounds like a real challenge. Depressing really, to think of how reliant we’ve become on the stuff, and just how impossible it is to completely avoid it!

Kopun tries to avoid plastic food packaging and find plastic-free alternatives to tupperware containers, plastic bags and water bottles. And great news for us, she found some at our online eco store, Kai Kids!

Since the article hit the web and newsstands this morning, we’ve almost sold out of one of our newest green products: organic cotton mesh produce bags. They are washable, reusable and very handy for the grocery store or farmer’s market. If you came to Kai Kids searching for them and we don’t have enough of the size you would like, please email us at info@kaikids.com. We are now taking preorders for a new shipment due midweek!

A while back I sent one of my favourite Kai Kids products off to the ladies at Babyvibe and Kindervibe in BC (great newsletters for parents featuring tips and amazing new products, even if you aren’t lucky enough to live on the Best, er, West coast).  One of the moms behind the scenes, Nancy, has been trying them out for over a month with her family and loves them (I knew she would)!

Check out their review, which hit the ether earlier today via their newsletter and their website:

 ”not a school day has passed where it hasn’t been incorporated into this Kindervibe momma’s lunch-making duties!”

These handy stainless steel lunch containers are a great size for kids (small, med and large), and the company was started by by two moms here in Toronto! Being parents in biz ourselves, at Kai Kids, we are all about supporting other mompreneurs!

A nice boost for us on this  chilly, dreary March day in Toronto: our eco-friendly online boutique Kai Kids is featured in the ParentEntrepreneur Spotlight on CanadianBabies.Ca – the A-Z Directory of All Things Baby. The site has a special section that profiles Canadian parents who have launched their own businesses, to help inspire other moms and also so that readers can find out about new and innovative Canadian products and businesses to support. They also have excellent national and regional newsletters about family events going on around the country and a directory of resources for parents.

Thank you CanadianBabies.ca, for the opportunity!

We just received our issue of Canadian Gardening magazine and they have a great spread in their November 2008 issue on Canadian eco-friendly gifts made by artists. We made the cut, as they featured one of my favourite products in our online store, a unique, gorgeous piece of art by Toronto artist and mom Sandra from Petit Flaneur.  Sandra creates one-of-kind canvases using non-toxic paint, wood veneer and fabric scraps. Some have a garden theme, some feature birds, and all are lovely and are perfect for kids rooms as well as other spots around the house (the garden ones would look amazing on a kitchen wall).  They are small, and a perfect, and very original Christmas or new baby gift!

Since we launched our Kai Kids  online boutique a year ago (yippee, we made it through our first year of business!) we’ve had some amazing attention and support from blogs, Canadian and American. In fact, we haven’t done much advertising at all, and many new customers have come our way via the blogosphere. (thank you TeensyGreen.com, GreatGreenBaby.com, CoolMomPicks.com, Ecochick.ca, Modecokids.com and others!)

This fall, we are thrilled to have finally had some print magazine coverage as well!  Here is a roundup of Kai Kids in the recent print and online press:

-In September, we made it into KIWI magazine’s print edition. They wrote a short piece on natural teething solutions, and profiled our Kai Kids top seller, The Ringley Natural Teething Toy, which we are proud to say, was created here in Toronto by a mom we know, Shaindy Alexander!

-In November, the online home of Parents magazine (a fave of mine) included us in their annual HolidayGift Guide, profiling our Organic Teething Bon Bon created by our friend Tressa Brotsky from Dress Me Up in Victoria, BC. It is a great little teether and is quickly becoming a fave amongst our customers.

-Also this month, Checkerspot Magazine, the bi-annual publication of the World Wildlife Fund, featured Tressa’s Organic Teething Bon Bon in their Organic Holiday Gift Guide in the Fall/Winter edition. Check out the spread to read the review!

Stay tuned as our new Carrot Top Kisses organic PJ’s are about to be featured in Canadian Family’s next edition, plus the gorgeous, one-of-a-kind canvases for kids rooms by mom/artist Sandra from Petit-Flaneur, will also be highlighted in an upcoming issue of Canadian Gardening. 

I have no idea how they found me (ah the power of the Internet), but the big U.S. parenting site iparenting.com emailed me earlier this summer and said they wanted to profile me for their Mom of the Month feature!Since previous picks included celebrity moms such as Keri Russell, Ricki Lake and Molly Shannon, I found it funny that they somehow decided upon me ( I live in Toronto, I’m in no way famous, ha!). It also felt odd because since most of my career has been spent as a reporter and editor, i’m usually on the other side of the notepad! But i was honoured to be selected and featured. It seems they chose me because of my philosophy on raising kids green, attempts to have our family live a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle, and our decision to start our company, Kai Kids, to help us and other families make that easier.The article was recently published over at iparenting.com and it’s a lovely piece. The writer spent a long time on the phone with me asking lots of questions about how we live our life and about my tips for greening your family. When she heard that we often eat vegetarian meals and that my kids really like beans and chickpeas etc., she even asked for one of our family standby recipes, so you’ll also find a recipe for my kids’ favourite bean & cheese quesadillas!So check it out – September’s Mom of the Month! (if only they knew how my floors so desperately need to be washed, that the laundry is piling up, and that we had takeout for dinner last night!)

Robin at Comox Valley Kids blog just wrote an article about us, posted on Feb. 1st. Robin, thanks so much for the flattering post- we are glad you like our organic baby and maternity clothes! Check out Robin’s blog – it’s a great resource for parents with preschoolers at home. Although some of the activities are specific to her enviable location on Vancouver Island, she has lots of good ideas for crafts you can do on a rainy day and also, a fantastic Rainy Day Book Club, with some excellent kids book recommendations.

Canadian Store Launches Green Baby Products; Recent Scares Prompt Parents To Seek Safer, Eco-Friendly Alternatives

Here is our press release, announcing the launch of Kai Kids (albeit a little late ) that went out on Jan 31, 2008.