Brand New Items!

Brand new items are coming into Mulberry Toys everyday now! A few of our favorites...

Bilingual Zingo

The original Zingo has been a hit with every kid we know...& now we have it in Spanish! What a great way to practice some basic Spanish vocabulary...Bingo with a Zing (or Bingo con un Zing!).

Sticky Mosaics Riding School

Sticky Mosaics are always popular at Mulberry. Ponies are also very popular. Put the two together...what could be better? Comes with four designs that are sure to please your little horse lover!

Lemon Lion Fuzzy Friends

This cheerful Lion is a great new addition to our baby room! You can't help but smile when you see his bright stripes, polka dots, & happy face. Also check out other new Alex Jr. favorites like the You & Me Mirror, Discovery Car, Lemon Lion Busy Blankie, & Busy Ball!

This Week's Favorites

First...Back Sacks by Crocodile Creek! These are waterproof and great for summer outings to the pool and lake! Back Sacks come in many different colors and designs for both boys and girls...dinosaurs, butterflies, vehicles, planets, & more! Pair with the matching Stainless Steel Water Bottle for a great birthday gift!

Next...Mini Chic Fashion Designer by Shure. Exactly what the young up-&-coming fashion designer needs! I saw this at Toy Fair in New York back in February & wanted it for myself! Includes stencils, paper "fabrics," & tons of ideas! Not only is the Fashion Designer fun, but it also teaches about color theory, careers in the fashion industry, etc.

And last, an old favorite...Lincoln Logs. When it's just too hot to play outside, come in & build a log cabin! Sure to please kids of every age!

Stop by Mulberry Toys & check out these & all of our other favorites!

Mulberry Favorites

Ever feel overwhelmed when you walk into a store & want every single thing there? Well, we're here to help! The sensational staff here at Mulberry will be picking favorite items to tell you about each week!

One of our most recent favorites is the Music Maker by European Expressions.

I love music, & I love to play music, but I despise trying to read music! Therefore, this is the perfect instrument for me! The Music Maker comes with 12 songs, a tuner, a pick, and even some extra wire. By simply slipping a song sheet under the strings, you can easily sound like a world-renown musician. Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch...but I think my family would much rather hear me play the many songs that I have perfected on the Music Maker instead of the one song I have memorized that I can play on the piano!

Next up is Melissa & Doug's Safari Floor Puzzle!

I love the vibrant colors and beautiful African landscape. With zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, & more...what could be better? The Safari Floor Puzzle is 100 thick pieces & measures over four feet long!

And last...one of my all-time favorites, Alice the Fairy by David Shannon!

You may remember David Shannon from one of his other favorites like No, David! or How I Became a Pirate. I love all of his books, but Alice the Fairy is my favorite, hands (& fairy wings) down! Shannon tells the story of Alice, a young, spunky fairy. She is only a Temporary Fairy because "you have to pass alot of tests" to be a Permanent Fairy. Though she has not quite mastered the use of her wand, she is excellent with her imagination & manages to complete some very interesting spells!

Hurry over to Mulberry Toys to check out our favorites!

"Mulberry"

Mulberry [muhl-ber-ee]

-verb

1. to decorate with brightly colored paints
2. to add pattern to a previously dull wall (polka dots, stripes, argyle, geometric shapes, retro designs, animal print, etc.)

We’ve mulberried the previously white walls of 235 South Main Street & are ready to throw some birthday parties & cool summer classes!

Check out our summer schedule here & stop by the store to purchase your punch card!

"Hi" From Your Mulberry Summer Intern

As a first-time Mulberry blogger, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Lindsey & I am the lucky girl who gets to intern with these fun people! I’ve worked with Mulberry for awhile, but now I am going to actually get school credit for it! I am a senior at North Georgia College in beautiful Dahlonega, Georgia & will graduate next May with a degree in English with a concentration in Writing & Publication (kind of North Georgia’s version of a Journalism degree).

I look forward to keeping you updated on all of the Mulberry events this summer as we prepare to launch our new addition, Mulberry Too!

We Tweet!

Yep, we're officially members of the twitter community. Our twitter name is MulberryToys....wow what a stretch. Anyway, we're still learning and exploring Twitter's use but so far it's been tons of fun.
Please choose to follow us and you'll get updates on funny things that happen, new items that arrive.

Michelle

MULBERRY TOO!

I promised you some exciting news and I've made you wait long enough. I've been busy scaping dried paint off my elbows and asking myself why I wore my best jeans when I knew I'd be painting. So yes, we're back at it. I thought I'd washed out my last brush and put the rollers away forever, or at least a year, but progress can't be stopped. Michelle and I are in the process of "Mulberrying up" our newest project, a class/event/party facility called Mulberry Too. We can hardly wait for you to see it and hope you'll be able to join us for our Open House scheduled for the last week in April. I have to say it looks FABULOUS! We've learned a lot about decorative painting so if you want help let us know. (Of course, one thing we've learned is that it's tedious and time-consuming so be sure to bring your checkbook when you come to talk to us about painting for you because we'll probably charge about a million dollars, and trust me, that's a bargain!) So anyway, "the boys," as Michelle calls our husbands, are putting down floor this weekend and we have strict instructions to have all the painting finished by Friday at midnight. If you want to help, drop by Mulberry Too, located in the back of the Morgan County Citizen building. You can't miss us...the door is blue! Check your e-mail for the latest on our Mulberry Summer Program and call us when you're ready to plan the most fantastic, over-the-top, blowout party ever!

Home Again, Home Again

Now that we're back in the beautiful state of Georgia, the real work of ToyFair begins. We have more orders to make, more catalogs to peruse, and boxes to open as they arrive. Michelle is especially talented at displaying all the great toys that come into Mulberry. Yep, it's a good thing I'm not in charge of that. It would probably look more like a Sam's Club and not the hip and happening place that it is.

Well, here's a little secret, or at least a teaser about a secret. Something big is in the works for Mulberry. Stay tuned and be the first to know. As anyone in my family can tell you, I just can't keep a secret, so please don't tempt me. But I can hardly wait to let the cat out of the bag...

Toy Fair 2009

Greetings from New York City! It's so exciting to be in one of the most vibrant cities in the world and we get to call it work! We flew in on Valentine's Day and even though we left our Valentine boys at home we were blessed to take our girls with us. We had a day and a half before the show started to explore and experience the city. If you've never been and you have the opportunity to go, I think everyone should visit "the city," as it's called, at least once. There is so much history here and many wonderful tour guides just waiting to share it all with you.

We had the pleasure of eating at the Stardust Diner, where aspiring Broadway performers entertain throughout your meal, all for the price of dinner. That's really something! Broadway quality entertainment without the expense of the theater. Of course, we hit the theaters, too. We saw Shrek (starring the up-and-coming Broadway legend, Sutton Foster), In the Heights, and Guys and Dolls (with Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham as Adelaide). Lindsey and I spent an afternoon wondering through the Metropolitan Museum and Central Park. Michelle and Jessie and our right-hand girl, LaChelle, took a bus tour of Manhattan and the surrounding area. We had breakfast with the locals in some really cool diners, getting a taste for a real New York bagel. And we actually managed to show up at the Javits Center for the Toy Fair, too. It must be about a billion square feet of wall-to-wall toy vendors, a toy-seller's Mecca. We can't wait to introduce you to all the new toys we saw. Keep logging onto mulberrytoys.com to see them as they arrive at the store.

ToyFair or Bust!

We're leaving for ToyFair in NYC today. Not with the chickens, but early enough to still have most of the day to play when we get there. We did ToyFair completely wrong last year. Gone is the rookie mindset that we must see every booth and meet every vendor. This year will be ToyFair the Mulberry Way! We'll work and make time for time play. Check back to read all about our adventures in Toyland!

P.S. We know it's Valentine's Day so if you see one of my Valentine's wondering around lost and lonely without me, give him a hug!

Michelle vs. Vanessa

Michelle and I have really gotten into fitness. She's probably more into it than I am though. She told me this morning that she was doing Zumba moves through the local cemetery as she walked her dogs. One of her moves looked kind of like an ostrich to me, but I'm definitely not the expert here. When we go to our Zumba class, I stand in the back, doing my best to be invisible. The other ladies say, "Come on up to the front; no one's looking at you." Yeah, right...I know that's not true because I definitely watch them and let me just say that I'm not the only non-expert there. When the hour class is over, I am covered in sweat with a heart rate that would rival that of an Olympian, and I have been well entertained, mostly by my own antics. (BTW, never heard of Zumba? Check out zumbafitness.com)

We're also crazy for racquetball. Michelle is teaching me. Nothing that requires any athletic skill comes naturally for me. That's probably why she likes to play with me. She told me today that although I lost (again), I'd made a valiant effort. My translation: "No matter how hard you tried, you failed and you'll never amount to anything on the racquetball court." (By the way, I immediately put the word "valiant" in my Book of Favorite Words.)

So I think that we will add a new dimension to our fitness program...one in which I can excel and possibly even win. A spelling bee perhaps...

P.S. Just so you know, Michelle is one of my favorite people in the world and I thank God everyday that she is a part of my life. (Of course, sometimes I thank him while holding a small doll of her likeness and a cushion of pins in my hands.)

Snow Day!

We held our first 2nd Saturday event today, Snow Day! Now as those of you from our neck of the woods well know, we don't see much snow in Madison, Georgia. But we love to read about it and talk about it and even make it. Yes, we made snow and snowballs! Michelle dazzled us with her storytelling abilities, reading my new favorite book, Thomas' Snowsuit by Robert Munsch, author of the beloved Love You Forever. If you haven't read it, you must! You'll laugh out loud when grouchy Thomas ends up wearing his teacher's dress. What mom hasn't battled with her child over what she (or he) refuses to wear! I remember the day my son announced he was no longer wearing anything that included even a hint of purple, and it seems as if 30% of my daughter's clothes made her itch.

We gathered with a capacity crowd and had a great time. The kids even made an edible snowman out of that preschool staple, marshmallows. It's amazing what you can do with a marshmallow! Add some pretzels, a dab of icing here and there, some black gel, a junior mint and somehow you end up with a snowman. Our February 2nd Saturday Love-fest is already full. So if you're interested in March, call now!

Gotta go...it's January and I'm always on a Flurry Watch.

Happy New Year!

I love a new year; it's a clean slate, a field of freshly fallen snow, one with no footprints whatsoever. You find your own path. You don't have to travel the same route you did the last time you found yourself navigating that same field. You have choices, which make that field that you've traveled more times than you can count, totally different from the last time you traveled it. It's time we all put the mistakes of the past behind us; unburden ourselves of the decisions that have weighed us down; release the hurts that we have held close, and FLY. Rise above it all. When you get enough distance between you and all that "stuff," you'll find what everyone else already knew. None of it even matters. Come fly with us in 2009!