19/08/2026
🌟 Monika Schmid made her first appearance in our Emporium Gift Shop in 2003! 23 years later, we wanted to give her a tribute 🌟
Here is a little interview we have made of this lady, originally from Switzerland who is, with her partner, one of our loyal and friendly customers too.
We hope it will give you a glimpse of her creative and personal world.
"I am Monika Schmid, the maker behind the Whale Shark Pencil Cases, you see floating around the Emporium.
The elements I use in my process of their creation are mostly fabric samples from Reverse Garbage QLD. Sometimes I find fabric in Op Shops too or even in the annual Kerbside Collection! My most unusual material find was discarded umbrellas, after the last Brisbane floods. I could use their material to make some of my very original cases.
The transformation process to make my pencil cases requires different steps depending of where I sourced the material. If I use the samples from RGQ, I need to take the books apart. It creates a huge mess! Then I need to remove the paper backing, which is a rather tedious task. The Op Shop and Kerbside finds get washed and ironed. When a piece of fabric is too thin to use as is for the body of a Whale Shark, I use some thick interfacing to give the fabric more body.
During my making process, I love when it's time to turn the Whale Shark inside out (it gets sewn with the wrong side of the fabric out). This is when I see it for the first time! Then it's time to go through my list of names and see which name would suit.
A fun fact about my creative world is that I love names. Whenever I come across an unusual name I have to write it down and I have various lists of new names all around the house. I even have furniture with names! Almost every of the creations I bring to RGQ get one.
I think that my Whale Sharks are different in that each of them are really one of a kind. Fabric samples are usually quite small so there is often not enough material to make several out of the same fabric and remember... they have their personal name attached to them."
If you missed the opportunity to meet Monika's creations, a fresh batch or should we say pod is entering the shop soon😉
