We are safely back in Seatown after a PAWESOME weekend at Portland’s Crafty Wonderland! It was our first craft fair and we were not sure what to expect in terms of attendance, size, etc. That said, we were blown away by how amazingly well put together Crafty Wonderland was and how many rad people and vendors we met both days. It was announced at the end of Sunday night that about 16,000 (!) people visited Crafty Wonderland over the weekend! Between all the amazing vendors and free crafting demos, we hope all those thousands of people had as great of a time as we did!
Chris brought her last set of marimo moss ball babies as a last minute addition to the table and they were such a hit! Marimo are aquatic moss balls that live at the bottom of only two lakes in Japan and Iceland and can live to be hundreds of years old. Cultivated marimo live in common tap water and household light and grow about 1-5MM a year. Gwynne gave Chris a marimo for Christmas 4 or 5 years ago (marimo are often considered a symbol of eternal love and friendship in Japan), not knowing it would lead to Chris being a master marimo wrangler! The marimos sold out so quickly we didn’t even get a chance to snap a pic of them! We were able to get a few pictures of proud marimo parents though.
- Happy new owners of baby marimo!
- Evan (and his amazing mustache) with his newly adopted marimo baby! Evan was holding down the fort at Man’s Face Stuff a few tables down from us!
Our goony tissue holders were very popular with both kids and adults – one customer told us it was the perfect gift for her mother because her mom “loves gold lamé and has nasal issues!” Hahaha! It was fun to hear that people identifed with Photocopying Bear (Gwynne was telling people it was a self-portrait from her first job a few years ago) or that a Bogbot print will be the perfect Christmas present for someone’s brother.
She was excited to use these two tissue derps as stocking stuffers this Christmas!
Proud owner of a "Paper Trail" Woodgill print!
Sunday 6PM came a lot faster than we expected – we broke down our booth, had a nice, hot dinner at The Liberty Glass, and finally hit the road back to Seattle. Thanks for the hospitality, Portland! See you next year, Crafty Wonderland!
We will continue stocking our Etsy for last minute gift giving! Check back often!
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Happy Sinterklaas, everyone!
Crafty Wonderland in Portland is just around the corner so we’ve been making our inventory lists and checking them twice! Over the past year we’ve mostly worked on pieces for shows and various commissioned projects and haven’t really had a chance to make fun stuff just for the heck of it. Working on new items for Crafty Wonderland has been a great way to end 2011 on a creative bang!
We knew we needed an extra set of paws and recruited Chris Smith, a frequent MonoCollaborator (notably on our big Fort show at the Anne Bonney) and bestfreen, to stamp out buttons, doodle on mugs, and find lots of ways to slack off. Check out these amazingly goofy Tissue Derps she sewed up! These guys are sure to make your sniffles more bearable this winter. Gesundheit!
We’ve also printed up some Monocol cards for sending yuletide greetings to your freens and fambly! Printed with our trusty Gocco, we hope you’ll want to send a Yuletide Bear or Happy Happy Holiday Hippo this year.You can find these card sets in our Etsy as well as at our table at Crafty Wonderland!
The Monolab is busy with lots of drawing, painting, sewing, and printing. We are excited to adventure our way to Portland in December for Crafty Wonderland’s Super Colossal Holiday Sale - only a few weeks away!
We are bring lots of new prints, birthday calendars, temporary tattoos, cards, mugs, and buttons to Crafty Wonderland. Not to mention all the other 200+ vendors selling independent and handmade things perfect for gift-giving to your best freens, teachers, bus drivers, and zoo keepers! We will also be stocking our Etsy with our new creations in case you don’t live near Portland!
Good grief! Can you believe 2011 is almost ready for its swan song, Monofreens?! We better get this November Desktop Calendar posted before the year completely sneaks out the door with us none the wiser!
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We are putting on our elf hats early (well, for us, that is!) and cranking out lots of new stuff for December. This new found motivation is due to the fact that we will be at Portland’s Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale from December 10th-11th!
Stay tuned for updates on projects and in the shop - we hope to see you in the PDX!
Monocol designed a series of posters for The Grand Illusion Cinema’s upcoming event, “The Dennis Nyback History of Animation”! It runs from November 4–10, details at their website.
Catch them while you can at Honore Bakery through the month of October!
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We were excited to put up a new show, Just Sayin: Advice from Discerning Animals, at Argyle Salon in Bellingham this month! The show features animals (and one human) painted in acrylic on birchwood panels dispensing some sage advice (whether you want it our not). It’s our first show in Bellingham and it will be up through October! Thanks Clara and Lucas for the opportunity!
Ahoy-hoy!
We can’t believe it is already September! Labor Day snuck up on us, so apologies for the late calendar post! We’ve been busy with finishing up some shows (more on that later, we promise!) and enjoying the last bit of summer here in Seattle.
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Though we are a bit sad to see Summer go, September means back to school, football games, corn mazes, and going to the fair! GO TEAM!
Monopics
Random pictures from our past and present!
