Well hello there, Beastie people! And look, the weekend is very nearly here! So I thought it might be fun to catch up with some other members of the far-flung Beastie family… it appears that a couple of them have been taking advantage of the (vaguely) improving weather!
Finn sees the future! Picture from tammiepainter.com
… Plus, if you happen to share my complete lack of horticultural skills, I bet you’ll really enjoy a virtual wander around a garden in which things actually grow!
Jump on that Bandwagon, Sinead Beastie! Photo from dazeandweekes.com
For your convenience, Sinéad has visited some of the highest-quality (ahem!) tourist traps that this great European city has to offer, and she can’t wait to share her findings with you all!
Aaaaand if all that has you counting down the days to your own summer break, I can help you get your planning started! May’s Beastie calendar page is in the store now!
As usual, it’s totally free… And you only need to fill out your name and email address in the order form, then the internet pixies will drop your copy directly into your inbox!
Alrighty, that’s all the news from Beastie Towers and beyond… And now I’m planning to spend the weekend working away on the next batch of Beasties! If you’ve got any monster plans, be sure to tell us all about them in the comments.
OK folks, I promised you something big this week, and here it is! Now, I’ve made Beastie families before (you can meet some of them here and here), but when I was asked to create individual little monsters for all of a customer’s nieces and nephews, I did briefly wonder what I was letting myself in for. Sometimes families here can be on the large side – in fact, Boyfriend has so many cousins that he’s pretty sure there are some out there that he’s never even met! Fortunately, the grand total turned out to be a totally manageable seven… And although that’s still more than I’ve ever made for any one Beastie enthusiast, I reckoned I’d definitely be able to get them ready in time for Christmas!
So, let’s take a quick tour through my biggest Beastie custom order ever! These Beasties were heading to three separate households, with a brother and sister in one…
…Two sisters next…
…And a family of three to complete the picture!
We decided it would be best to keep all the Beasties quite similar, but each with their own unique twist to make them as individual as their human counterparts!
For the boys, who are both big into their Gaelic football, that meant shirts in their county colours… So, blue for Cavan and white for Kildare. And they both get to be #1 in their own teams!
Oh, and I had to send them each out with their own felt football, of course. The shape of the segments that make up the ball are based on the human-sized version – that took some figuring out!
You might also have noticed that I experimented with a new way of doing short hair for these two – I think the fur fabric captures the fineness of children’s hair better than wool can, and it’s so soft as well. What do you all reckon?
As for the girls…
… Each got her own hand-knitted sweater with an appliquéd felt initial, and I was in experimentation mode with their hairdressing too!
Sometimes Beastie hair (as I’ve made it in the past) has come out a bit thick and unmanageable, and because I had five girls to make, I wanted to ensure that each of them had their own distinct hairstyle. At first, I experimented with a technique I found in a magazine, which involved laying out a line of sticky tape, sticking strands of yarn to it, sewing through the tape, then peeling it away and stitching the hairpiece to the head, which had been prepped with a piece of felt in a similar colour.
Um, the less said about my state of mind that day, the better.
(Image from my old Dean’s Gift Book of Nursery Rhymes)
That said, I did like the effect I was able to create by using multiple shades of yarn, so I decided to cut out the sticky tape middleman, and sew strands directly to the felt “hair cap” where they were needed. The result? More readily style-able pigtails and ponytails!
So, I suppose that means we’re all ready for the group photo…
Oh. Maybe another one, with everybody looking at the camera this time?
Much better!
Did any of you take on a monster project in the run-up to Christmas? Tell us all about it in the comments!
Aaaaaaand next week we’ll be taking a break from Christmas commissions and catching up with Paddy and Plunkett… They have some wintry photos they’d like to share with you. See you then!
I’m just popping in for a very quick “Hello!” today, because I’ve done the sums and this is definitely the busiest, Beastie-est week of 2017! Last overseas postage dates are looming, and I’ve booked places at two of Dublin’s most popular Christmas markets, so that’s my entertainment taken care of for the next two weekends in a row. I’d better start on a programme of intense caffeination immediately, as ably demonstrated by Tae Beastie here.
I already had a chance to get out and road-test my new market display a couple of weeks back at RMDS’s Christmas Craft Fair, and I’m pretty pleased with how it looks! I’ve used lightweight fabric-covered boxes to add a little extra height…
… Made up some promotional postcards with a little bit about the Beasties on the back…
…Thrown a little light on the proceedings with a pair of spiffy spotlights, a Christmas gift from my brother last year…
… And Boyfriend picked up a Beastie-sized chalkboard for me to play around with use constructively for marketing purposes.
So, when do all these goodies get their next outing? Well, to kick things off, this Sunday I’ll be at Newmarket on Cork Street for their Christmas event. I’m looking forward to this one for a couple of reasons… It’s my first time going to this market (always exciting), and it’s in my neighbourhood too! Plus I thought I’d missed the application deadline, so it was doubly satisfying when my offer of a spot came through.
Then next week, it’s the biggie – The Dublin Christmas Flea! I had a blast at this market last year… hey, why not take a look around yourself? Plus, eagle-eyed viewers will spot me working away behind my stall at 1:12 in this video!
For the 2017 event, they’ve added an extra day (the market will run from Thursday to Sunday) and there’s going to be a special press-only early opening on one of the days as well. I’m optimistic that the Beasties will be on their best behaviour, but I’m expecting at least one of the major newspapers to carry the headline “Reporter Mauled by Publicity-Hungry Knitted Monsters” on Monday morning!
Of course, I realise that not all of you lovely readers are likely to make it to Dublin this December. But no matter how far afield you are, there’s still time to adopt a monster friend from our online store!
I’ll be able to send worldwide right up until the 7th of December. After that:
Last post for mainland Europe is the 13th
Great Britain the 18th
Northern Ireland the 19th
Republic of Ireland the 20th
of December 2017.
I’m also already taking pre-orders for the first quarter of 2018, so if you’d like to get your paws on a Bespoke Beastie anytime before March 31st, don’t be disappointed! Drop me a line and I’ll get your name into the order book nice and early.
Alrighty, time for me to get back to work! Next Tuesday, I’ll have a new Beastie to share with you all, so be sure to stop by… Have a great week!
Last time we caught up with Paddy and Plunkett, those globetrotting little monsters appeared to be living it up in the sunshine somewhere. But now…
Have they hit the slopes for a spot of skiing?
Ha! Nope. What you’re seeing is actually a beautiful rocky beach in Croatia, where the limestone “shelves” have been scrubbed by sea-tossed pebbles until they’re a bright, snowy white. It’s lucky the boys remembered to pack their sunglasses, or they’d have been truly dazzled!
Plunkett couldn’t resist poking through those pebbly patches in search of a new addition for his rock collection back home…
And hey, where’s Paddy? Oh, right. Of course.
CLIMBING! Looks like he’s scoped out the perfect spot for them both to stop and catch some rays in the late afternoon sunshine.
But soon, Paddy started to suspect that they didn’t have the beach to themselves…
“Plunkett, what’s that over there in the trees? I feel like we’re being watched!”
Strange for Paddy to be nervous, isn’t it? But Plunkett could already see that there was nothing to worry about…
…He can spot an interesting rock sculpture from a mile away! These guys might have slightly stony expressions (ha!), but even that couldn’t put him off having a closer look.
Just as well, too, because there were lots of them to see! The boys found a family next – the Flintstones, maybe? I hope they didn’t mind that Paddy briefly tried to ride their pet dog around like a pony!
And there was one who looked a little the worse for drink…
Oh, here’s a teacher with a bunch of schoolchildren!
Plunkett especially liked these enchanted toadstools he found, too.
Some of the pebble people proved a little trickier to identify, though. The boys were happy enough to agree that Plunkett is standing in front of Napoleon here, while the dapper gent on Paddy’s left is Willy Wonka from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”… What do you reckon? However, debate continues to rage about who or what might be represented here…
Any ideas? Let us know in the comments – the more outlandish, the better!
We’ll be back next Tuesday, when I’ll have a new Beastie to introduce to you all! See you then…
Wilkommen, Beastie-Freunde!Explorer Beastie and I are just back from a great few days in Cologne and Düsseldorf! And there’s plenty here for both humans and monsters to enjoy… care to join us for a spin through the highlights of our trip?
First stop – Cologne! And of course, we had to go and have a look at the famous cathedral. This twin-spired Gothic masterpiece dominates the city skyline, and it only took 632 years to build! Still, the extra effort seems to have been worth it… The Kölner Dom is still the biggest cathedral in Germany, and thanks to those spires, it has the largest façade of any church in the world.
It is also, it turns out, really difficult to photograph. I’m still kicking myself for leaving my proper camera in the baggage lockers at the station and only bringing my phone with me! But take our word for it – this is a real-must see. From the outside, which is just dripping with statues, flying buttresses and gargoyles, to the stained glass and high arched ceilings of the interior, it’s stunning from every angle. Oh, and it’s free to go in too – WIN!
As it turns out, we got a better view of it from further away. This is what you see from the rail bridge over the Rhine, where Explorer Beastie enjoyed a bit of boat-spotting and clambering among the padlocks attached to the fence as well! Of course, sightseeing can make a Beastie pretty thirsty. Time for a glass of Kölsch, the region’s speciality beer… Prost! Better not have too many of those, Explorer Beastie – day 2 is THEME PARK DAY!
Phantasialand is just outside Cologne, and I last visited it -gulp- at the turn of the century, when I was still in my teens. Eeeek! Despite much monster cajoling, I’m sad to say that my zeal for rollercoasters has waned somewhat since those days. Explorer Beastie was a little disappointed, but I was able to get him back on side by letting him hang out with a dragon for a while after lunch. Plus there’s always plenty for a Beastie to see, even when you’re technically too small to go on most of the rides. After all those high jinks, it was time for a stroll through the streets of Düsseldorf, our home for the long weekend.
We frequently found our feet (or paws) leading us down Königsallee, a leafy canalside walk near the centre of town. It’s lovely for a stroll… … A sit… …Or a chance to take a moment and watch the world go by. We also enjoyed meeting the creatures who grace the ironwork on the side of one of the bridges, even if we didn’t spot their living counterparts in the water below! A little further down the road, the view is quite different. First, you pass the Rheinturm, Düsseldorf’s tallest building… Officially, it’s a telecoms tower, but there’s also a revolving restaurant and observation deck up there for those with a good head for heights!
But for us, the sunny riverside location of Düsseldorf-Hafen beckoned, so we kept our paws on the ground and took in the sights of this redeveloped dockland area instead. These unusual buildings greet you as you head towards the water… The white, silver and red brick “Neuer Zollhoff” blocks were designed by Frank Gehry, and are supposed to represent a family – the shiny silver building, the “child”, reflects its brick and white plaster “parents”. But, as you can see, its warped stainless steel walls double up as a handy funhouse mirror, perfect for monster shenanigans! Some of the older buildings in the area have been given a fresh new makeover, too. Explorer Beastie’s favourite was this former storage facility, now being scaled by 29 brightly-coloured “Flossis”, created by Stuttgart-based artist Rosalie. There are a few nods to the area’s industrial past here, too… High five, old-school dockland crane!
And as the weekend wound down, we spent a lazy Sunday morning in the park… Although thanks to this rather dramatic signpost, we elected not to feed the ducks!
“Entenbrot ist Ententod” – literallly, “Duck bread is duck death”. Erk!
And what would a holiday be without a few friends in tow? Some of you may recognise my first Goth Beastie, Miss Chelsea Wool-fe, in this photo where she’s accompanied by Explorer Beastie and her chum Marge the Glamorous Pug. A perfect end to a super weekend!
Where are you all off to this summer? Let us know in the comments!
Things have been a little quiet on the exploring front these last couple of years. Between one thing and another, Explorer Beastie and I haven’t managed to get further afield than Donegal in a long time! But all that changed last week… Look! We’re on a plane! And that’s a pretty good indicator that we’re leaving the island… But where are we off to? Well, this is a good start – a nice bit on sunshine on our first morning! Time for a quick stroll around this lake, I think. Beautiful! Now maybe we could try getting a bird’s eye view of this city, so that the good folks watching at home can see where we are… Aha! So, we have spires, verdigris… … And in the distance, the bridge to Sweden. Welcome to… COPENHAGEN!
One of our first ports of call here was the Rundetaarn (Round Tower), which gave us these great views out over the city, and helped us to plan our wandering for the day. This tower was built by King Christian IV in 1642 as an observatory (it’s actually the oldest functioning observatory in Europe) and it is also Denmark’s “zero point” – when the country was first surveyed by Thomas Bugge in the late 1760s, he took the Rundetaarn as the starting point for all his calculations of distance throughout the kingdom. And there’s more to the tower than the viewing platform at the top. You can see this working model of the solar system on the wall as you come back down… … And that (unfortunately hazy – it was dark!) picture in the bottom right is the tower’s hollow core, where you can stare 25m straight down through the plate glass floor. As you can see, Explorer Beastie wasn’t fazed by this at all, but the most I could manage was placing one foot on the glass while the other remained firmly planted on the stones at the edge! Although it turns out that I really needn’t have worried – in 1880, a choirboy tumbled out of a toolroom at the top of the core and fell the full distance to the bottom, where he remained trapped for the better part of a day before being discovered, alive, with nothing more than a scrape on his arm and a few missing teeth!
Copenhagen’s skyline is packed with beautiful tall spires, but one particularly caught our eyes from the top of the Rundetaarn. So when we found ourselves back at street level, we made a Beastline right for it! This is Børsen, the old Danish Stock Exchange. If you look closely, you’ll see that the tower has four dragons at its base, and their intertwined tails form the 50m tall spire. Beast-tastic!
And, although this was our favourite, there were plenty of other elaborate buildings to distract us as we wandered through the city streets. We also found some monuments on a more Beastie-sized scale. Well, we could hardly visit Denmark and not set foot inside a Lego store, could we? And after a long day’s meandering, our weary paws brought us to one of the most iconic parts of the city – the tall, colourful townhouses at Nyhavn! Of course, I couldn’t resist taking one more photo before it got dark… Perfect!
You can see more of our Nordic adventures next week – but what do you think of Copenhagen so far? Have you ever been, or is it on your travel-to-do list? Let us know in the comments!
We hope you all enjoyed the holiday season and that 2017 is treating you nicely so far. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’m ready for another year as eventful as 2016 was!
Anyway, after rather a lot of this… … We’re excited to get back to reality!
But, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, some things are gonna change around here, and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks having a big ol’ think about the past year and where to go next. Overall, I reckon 2016 was generally Beastie-friendly – for starters, I’m still reeling from our success at the Dublin Christmas Flea! In 2016, I also enjoyed meeting and collaborating with other craftspeople… …Seeing the world through the eyes of Beasties who had left home… …And getting to write for the Olann And Blog!
My Featured Crafters! Clockwise from left: Dinah’s Dolls, Guadalupe Creations, Niki Collier Design.
And outside of my Beastie-making activities, I also landed a new job – one which I’m really enjoying, and which I hope will better complement my hectic monster manufacturing schedule!
So, if everything’s so rosy, what am I going to be changing? Well, I felt I spent most of last year lurching from one panic to the next – it seemed like there was always a deadline looming, and time just zipped by! I’m still trying to figure out what happened to April, July and September… Oh, and then the last quarter of the year hit, and somehow I found myself with hardly any market stock, and several commissions whose trickiest elements I had sensibly decided to leave until the darkest days of the year. GAAAAAAH! By Christmas Eve I was totally frazzled, and badly in need of a few days R&R&MW (rest and relaxation and mulled wine) with my family. But with that (and a few healthy portions of Christmas dinner) under my belt, I was ready to start scheming for the year ahead. It’s the first time I’ve really taken the time to sit down and plan what I want to do and how I might get there, and I was surprised by how much it felt like time well spent! So, without further ado, here’s what I’ll be doing differently in 2017.
Make more, more often! Last year it seemed like I spent more time talking about making than I did actually making. This year I want to get back to what I love most – making monsters!
Prepare for Christmas, starting NOW. I’m planning to start assembling a crack squad of Beasties throughout the year, so we can take the Christmas markets by storm, AND save more of those precious December daylight hours for creating special bespoke monsters for anyone looking for a seasonal commission.
Set a stricter timeframe for commissions. I’ll be making myself stick to a 4-week turnaround time from first sketching to completed monster masterpiece! I’m also going to be learning some new skills to help speed up some of the parts of the process that I find trickiest… more on that soon!
And finally, this might raise a few eyebrows – but I’ve decided to cut back my posting on the BeastieBlog to Tuesdays only, at least for the foreseeable future. I’m hoping this will free up more time to actually keep up with all YOUR blogs, and feed my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts more frequently!
Phew! We made it!
It’s been a hectic month, and the more observant among you might even have noticed that my Tuesday post went AWOL this week! So the Beasties and I are looking forward to putting our toes up by the fire, getting some well-earned R&R, and catching up with the rest of the WordPress community at last!
So, all that remains is to wish each of you a very happy holiday season, and we’ll be back with more monster fun in the new year. Hope to see you then!
May’s Beastie calendar page is in the store now!
However, debate continues to rage about who or what might be represented here…
