Cake and Bread

Because I am currently following the blog "Cake Wrecks", which is linked in my sidebar, I've been thinking about cakes! I used to do a lot of birthday cakes for people, but I haven't done one in quite a few years. So for my daughter's birthday and my fiancee's birthday (which are only two days apart), I decided to make them this cake. It was Devil's Food on the inside.....(I used a mix)....and homemade butter icing on the outside. I melted some baking chocolate into a portion of the icing to make chocolate icing and reserved some to be coloured for the decorations. Man, butter-cream icing does NOT lend itself well to little details. Maybe it was just because I'm out of practice, but this is as good as I could get after a long day at work and then coming home in a snowstorm......but enough about that. My daughter is a big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, so I drew his face on the cake. Richard is NOT a fan of Sonic. He wasn't really thrilled with having him on his Birthday cake....

I showed him this picture from an old 1990 Wilton Cake Decorating book, and said, "Well, I could always do THIS!"
I think it's a pretty morbid idea, really. Rich actually didn't mind the Sonic face TOO much and the cake tasted good....so that's what REALLY matters.
But one very interesting thing happened during dinner. My daughter found a big air-bubble in her roll shaped like a Valentine Heart! She wanted to eat it, but my son and I stole it from her until we could grab a photo of it. Then it got gobbled up!

Old Nelvana Photos

Okay....maybe they're not ancient, but they're pretty old. I took them around 1991 while I was working in the Layout department at 32 Atlantic Ave. I recently found this black and white contact sheet which Rich then scanned for me. The quality of these images aren't the clearest, but I became nostalgic looking at them and wanted to post them.

First there's Rob Sadler who now works at Starz and teaches part-time at Seneca College:Then John Lei, who was just a young pup at the time:
Chad Hicks, who was also fairly young:
Blayne Burnside who began in the design department:
Frank Ramirez, the Hallowe'en and stop-motion enthusiast:
Denis Gonzalez who was in the Posing department then. He was very much into photography and playing bass in "The Action Motion Men":
Cynthia Ward who was also in Posing. She now lives out West:
Brian Lee, who is never eager to have his photo taken, but I got him! (This is rare)
Chris Minz who I think enjoys being in the spotlight. He headed his own band called "Dr. Minz and the Chronic Harmonic" I'm not sure if he still has the band, but he's still in the animation industry and he does music videos for other bands:
Jeff Lyons, who was also "Jesus" in my Last Supper photo. He's currently working for Elliott Animation I believe:
Dale Desrochers who was in Layout and is now an art teacher:
Dermot Walshe, who loves motorcycles and drawing frogs. I think he's working independently now. Just Google his name and you'll find his website:
Luc Latulippe who now lives in British Columbia and has his own Illustration business:
Fred Wilmot, now has his own company, Horus Productions:
Well, that's it for this particular contact sheet. I'll have to dig through my old photos to see who else I can post.

Felt Creations for Christmas

Now that it's December, I have to get out of Hallowe'en mode and into Christmas mode.

I love to make little felt animals and Christmas Tree ornaments.

Here we have three animals, a white tiger, a mouse and a squirrel. The tiger was made by Michelle Houston many years ago which I bought from her when we were still working at Nelvana. The mouse I made myself using a pattern by Teresa Levy.
I modified the mouse pattern and referred to the tiger (for the head) and came up with this squirrel. I used wool and wire for the tail using sort of a pompom making technique, and there you have it. I'm going to make a few for the Tree this year due to my sweetheart's obsession with squirrels. My kids love squirrels too. I call them "fluffy-tailed tree rats" because they like to steal the seeds that I put out for the birds! Oh well, I don't hate them.

Here are the only ornaments I still have that Michelle Houston made. There was also a rabbit and a kangaroo, but my children got their hands on them and now they're lost somewhere. The kangaroo was like the tiger and she even had a tiny Joey in her pouch. I think I had a couple more hobby-horses too.

These are some of the birds I've been working on. The Cardinals are my own design, but I have to admit, the "doves" are a design I copied after seeing similar ones on Etsy. Mine aren't for sale, they're just to hang on our own Tree. At the bottom is a Blue Jay I've begun because Rich was feeding them along with the squirrels this year. So I felt they should be included as ornaments as well. (I'll have to post another photo when it's finished.)

Here are two ornaments designed by my 7 year old. She drew them and I cut them out. I did most of the sewing, but she actually did do a little bit. She gave them to me to finish because she said I could sew a lot faster than her!

I'm only including the Santa in this photo because Sasha MacIntyre said I should. I really made it for a presentation my son had to do for school last year, but now it'll join the others on the Tree.

Now THESE are the tiniest felt creatures I've ever done. The elephant was from a pattern in a Miniatures magazine several years ago, and the tiny rabbit and squirrel were a part of the presentation my son had to do at school. Now they reside in the doll's house and I'm amazed I could find them!