Pumpkin Coffee Cake with Pecan Streusel

Happy Halloween, season of all things spooky and pumpkin! While I'm not actually super big on pumpkin, I couldn't resist making this cake after going apple and pumpkin picking and sampling all the baked goods at the orchards. There's nothing better than the smell of spiced cake in the kitchen as the weather cools down.



I have to admit, it took me several tries to get this recipe right. Way too much pumpkin puree the first time and the cake was just a dense, gloppy mess. The next couple tries were pretty good, just not quite what I wanted. Finally, the fourth cake was everything I was looking for, not too dense, lightly sweet and spiced with a nice crunch from the pecans. The perfect fall afternoon snack with coffee! Or perfect breakfast, warmed up in the toaster oven. Really, this is an anytime of day kind of cake.

Bleach and Glitter

So I haven't done any personal animation work for quite some time now and have been trying to come up with an idea for a new short. I was going through all my old files and came across this piece that I made several years ago during an experimental animation class.



It's a scratch film/direct animation, where I drew or scratched the images onto clear and black leader film. I used all sorts of materials such as glass paints, sharpies, inks, bleach, and glitter. Then I cut the all the bits of film together and my friend, Andrew Champlin, composed the music.

I had so much fun making this film and putting it all together. With scratch film, it's kind of spontaneous in that until you run your film through the projector, you can't be 100% sure exactly what you're going to get, there's no instant gratification. You can kind of plan your timing out with 24 frames a second, but not knowing is part of what makes it fun. Hope you enjoy!

Thank you for voting!

So voting for the Martha Stewart American Made Awards ended this past Monday. A HUGE thank you to everyone who voted over the past few weeks! The final count for The Pudgy Rabbit ended up being around 2,500, and I know that the voting process was a bit tedious, so thank you all so much for taking the time to show your support!!

Winners will be announced in a couple of days, so hopefully I'll have some good news by the end of the week! And even if The Pudgy Rabbit doesn't win one of the grand prizes, it was still some great exposure for the shop. I've been getting more requests for wholesale orders, so the crochet kits are finding their way into stores. I'm also happy to announce that I was approached by the American Made team to sell the kits in their Ebay store, so in a few weeks, you'll be able to shop Pudgy Rabbit products in the official Martha Stewart American Made Market!

Again, I can't thank you guys enough for all the encouragement and support as I build and grow my little business. It means a lot and I'm looking forward to what's next for the shop!