Inspiration

Kim, from the TomKat Studio, was interviewed on the Project Nursery site today. She is an inspiration to me as she is also a stay at home Mom and her business is super successful and growing bigger every day! Her interview reinforced to me how important it is to stick to it, and not to expect it to blow up right away. She started her business a year and a half ago, I only started last November, so I must exercise patience and keep working hard. My big break will come sometime soon. If only there was a Canadian equivalent to Martha Stewart...if you know of such a person, let me know!!

I am inspired by Kim for the fact that she is self-taught. It all started when she wanted to create a fun, cool, theme for her daughter's Birthday. I have used Illustrator in the past, but am very 'green' with it, so ideas take a long time to come to fruition. Again, patience :-)

Thank you to Kim and her staff who introduce me to other talented individuals every day through their Facebook posts. I am excited every day to see whose work has been featured.

capturing moments...

Is it possible to capture every moment with a camera...I once thought "yes," but learned yesterday that the best moments are captured with our hearts. I only wish I could guarantee that those moments wouldn't one day be lost in my memory. I was playing photographer yesterday while Zack was looking at a butterfly and Maggie was picking soybeans from the field. My camera battery ran out, and it was at that moment that the sunshine shifted to that beautiful orangey-hue and father and daughter were perfectly cute. I tried to click my mental camera as Mike turned and did the same to myself and Zack....how I wish I could remember these moments forever. It makes me teary to think that they will one day not want to look/poke/discover/listen and talk about everything with us and I guess my hope is that I continue to have a fun and precious relationship with them, for their entire lives. I think my parents have done that with me. I am radiating LOVE LOVE LOVE these days. I am so happy.

ELMO

Elmo, one of the cutest characters on Sesame Street if you ask me. I have to admit that the "tickle me Elmo" dolls kinda freak me out, but the basic old school Elmo gets two thumbs up from me.

My friend Laura's son loves Elmo and she facebooked me to see if I could help her out. I love making furry characters and have the perfect icing tip for it, so I said yes! I didn't think Zack & Maggie knew who this little guy was as we don't watch that much tv, but as I was making him they peeked over the counter and exclaimed "ELMO!!" I had forgotten that they both have pj's with Elmo on them. They were very excited about these cupcakes so I made sure I had a few extra to taste test. Apparently Elmo's icing tastes better than his cakey body ;-)

Biking in the city

What a fabulous day! We got up early this morning to venture down to Stanley Park to go biking. Zack & Maggie had a little taste of a bike ride when we were in Courtenay two weekends ago and they loved it! We have been wanting to bike the Stanley Park Seawall for a long time, and today was finally the day! We rented bikes, one with a seat on the back (old school) and one with the seat on the front. I was a bit afraid of the seat on the front, but tried it twice during the 8km bike ride and actually liked it. We saw horses pulling a trolley car, ducks, planes landing and taking off, a WHALE (right under the Lion's Gate Bridge), seagulls, twin babies in a stroller, and had a ton of fun.

The day started out as grey and gloomy, you couldn't see the mountains, and it was a bit cold. Everyone was excited though, and it fueled the fires. As we rounded the corner to see the bridge, the sun started to peek out and it ended up being a beautiful day. You don't need mother nature to provide a beautiful day to have a beautiful day, but it sure does help the memories imprint harder into your brain...that's how I feel anyway. I think sometimes when the weather is not that nice, my brain remembers that and allows the fun we had to fade into the background. Needless to say I was very pleased with the day in all.

We felt like tourists in our city today. Renting bikes by Stanley Park is a very typical activity for tourists. It was kind of neat to pretend and explore. I guess we have acted like tourists a lot this summer, trying to make the most of the weather and the time off I have had. Thank you Vancouver!!

Airplane collection

My favourite cookies to date! My friend Veronica's son turned 2 this past week and loves airplanes. She asked me to make his cake, and I wanted to surprise them with some cookies as well. Ally from Girly Gatherings is soooooooooo inspiring, I follow her on Facebook and love everything she has created. Her latest collection of whale cookies inspired my airplane collection. As well, her idea of having a 'collection' to sell was genious - thank you so much, Ally!! I have cupcake toppers and thank you tags to follow along with this collection - pictures to come soon!

ETSY...

so, I've started a new project - Etsy. When I was at the Portabello West show, one of the vendors approached me and told me that I should definitely check out Etsy, as it could really help my business grow. I looked into it and am very impressed. Their mission is "to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:
$Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade." I had always visited local markets, lovingly looking at the wares of the creative, local person, but didn't know that I could do this, at any time, from my own home. I also didn't know the wealth of talent out there in the baking department. I have spent hours and hours scouring the internet for amazing, inspiring, people, and a lot of the people I've found are into Etsy too. So I took a leap, started my own shop, and wonder where it will take me. I still need to get my name out there, but hope that there are local people who search for baked goods via Etsy too. I also need to get the crafty portion of my business going so it can add dimension to the shop. Here is my my Etsy shop, the iBakery

summer in the city

Since November 2009 I have been running a little daycare out of my home. I had two wonderful little girls, Kira and Zoe. Zoe left in May as she got into daycare at UBC, and Kira left in June as her Mom is a teacher and off for the summer. I decided not to take on any new children until the fall, so that we could have a family fun summer doing whatever we wanted, whenver we wanted. So far this idea has worked out wonderfully. We are very lucky to have children who can accomodate to a new schedule as we have had days where we go to sleep at midnight and days where we drop our nap and go to bed at 6:30pm. We have gone on a water taxi down to Science World, walked the sea-wall from Dunderave to the Lion's Gate Bridge, watched 3 of 4 Symphony of Fires, listened to the folk festival while playing on the beach, listened to the open concerts at Douglas Park, camped in Nelson, visited friends in Summerland, and on and on. I guess I wanted to post this to share what a wonderful life Vancouver has given us, and to say that I love my family and have really enjoyed the summer so far. I can't wait for the remainder!!