The 2015 Panda Calendar is here

Incredibly, last year's fun little project wasn't just a one-time thing. The evidence is right here in my office, in a box that arrived over the weekend. I'm so excited that Panda calendars have made it back for another year! The tradition continues: all profit will be donated to the shelter that saved Panda's life. Without the tireless work of the Frontier Animal Society, our beloved Panda and hundreds of other sweet, furry little souls simply would not be here today. Their dedication and genuine concern for all those in their charge is truly heart-warming and very special.

If you have a pet lover on your holiday gift list, this will provide them with a year's worth of smiles and the knowledge that you have also contributed to a very fine organization. Or, if you're in the mood to treat yo self, this is a fabulous opportunity to do so and give to a good cause to boot.

Panda would like to reassure you that many carrots were harmed in the production of this calendar. A special thank-you to my sweet Christian for taking these shop photos! Please help us sell out, which we almost did last year! You can purchase your very own Panda calendar here. Happy 2015!

Fresh Work: Ten Oaks Project

It's a big deal when one of your clients celebrates their tenth anniversary; it becomes that much more significant when you realize that you've been with them right from the start. When my sister Sonja first told me about the Ten Oaks Project, Holly and Julia Wagg weren't married yet and were hatching a dream - a dream that became reality thanks to the hard work, dedication and love of many caring folks.

Last Saturday, I hopped on a bus to Ottawa to join them in celebrating ten years of love, diversity and inclusiveness. It was a very touching event, filled with beautiful testimonials and heartfelt appreciation - not to mention glitter, crafts and cake. The Ten Oaks Project has transformed the lives of so many - if you haven't heard of them, do take a look at all the good that they do. Over the past decade, as I shifted between agency and freelance work, I collaborated with them to create their Camp Ten Oaks logo, Bowl-a-Thon posters, their first website, their annual reports; Christian and I visited Camp Ten Oaks and photographed their very first summer. Whenever I could, I donated my services. I've watched them grow, thrive, and develop even further - notably, Project Acorn which my awesome sister Sonja dedicated so many years to.

Most recently, I had the pleasure of designing their tenth anniversary logo, badge and invitation. It was my first time designing a badge and I am so hooked - must design more badges. So much fun.

Dear Holly, Julia, Sonja, Mark, Lee, Hannah and the entire Ten Oaks team and family - congratulations on your ten years, and here's to many more life-changing decades ahead of you. I'm so pleased and honoured to have been able to contribute in some small way, and I can't wait to see what we come up with next. Happy, happy anniversary :)

(thank-you for the photo, Holly!! xo)

Fresh Work: The NFB's 75th anniversary

When I was very little, I remember my mum bringing home a borrowed projector and a bunch of NFB animation reels for us to watch together, projected on our living room wall. When I was older and studying Illustration & Design, our class had the privilege of being taught a few classes by the talented Ishu Patel. He even took us on a tour of the NFB's offices and we were able to see some animation projects in progress - it was so motivating. I remember being so excited to visit a space where such inspiring work had been dreamed up.

I have friends who work at the NFB, my talented husband has worked on a few of their productions and we live in Hudson, the town that the inimitable Norman McLaren called home. Whether you remember The Hockey Sweater or The Big Snit (a personal favourite), every Canadian has a special connection to the NFB. So when they asked me to illustrate a timeline to help celebrate their 75th anniversary, I couldn't have been more thrilled!

The best part about working on this timeline was becoming totally absorbed by the NFB website - watching movies and discovering even more about the people and work that are such a special part of our heritage. To see the entire timeline and to find out more, please check out their blog post - and if you haven't already, I invite you to spend some time exploring the NFB site - it's a whole lot of fun. Happy anniversary, NFB!!

Calendar Girl

Here at Girlfriday, we like to give back. As 2013 winds down, I'm proud to have donated work and time this year to the very deserving and amazing Ten Oaks Project in Ottawa, as well as the tirelessly hard-working St. Mary's Hospital Foundation in Montreal. This year, Panda asked if she could get in on the fund-raising fun - so we hatched up a little calendar project to give back to Panda's favourite cause, because they are also the reason she is alive today. Now you can get your monthly dose of Panda even when the internet is out!

I'm pretty excited to finally have a first offering in my Etsy shop, and extra-pleased that any profit these calendars make will be going straight to the Frontier Animal Society. We're hoping to make this an annual fund-raising tradition!

I'd like to give a big thanks to Mylène and Warren at Pazazz, who were very patient with me and did such a beautiful job on the printing. The 2014 My Dog Panda calendar is in a handy 5 x 7" postcard format, printed on satin finish FSC-certified card stock - I love how it turned out. A special thanks also to my darling Christian, who helped take the pictures.

Click here if you'd like to purchase a 2014 My Dog Panda calendar for yourself or for the animal-lover in your life, and give back to an amazing, no-kill animal shelter to boot. It'll give you the warm fuzzies, Panda style.

We love our calendar girl!

Slinky Come Home

I'd been happily preparing to write a post about our new place and our new neighbourhood - there is so much to share, and we're loving it all so much! But I've been putting it off due to a furry little friend that has been painfully absent from our daily lives. Slinky the cat has up and gone on an adventure - or at least, that's what we're hoping. We've lived here for about a month, she's settled in really well and she's been gone overnight before, so we're pretty sure it's not a case of cat-freaked-out-from-new-surroundings, and more a case of exploratory enthusiasm... but it's been six days. She's never not come home for breakfast.

It's been many breakfasts. And dinners.

I'm worried that she followed a few too many field mice and has found herself somewhere too far from home - there are little wooded areas all over the place and she could be camped out in any one of them. Thankfully Hudson is peppered with little fresh water streams so she won't have hydration issues; there are houses/shelter within close reach, and hopefully food won't be too hard to come by, either.

We've been out calling up and down our winding streets several times a day, every day - we've told neighbours, emailed shelters, phoned vets... my printer is noisily printing up a fresh batch of posters as we speak and we're off to do some more blitzing. I am anxiously channeling the hopeful and perseverant spirit of Dan and John Spencer, who were happily reunited after almost 2 months. I've been reassured by friends who have some pretty crazy cat disappearance stories and I'm hoping that Slinky will follow her stomach and low-snuggle-quota all the way back home again... but every day a cloud settles deeper over this house. We're all feeling it.

Slinky, it's so hard to go to bed without you trying to squish up against me and send me to sleep with your purrs, and it's so sad to wake up without you staring me in the face, patiently waiting for breakfast. I miss your trill-hellos every time you walk into a room and your daily visits to my lap as I work. Please come home, we miss you so much.