Happy Holidays

Over the holidays I went to visit family and old friends in Ottawa, and had a really wonderful time. And one afternoon, one of those good, old friends (yes, we're old now) and I took four hours out of our jam-packed holiday schedules to make melted snowman cookies.

Sugar cookie base, royal icing, chocolate chips, microwaved marshmallows, coloured icing noses, faces, arms. Et voila.

Easy as...melted snow? Not quite. Did I mention that it took us four hours?

Mid-stage melted snowmen.

We thought we were really clever to mix the icing for the eyes/arms right in the ziplock bag, but it took us a lot longer than we thought it would. 

But, in the end, we were happy with the results. My brother gave the sugar cookie base an "A +" and my 3-year old niece went nuts for the marshmallow head.  Actually, that's all she ate off of the cookie. Ah, well.

This is some serious face application.

Happy Holidays!

This is food math. And honesty.

Illustration Friday: Brigade

Custom holiday cards for two very special clients

Making custom cards has got to be one of my favourite things to do, and so it was really fun to work on this commission for the holidays.  The clients (full disclosure: my parents) themselves are avid kayak enthusiasts, so it just seemed to fit.  (However, when I suggested "Merry Kayakmas" for the inside, apparently my dad made a face. Weird, right? Right?? So, they remain blank.) These were done with the same digital collage technique as most of my illustrations, but since all of the textures have been reduced to a very small size, in some cases I think it looks almost like they've been painted.  It's a neat effect, I think.

December Desktop

I know I skipped November (by accident, I promise!) so here's an extra-magical one for December.