What we did at the weekend

We had a visit to Smile Acorns, the first retail outlet where you can buy a small selection of t-shirts from our range!  Located on lovely farmland in the North West of England, Smile Acorns is run by Emma, a fellow mum and maker of lovely childrenswear.  

                   

The shop is part of a larger farm complex, called Inglenook Farm.  Other shops on site include a guitar shop, traditional farm shop showcasing the best of the region’s local produce, including Lytham Coffee, and the main product of the farm itself – essential oils and soaps from the fields of lavender growing outside!  The stars of the show at the moment have to be the newly-arrived twin baby goats.  

There’s also a traditional team rooms and a barn for hire.  Last week was an Easter fun day for children, but chickens were also welcome, and keen to get stuck in!  

You can find Smile Acorns just off what my dad calls ‘the Southport Road’, or the A570 as the rest of us know it.  It’s close to Haydock, but even with race meet traffic on a busy Saturday, we drove there in about half an hour from the outskirts of Manchester.  A good time was had by all (I went with my daughter, niece, nephew, dad and sister – a real family day out!)

What are we all about then, part two.

A couple of weeks ago, when we started our Indiegogo campaign, I wrote a blog explaining a bit about who we were, and the reasons why we started Mimi and Will.

As I said in that post, the idea sparked when we wanted to buy a children’s t-shirt by a designer we knew, and discovered that producing screen-printed shirts in a range of children’s sizes wasn’t really viable for independent designers. We saw an opportunity to promote independent design, work with some really exciting, creative people, and make some really good t-shirts.

When we were looking at t-shirt suppliers and screenprinters, supporting small businesses and making really good t-shirts were our guiding principles. Our t-shirts are fairly traded, high quality cotton, screenprinted in the U.K. using eco-friendly inks.

That means we’re doing our bit to support independent businesses (and the environment), but we’ve also ticked the ‘really good t-shirt’ box too; high quality cotton feels nicer to wear and they wash well, last longer than thinner cotton shirts, and so make great presents that can be handed down.

And why are these two things important to us? We’ve both dabbled in the maker/ seller movement and know how hard it is for artists, designers and makers to make a living from their work. And it’s not just ‘creative’ businesses that find it hard- according to Enterprise Nation, 99% of businesses in the United Kingdom are classified as small, but this is a sector that has little or no support in order to promote growth.

We’re only a tiny business, and we don’t pretend that we’re going to make a huge difference on our own. But we’d like to be part of the growing number of people who are trying, in some way, to make a difference collectively.

And the making good t-shirts part? Well, we just really, really, love a good t-shirt.