I am happy to say that my blog has moved to my new site.  MonkeysMakeMeSmile.com  yay.  Come join us as we expand and grow.

My beautiful eight year old daughter is an amazing monkey making apprentice.  However, she is also super talented at bringing the monkey making fun to a complete halt.  You see, if anyone at her school has a germ, Lizzy is determined to bring it home and share it with all of us.  This time she brought home strep throat.  At least it was good timing and she only missed a few days of school instead of the entire week.  Trying to find a 24 hour pharmacy on Thanksgiving day was an adventure we hadn’t had before.

Soon after the Turkey was served I began to feel ill, followed quickly by my husband.  Then we were down and out.  My monkeys arms laid forgotten for the rest of the weekend, not able to be attached to the waiting bodies.  Thankfully we are all on antibiotics and feeling better now.  Monkey production is back to full steam ahead.  I put up 4 new ones on etsy.  Hopefully by the end of the week there will be more friends up to join them.  I have a craft fair in a week and a half so I better get to sewing.

I’ve received many questions about my profile picture on Facebook and figured it was about time I explained why the monkeys I make aren’t the only sock monkeys around.  It comes down to family fun.  Yes, we are that annoying family that coordinates our Halloween costumes.

One of the things I love about Omaha is that there are so many great things to do as a family.  This is especially true of the fall season.  One of the great events is the Halloween Spooktacular at Omaha Zoo.  It has become a family tradition.  We haven’t missed one, until this year, since we moved here 7 years ago.  At first we attended like any other resident, we dressed up our kids and stood back as they had fun trick or treating all over the zoo.  Then an amazing thing happened, my sister was stationed here 5 years ago!  The memories of how our parents made a big deal over Halloween spurred us to create new family traditions.

We have done Zombies and gone to the Zombie Walk.

We have done ‘The Wizard of Oz.”

We have done “Alice in Wonderland.”

We have done “Snow White.”

But I am most proud of the Sock Monkeys.  As my obsession over sock monkeys grew stronger the next logical step was to turn my whole family into sock monkeys.  🙂  It started with my husband’s costume, I wasn’t even sure I could make it work.  Then it grew to costumes for the whole family.

My husband was dressed as the traditional red heel sock monkey, while the rest of us were more like my monkeys, a little bit funky.  Everyone got to decide what kind of monkey we wanted to be.  For my daughter pink pokedots and a tutu.  My son liked the black and white stripes with a football on his chest.  My sister’s monkey was dressed as Wonder Woman.  And for me, what’s Halloween without a witch costume.  So my purple monkey wore a skirt and witch hat.

We had experienced great reactions with our previous costumes.  People stopping us to take pictures with us at both the Zoo and Vallas Pumpkin Patch.  They were nothing compared to the reaction we received from our monkey costumes.  Word to the wise… if you are dressed as a stuffed character children will bum rush hug you, adults will giggle when they see you, and every two steps someone will ask to take a picture with you.  It was slightly exhausting, but great.  It was also my first step into the world of creating my own sock monkeys.

If you have never done something this silly, I highly suggest it.  It will make you smile.

So now monkey heads live at the top of my bookcases waiting for the next opportunity to come down and make others smile.

I hope that answers your questions.  Have a monkey day.

The craft fair at Northwest High School was a success.  I am thankful to all the people who made one of our monkeys a part of your family or even just gave them a smile as you walked by.  One woman bust out laughing when she saw the monkeys and it meant more to me than the money we made today.  For my family and I, the monkeys do truly make us smile.  Any sock monkey makes me smile, but there is something really special about watching the monkeys come to life with their individual personalities.

I never would have expected the number or vendors or patrons at a High School Craft Fair.  It was amazing.  The staff who set this up turned what could have been chaos into a seamless fun event.  The variety of things for sale was unimaginable.  There are some creative and talented people in this world.

As non native Nebraskan that are stationed here because of the Air Force, I want everyone to know how friendly people are here.  At every booth the people smiled and talked to me as though I was a long lost friend, instead of a new person competing for the cash in people’s pockets.

Thank you to everyone, and don’t forget to smile today!

I have a wonderful nephew staying with me right now.  My medical problems currently prevent me from driving so he came up to help me get to all me appointments and pick up the kids from school.  Not a lot of 19 year old boys would fly half way across the country to help out.  He is awesome!

Tuesday we went on an all out sock search.  We were also looking for a few last Halloween supplies, but socks were never far from our minds.  We covered half the town in search of the ever elusive Thanksgiving socks.  We found lots of Halloween and Christmas, but the turkeys were not to be found.  Poor guy he probably dreamed about socks.  He is going to go home and picture every pair of socks as a festive monkey.

Alas, our search turned up empty, no Thanksgiving socks anywhere.  Though I suppose empty is a bit unfair considering I did come home with 37 pairs of socks, just not the ones I was looking for.

For now, Gobble stands alone as the only Thanksgiving Monkey.

Special for this week only!  Monkeys 25% off with the coupon code “HALLOWEEN”.

Monkeys Make Me Smile on Etsy

It is a strange things mailing out the monkeys I make. It makes me feel so good to know that my monkeys are going to live with other families who will love them too. I didn’t expect my families reaction to the sale of Cornelius.  Apparently he was much loved because my husband and kids reaction to his sale was dismay.   Even my brother in law complained because I sold his favorite monkey.

Cornelius was the first Halloween monkey that I made and there was something special about him.

Maybe it was something in that smirk that told you he was just as likely to pull a trick as a treat.  I am happy to know he will be arriving with his new family today.

I am going to do it.  I am going to set up an etsy store to better sell my monkeys over the web.  Crazy I tell you.  This is exciting.  The odd thing about selling the monkeys is that I fall in love with each of them.  Since each of my monkeys are different it is hard to say goodbye to a monkey even when you know it is going to a family that will love it.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MonkeysMakeMeSmile

I would like to introduce you all to Harold.  Harold is a sweet little monkey who loves to cuddle, how could a monkey be this soft and not like to be loved on.  The traditional Red Heel Monkeys are so special and are a part of our collective history, but when you step out of the familiar you are exposed to new textures in monkey friends.  The material used for Harold was almost silky.  I love his embroidered eyes and mouth.

Hi all,

I am Michele, also known as the Monkey Momma.  I have not always been obsessed with sock monkeys, in fact, I am fairly certain I didn’t have one until I was about 29.  Not only did I discover my love for them, but everyone else did too.  For my thirtieth birthday, every present had something to do with sock monkeys.  I was horribly sick for my birthday and those monkeys made me smile and gave me comfort.

That brings me to today.  My life has turned upside down due to illness.  The doctors don’t know what is wrong, yet whatever it is has managed to affect every area of my life.  I had returned to the work force after 10 years of being a stay at home mom, and just completed my first year of college with a 3.8 GPA.  I was forced to take an indefinite leave of absence from school and lost my job.  I am not allowed to drive due to sudden, extreme, bouts of vertigo and seizures.  I even had to miss a once in a lifetime all-expense paid trip to Hawaii.

I am an aspiring writer with a very understanding agent, who is doing her best to keep me from losing the opportunities I had earned.   Now, I can’t write or even sit down to read a good book.  Logically you may ask how I am writing this blog post, Dragon Software is an awesome thing.  However, even using the software this post is taking a LONG time to dictate.

Between my doctors’ appointments I spent days sitting on the couch, with nothing to do.  When you watch “Flowers in the Attic” for the third time and think, “Gee, they have more to do than I do.” you know something is wrong.  Other days I forced myself to do things I wasn’t able to do and made myself feel worse.  Despite how much I tried to deny it, I was on the verge of spiraling into a deep depression.

Then I remembered, Sock Monkey’s Make Me Smile.  There are countless ways to make a sock monkey, not all require the use of a sewing machine.  All I really needed to do was sit and stitch.  If I start to feel bad I can stop at any moment and restart without any large process.

With each monkey I make my smile gets larger and I can face the day with my head high.

I hope my monkeys make you smile and bring you a little of the joy they give me.