Gushing Over a German Toy Maker
* I will be back to the follow ups next week. I went into the draft archives and found a couple posts that I couldn't believe I never finished. Thanks for the suggestions and reminders :)
Laying around sick the other day sweating it out, I found myself deep in strange new parts of the blogosphere that I had never been before, just clicking through link after link, from blog to blog, until I had no idea where I was, and how I had gotten there. I used to be so much better about digging around exploring when I first started blogging, and now have to force myself out of the rut of just scrolling through my reader and never going anywhere else. I am a slave to that thing, trying to get the number to zero. I keep thinking about purging my reader and starting over from scratch so I find new things, and rediscover some blogs. Anyone ever done that? Does it feel good? Seriously tell me.
One of the things I don't really talk about on here is my obsession with toys. In my early twenties I had a HUGE embarrassing collection of toys that took up my entire living room on these tacky tall book shelves. I ended up selling that whole collection on ebay (even my vintage Planet of the Apes Garbage Can) so that I could go to Park City Utah and attend that years Sundance Film Festival to pal around with some of the cast and crew from a film I had been the property master on the year before, and I stayed in this really insanely expensive cabin at the base of a ski resort with an obnoxiously big jacuzzi in the living room. My dumb youth, but Holy Crap! that trip was fun, and ultimately after selling it all I never indulged in toy collecting again. Now I just fulfill that old tickle to toy collect by nerding out on Brian McCarty's flickr collections, and stalking Kid Robot, and my ultimate obsession with Ashley Wood and his gorgeous comics and his zombie killing World War Robots. So of course now, I really get excited about getting to buy the kids toys. However I can't tell you enough how many times I have been bummed out walking the aisles of stores like Toys 'R Us. Heaps of noisy plastic and crappy uninspiring toys-- So while I was hunting around blind in new blog territory the other day, I found a blog that led to a shop based in Germany that I got really excited about. Again I am a toy nerd and growing up I was completely obsessed with things like vikings, Playmobil knights, and medieval times, this was before I met Star Wars and it has been robots ever since. 
Meet Sandra Monat. Please go and say hi to her on her blog. And check out her handmade toys. Explore her studio, and all of her past pieces in her shop portfolio. It was a fun trip to be in her world for awhile. So I wanted to pass it on here, maybe some of you will get that same nerdy tingle from the kid inside that still wants to play with toys. So now it looks like one day when Cole and I can indulge in our whims, I will have to invest in some tall tacky bookshelves again to display all my wooden robots and vikings and knights. What a great collection that would be. I can totally see LB and Tessa battling their Ugly Doll collection with these plush axe wielding vikings.
Enjoy these images and I do hope you get a chance to check out her work and read some about her. I am always such a huge sucker for people that are inspired to pursue their passions and make their lives work and function on carrying out the dreams in their head and the things they imagine.
Also get your butts over to Twitter and follow her stream there for shop and blog announcements, FOLLOW Sandra and while you're at it, if you haven't followed me yet, you can do so HERE.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
*Full disclosure- I was not paid or given anything to write this post, I did so out of my deep obsession with super awesome handmade goods and wanted to shed some light on an independent designer and artist that deserves tons of attention. I also asked her to make me an ad to put in my sidebar that I make absolutely no money on.
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34 comments:
my pendulum has swung both ways... at one point, i had hundreds of blogs in my reader and it was an obligation... a chore. so i cleaned house, and felt good(ish) but realized i needed the reminder,or i would never see some of my old faves again because, like you, i just wander. so i rebuilt my reader (being a bit more selective), but am better about clicking "mark as read" and moving on. it makes me feel like i still have one foot in the world i have nurtured, and one foot in the world i would like to discover. does that make any sense at all? probably not.
Oh, last time I checked Bloglines I had something ridiculous like 10,000 unread posts. Blogs are addictive to me, I am so inherently nosy about other people that reading a blog is far more interesting than watching TV or reading trashy celeb mags.
Sandra's toys are awesome! I love that handmade ethic, her stuff is just beautiful. We're trying desperately to get rid of all the horrible noisy plastic toys that our brood have accrued over the last nine years to replace it with decent quality toys that promote interaction so I am off to thoroughly explore Sandra's site!
Can I recommend that you check out this set? It's by a British designer (who blogs here) and it's top of my "I want!" list for Erica.
Just ordered the viking in the rain postcards- What a wonderful inspiration for a little boys birthday party. Thanks so much for the link on such a wonderful artist.
@ Deb- That makes great sense. That is what I am wanting to do. I feel guilty clearing it. Why? I don't know.
@ Vonnie- Blogs are trashy magazines :) If you are reading the right blogs.
Thanks for the links :)
@ Vicky- That is so rad that you found something so quickly that you loved and scooped it up. Glad to have led you there.
The German toys, and toystores, were the best. Unfortunately I didn't have kids when I lived there, but I still could spent hours browsing in shops, not believing the wonderful offer of non-Disney, non-glaring plastic spielzeugs. Hey, now that I think of it, I probably looked a little creepy to them, the excited grown-up Auslander who wasn't buying anything. Oh well... :-)
i've been doing some housecleaning on my blog and realized that by deleting some sites off my blogroll, i'd be encouraged to do more searching through unknown spaces. it's been working so far...
i love toys and children's books. if i had more room, i might likely have an obsession to deal with. i must be sort of a newbie (a casual blogger and obsessive follower of many for a year) but i don't know what a blogline is?
love your blog and your thoughtful insight. i was just sharing your story about bedding tessa in her own bed to a family bed mommy. she never lets her 5 month old cry for more than 3.5 seconds. she said it would kill her to listen to her cry for a full minute, let alone 30. the daddy is very anxious to reclaim his bed and his sleep…
Beautiful toys!
We live in germany at the moment and i swear i just about die with joy every time i take my son into a toy shop here. They have less of the plastic things and more of the beautiful wooden handmade toys and stuffed animals. I have to try hard to not buy them all for my son.
@ satakieli - How bout we do a care package trade? I will send you a bunch of plastic crap and taco bell sauce and Milk Duds and you can send me all the wonderful toys from Germany :)
@ satakieli That isn't actually nice. There are tons of cool things here, a care package trade would actually be really awesome to do with someone. What a good idea!!!
definitely submitted sandra's site for KidCrave approval! about the bloggies - i do not let the massive amount of unread blogs bother me. like Deb, i have no problem mercilessly marking all as read, even if i have not.
@ l'ananas - Oh man. Sandra's toys would be so awesome on Kidcrave. hope it happens!
yayayayay! I discovered Sandra a couple of years ago on Etsy and became enamored of her 'dream guardians' (which it appears she doesn't make anymore--but you can see them in her portfolio)
I have traveled to Germany regularly for the last 15 years, and would spend more $$ on toys than you'd believe--there are these amazing little toyshops with handmade stuff are that are filled with creative talent like Sandra--lots of soft toys and wooden toys...you'd go crazy! Those are the toys we are keeping for posterity.
Here's to your new obsession!! Your kids will thank you later.
great find! love it, thanks.
as for bloglines, i've never had any? I rebel against obligation and so . . .
Oh no, not more German toys for me to obsess over. My current obsession is Haba toys, which I get via Oompa and Moolka. We have really tried to limit the plastic junk, but the 5 year old has discovered super heroes and now has a bunch of Star Wars figures to play with too. I'm also obsessed with Blabla dolls - my two year old girl has quite the collection. These are beautiful handknit dolls from Peru. Check them out at www.blablakids.com.
ps I HATE ToysRUs - it is the most uninspiring, unexciting toy store I have ever been to.
i don't know what a "reader" is
it doesn't sound like it encourages
imagination or unstructured play
it sounds more like work.
yuk.
if you are going to continue with this reader business...
put me in it!
What is a reader? Now I feel like an old fogey with my "Favorite Places". Ryan, I think your toy obsession is very sweet. I was never a collector, but I am so attached to my childhood toys. I will never get rid of them. I hope my future kids appreciate the fantastic stuff they are going to inherit! (Although to be 100% honest I cringe at the thought of kids breaking or chewing on my beloved toys.) Oh, it's complicated...Great post, thank you as always. P.S. That story about Tessa being "stuck" standing because she has never sat down before was SO adorable. I would have never thought of that scenario in a million years! Somehow that's even more adorable than her taking her first step, first word, etc. Imagine her one day flopping on the couch and you can tell her the story of when she was afraid to sit down for the first time ever. Aww. - KNB
@ Zoe- Ya know I have to say about Toys 'R Us that they do make an effort in that middle section of the store that keeps growing. I have noticed some cool things showing up in there, and the section keeps expanding. At least I think so...
That's some pretty cool stuff. Those are the kind of toys you keep around till the kids are all grown up and then you pass them along as heirlooms. Not a lot of commercial toys you can do that with today (aside from the collectibles - my love of action figures is embarrassing.)
@ Clark Kent- You should really lose yourself in that Brian McCarty flickr stream I posted. It's so good. I think you might like it.
i am staring at an old laptop, knowing that i did just that when it died. i started again. from scratch. ok, I still had all my own web stuff, but anything in my feed reader was gone, and the 3000 photos still sit locked inside. It forced me to start again with what i could remember. of course, now its built back up again, so i took the time to organize my Favorite feeds in Explorer into folders by Subject. For example, you are in my Peeps folder - actual people. I also have a DIY, Magazine, HAHA, and Design folders. That way I can at least stick to what area I am interested in by folder, without weeding through the entire mess and getting completely sidetracked each time.
cool toys: oy. love them. i now play with my old vintage ones at my moms house with my nephew. so i appreciate the fixation. my s-i-l owns a cool little kids & maternity boutique, so my nephews end up with a few really cool european/local/handmade toys she brings into the store. there are some really amazing options out there. thanks for the new rabbit hole! ;)
You have great taste in things. I did a little post about her site last month when I happened upon it and loved those great little plates! Just very cool stuff that doesn't look commercial.
Aw man, the stuffed viking ROCKS! Hagar the Horrible was one of my fave comic strips as a child, and The 13th Warrior is such a cool movie too!
you are a good person
Ah, thank you so much for this link, it's exactly what I needed, right now. A few weeks ago I was stuck in the direction I wanted to take my little store until one day, slightly inebriated, I announced to my husband that my baby boutique would turn into a simple toy store. I have been sewing away with dolls. Are these just for adults? They're so cute!
Off topic, but I couldn't find your email address. Thought this would interest you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DUpftj4x1U
They would be a great organisation to talk to about your maternity pictures idea. Get in touch if you want a contact.
@ Marian- My email is in my blogger profile. I suppose I should make an easier Email Me button. I couldn't find your contact on your profile. Now we are stuck in the comment section.
LOve
http://lealowe.blogspot.com/
Those little dolls are very very cute :-) She does deserve this recognition. I even forwarded her link to a friend of mine who also does handmade toys. perhaps they'll connect at some point. Good call!
Mark as Read is a wonderful invention. You just move on as though those days of blog posts never happened. If it was really important or brilliant, it'll be brought to your attention later on.
Those Viking toys are adorable but my kids would never play with them; they're too... sweet and cuddly. Besides, Vikings were bastards in real life. Cuddling a Viking isn't something I think I should be endorsing with my kids. Then again, my 7 year old has a carnivorous dinosaur collection right next to his sleeping head, so who am I to talk???
Wine. It's the wine. Forgiveness, please.
we gave her viking "arnie twillson" a good home and he has been taking good care of our son ever since :) Beautiful toy. It really is :)
oooo, I just loaded Sandra's gorgeous range onto our online store the same day you started your post! We're in the midst of a viking obsession around here-savage but cute!!
Sometimes it is really hard find the time to venture into new places in the blogosphere.
There are so many good blogs and only so much time in the day.
Fantastic toys!
People are so clever. I dig anyone that can use their hands to make stuff.
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