Micklethwaite Christmas House Fair

Our house turned into a shop!

Setting up shop!

On Tuesday 4th December we turned our house into a pop up shop for the day for people to come and make a start on their Christmas shopping and raise money for the Atulya Home in Delhi.

We raised £200 for the Atulya girls home - Thank you so much to all of you came and made it such a lovely and successful day! 

Getting lost in Sleepwear....

I am currently planning my trip to Delhi at the end of January and am literally counting the days!  Oh to be surrounded by divine fabrics, drinking chai with my friends and riding on a rickshaw through the narrow streets of Chandi Chowk. 

The MIHI team is in the process of designing and creating some gorgeous new sleepwear to be launched with the MIHI website early next year.  These will all be ordered through our fantastic suppliers during my time Delhi.  I hope to pick up some lace, ribbon, buttons and other fabrics & materials that will be incorporated into our new designs!

Pretty floaty tops - some inspiration for sleepwear sets...

Nightie Inspiration!

A June Wedding...

Small White Ribbon Roses on MiHi Loves cards, for each of the female guests.

A sea of White Ribbon Roses....

When planning my wedding I knew instantly that I wanted it to not only be a celebration but to also have an ethical element to it. After spending some time in India and seeing the beautiful rose hairclips that are made by women who have come out of the sex trade and boys that have HIV.  I knew that the hairclips were the perfect wedding favours for my wedding. 

I was very excited when they arrived in plenty of time before the wedding. The hair clips had been beautifully packaged in tissue paper and dried roses and they looked stunning.  The bridesmaids wore the hairclips in their hair, which completed their outfits.

The guests loved them, the women put the roses in their hair and the men clipped them to their suit pockets. Every one was interested in the ethos behind the hair clips. 

I would definitely recommend mihi roses for your wedding – they will definitely make your wedding day extra special and your guests will love them and the story behind the roses. 

Bethany Taylor

Wales

Although love is an intensely private affair...

Once the giddy romantic feelings of getting engaged began to subside, Ryan and I began to think through our wedding and creatively brainstorm how our wedding could make a difference in other people’s lives, not just our own!  We were keen to steer clear of the mammoth wedding industry that tempted us to believe that in order to have a perfect day we had to spend vast amounts of money on over-priced products sold by faceless companies of their recommendation – and instead we desired our wedding to be a multicolored tapestry of love, creativity and beauty that would directly benefit those most vulnerable in society.   

The bride with miHi rose clip...

Although love is an intensely private affair, it is also wholehearted communal.  I love the sentiment expressed by activist and writer, Wendell Berry, who understands that, “lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community.”  In an attempt, albeit a small one, to turn our gaze back towards others, we longed for our wedding to sing out a song of hope and inclusion to those who were marginalized and use our wedding budget to support small businesses whose owners were journeying on the path towards self-employment. 

miHi bunting available for hire.  Made from 10 sari's!

I had always admired miHi’s rose hair clips, and was struck at the way that miHi was partnering with marginalised women in Delhi, such as those from the red-light district, and encouraging and supporting them out of abject poverty or degrading work, through the making of beautiful jewellery, bunting and hair clips…For us, this pointed towards hope for dignity was slowing being restored as products of exquisite beauty were flowing out from dark and sordid places.  Instantly we thought of the floral rose clips that I had seen on miHi’s website – and began to think through a vintage wedding theme whereby each woman guest could receive a beautiful pearl decorated floral rose clip as a wedding favor.  

We swiftly put in an order at miHi, and a few weeks later, received a beautiful personalize package of perfectly-made rose hair clips – with a letter which explained that a lady called Bindu in the slums of Delhi, had made them for our wedding.  As we received the package, I was struck at how this small choice that we had made was enabling Bindu’s business to grow and providing her an alternative income enabling her to provide for her family in a dignifying manner.  The truth of Mother Teresa’s words rang in my ears, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

With a similar hope in mind, we contacted businesswomen in London who were self-employed, many of who were single mothers from low-income families, who had begun their own businesses in order to escape the trap of the welfare system.  We were in touch with Paula*, a single mother and cake-maker-extraordinaire, and began to plan with her a three-tiered carrot-cup cake wedding cake decorated with turquoise butterflies.  In the same way, the flowers, the delicious chocolate brownie deserts, the hiring of equipment, the lamb for spit roasting - were all sourced through small businesses.

Gorgeous butterfly cupcakes...

Through organizing our wedding, I realized that it is the small choices that we make in our life, that are likely to have the biggest impact on others…it was choosing for our wedding favors to come from miHi that meant our wedding was able to benefit and support Bindu in the slums of Delhi – it was making choices that would benefit those who struggle at the margins of our society that will begin to restore dignity to people whilst creating a beautiful tapestry of beauty…indeed our wedding might have only been one stone that was cast, but my guess is that it did create many ripples.

*Not a real name

Hearts and Roses for a Swedish Wedding...

Caroline and Daniel Wangler got married in May, this year, in Sweden.  For their wedding they used miHi loves lace lavender bags and green organza rose hairclips as beautiful wedding favours for their guests.

"We cannot say thank you enough for the beautiful roses and the lovely scented lavenderhearts that we gave to our guests as wedding favours, on our wedding in May. They were very much appreciated and really added to the decorations in the hall and made it very special. It was lovely to see the female guests wearing the roses in their hair during the evening. I had a similar one in my hair.
The lavender hearts were so cute and adorable with the delicate lace around each heart and they really enhanced the table decorations. We wanted a really romantic theme and it became much more than we could ever imagine.
This is a long-lasting memory for us and our friends!
With love
Caroline & Daniel Wangler"

To the Hairdressers!

This morning our lovely local hairdresser took miHi's gorgeous hairclips to sell...

If you are in Fulham why not pop into me me's and check out our roses!
635 Fulham Road
London SW6 5UQ

Tel.020 7731 2132

Now available to buy - Country Floral Roses!

These gorgeous country floral roses are now available to buy from miHi!

If you are looking for some orginal, pretty wedding favours, a gift, or wanting some floral magic for your hair this summer then take a look at our new selection!

Colour on a rainy day...

The traffic in London was solid this morning as my husband (who was driving) and I sat in the cosy nest of our car with the rain pelting down hard against our windscreen. Late, warm and concealed from our dingy and soulless commuter surroundings.  One daring blast of the horn, signalled the impatience of another driver..  Women in neat black suits and trainers walking swiftly, a man with a newspaper shielding his head from the rain, all disappeared from my mind and instead I saw brightly coloured saris being scooped up out of puddles, an ocean of dirty water flooding down the road and I heard the strangely comforting sound of friendly horns, faded Bollywood music drifting out of rickshaws and the Delhi rain pelting...

In my mind I was back in Delhi, where I had lived for 4 years as apart of the New Generation Community and where the idea and vision for miHi was birthed.

I smiled as I compared the rainy London scene to Delhi and as I thought nostalgically about the colour and the life that the city seemed to embody.  No matter if you were walking in the monsoon rains, sitting in a slum drinking chai or slouched in the hairdressers, the scene around you would always been one of pockets of vibrant, outrageous colour.  Clashing colours worn together in London may seem awkward like a stranger striking up an in depth conversation with you on a silent tube.  Yet in Delhi, the colours, hang together seamlessly like a rhythmic tune   A mix of aromatic spices, an army of salwar kameezs in the blistering heat, a row of enchanting bangles - colours displayed excitedly in every shape and form.  While I was living in Delhi I was working with some women who had suffered much and whose lives were made up of broken relationships and much pain. The colour and surroundings in Delhi were a constant reminder of hope and opportunity, even amongst dusty and hard situations.

 
A lot of the miHi love's collection is inspired by the colours of India.  Our products are made in Delhi and carry a message of joy and hope!  All our handmade roses are named after different cities all around India, so enjoying choosing between an Ooty Olive Green or Pushka Plum rose!

 If you are looking to add some colour to your wardrobe during these bleak April showers, then why not browse through our miHi love's range!

While the rain continues to pour in London...relentlessly, I enjoy wearing my vibrant Rajasthani earrings and roses, which remind me fondly of my time in Delhi and the life lessons she taught me.

Delhi, A Date and Decorations...

A guest wearing the wedding favours: a green organza rose and small Rajasthani earrings

You can not really imagine life after THE date.  For months and many magical weeks (magical in the sense that they seemed to contain some hidden power that meant they take an eternally long time to pass and then overnight vanish right before your eyes!) you are planning and deciding things that will happen on one date.  All of a sudden you have a myriad of decisions and things to organise in preparation for the big day - your wedding day!

For me the date was July 16th last year...

From the momentous moment you hear yourself saying 'I do', you can finally allow your imagination, that has been sealed under lock and key, to be allowed full reign and freedom to imagine what your life will look like together.  Just as your fiancee is wiping the sweat off his brow, trying to stand up  quickly having been on one knee, his mind is already ticking over which restaurant you go to to celebrate and wondering will there be space...

My mind was elsewhere...

I was living in Delhi at the time (we got engaged in the Garden of 5 Senses)  working within the New Generation Trust Community.  miHi loves was born out of a desire to work with the marginalised in the community in South Delhi and create a business that makes beautiful gifts and decorations.  All profits from miHi loves goes towards supporting the fantastic work on the New Generation Trust - you can read more about the work that they do on the 'about us' page of this blog.

My fiancee was based in London during the engagement, and so much of our engagement was long distance, interspersed with a couple of short trips home where lots of wedding planning took place!

We had decided to get married on the Isle of Wight, a place that we had both spent many summers growing up and where my fiancee's grandparents still have a house (the Old Orchard), which is nestled on the top of the hill, next to a little orchard.

It was so much fun planning a wedding and we were both so excited to bring our family and friends together to celebrate.  Just like the moment after our engagement when our minds were focused on different things, I foolishly assumed that all the ideas and thoughts I had had, surrounding how our ideal wedding would be, would be exactly what was in my fiancee's head.  It was not!

A tea party, a wedding on the beach at dawn, a sit-down dinner at a hotel, we rattled through so many options, until we finally both agreed on an exotic English country garden themed wedding at Ed's grandparents' house, The Old Orchard.  It was very much a country garden setting with burst of Indian colour and life!  Having spent four years out in Delhi, it meant so much to me to be surrounded by gorgeous hints of India.  Friends travelled from Delhi to be there for the wedding, which made it all the more special.

We planned to have the wedding service in the afternoon, followed by a drinks reception at the Old Orchard and then later dinner and dancing in the marquee, placed over the orchard, with a large tree in the centre!

The Marquee - bespoke sari bunting made by a lady from the community in Delhi

I wanted to use miHi loves products for my wedding day so decided to order bunting and wedding favours.  From the picture of the marquee above you can see the colourful bunting that was made specially for our wedding.  Meandering through a Saturday market in Delhi,  one day during my engagement, I saw some gorgeous saris.  These stunning saris, 10 in totally, were made into the bunting for my wedding by a lady who is from the local community in Delhi.  I was absolutely thrilled with the bunting and it made the marquee look so stunning and colourful.

Each of the female guests received an organza rose hair clip and some Rajasthani earrings.  What about the guys, I hear you cry!  I could not think of a wedding favour they would like,  so if you have ideas please contact me on sarahebowring@gmail.com and miHi loves will launch a more masculine range!

It was so special being able to give a small gift to our guests, that they could wear during the wedding and take home with them too.  I loved knowing that each rose had been handmade by Bindu, a woman who lives in a slum in South Delhi.  Normally Bindu, much like other people who live in the slum, sort through the rubbish - a much needed job in the city and one that offers a great service for its inhabitants.  Needless to say, the job is degrading and physically very demanding.  Making roses, offered Bindu some additional income and job security.  miHi loves wants to help people like Bindu through giving them employment opportunities and access to better education and resources, through helping fund the New Generation Trust projects.

Green Organza rose made by Bindu and Rajasthani Earrings

Our wedding day was all that we had dreamt that it would be and more!  We really wanted to have some unique touches to our wedding and we are thrilled to have had miHi loves decorations and favours. To be so a part of the process, in being able to use the colours and fabrics of our choice and to know directly how buying from miHi loves supports individuals in the community in Delhi made a real difference.

If you would like to use miHi loves decorations and favours at an up-and-coming event or wedding, please do get in contact with us.

Handmade in Delhi...

I watch Bindu twist and sew the ribbon, in the February sunlight in Delhi... Within a few minutes, what was a clip, a piece of ribbon and feather had now been transformed into a beautiful rose hair clip. Bindu lives in a slum in South Delhi and is one of the people who miHi employs to make the products that can be viewed on this blog.

The rose hairclips is how the miHi journey began... We wanted to provide women in the Atulya Home (set up to look after women from abusive situations) with an opportunity to earn a decent income and learn a new skill.

The roses have been very popular with our customers in the few years that we have been producing them. They are now selling in India, UK, Australia, USA and Sweden!

The roses are just the beginning of the journey. As you can see from the different photos on this blog - miHi is now making an array of ethical gifts, decorations and wedding favours.

We will regularly update this blog with new products and miHi news which will aim to inspire and give you some great ideas for ethical decorations and gifts.

Thanks for joining us on the miHi journey...