Have you ever seen someone come up with such a great idea that you wanted to be part of it? Not only that, you wondered how you could be part of it?
That’s me.
A couple weeks ago, I saw a post by a Facebook friend, BeLinda Creech. (She and her daughter CeCe were behind the Elephants for Joplin movement after an EF5 tornado destroyed much of Joplin, Missouri.) She was starting a movement to spread joy around the country.
Monsters were going to be a key part of that movement.
These are no ordinary monsters, though. None of your run-of-the-mill One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eaters here. No, sir! (Or Ma’am.)
BeLinda developed a knit pattern for a monster and posted it on Ravelry.
With support from Maker’s Mercantile, Operation Monster Drop was born. Since then, Amanda King developed a crochet pattern. (Both are available as free downloads in the Maker’s Mercantile shop. Link will open in a new window. NOTE: Please be aware the patterns are only free until the end of June.)
The original idea is to make monsters and leave them in random public locations for people to find. Each monster has a tag describing their mission (to spread joy) and a hashtag (#monsterdrop, #operationmonsterdrop) so the finder can post a picture to Facebook. That way, we can see where our monsters are spreading their joy.
Since Operation Monster Drop started, there have been knit monsters, crocheted monsters, sewn monsters, and even some silver monster pins (so cute!!). All spread their own unique kind of joy.
As BeLinda has said, the monster’s joy is actually double. How can that be, you wonder? It’s simple, actually. The monster brings joy to the person who makes it AND to the person who finds it.
How can you get involved?
Check out the Facebook page, The Monster Drop Project, download the pattern(s) (or come up with your own), and start dropping monsters.
It’s quite fun!
As of writing this post, I have dropped two monsters. They both went to the Wound Care clinic I go to.
One went home in a nurse’s pocket. The other had to get a compression wrap. Poor guy! But afterward, he went home with the Wound Care Specialist where he is getting plenty of TLC.
I have more monsters to make, so I’ll talk to you all later.
Happy crocheting!
What a cool idea! I occasionally do random drops of items with tags that say “I’m yours now. Please take me home.” I’ve done hearts and flowers and leave them in places when I travel.
Up to this point, I haven’t done any random give-away things. In fact, the way I’m doing this still isn’t. I started out with that intent, but I started getting requests immediately. lol
You might want to change it to “pattern is free until the end of June”
Awesome write-up for our cause!!!
Good point! Thank you. I will get that changed.