You're The Cream To My Scone: A Story of Friendship, TV & Afternoon Tea

One of the most significant aspects of an artisan's work is their inspiration.  It's what brings fire and passion and light to everything they do.  Inspiration is one of those things in life that's very cyclical; sometimes it comes in abundant waves and other times it feels like the well has dried up.  We all seek it and draw from it in our own way and I feel so lucky that there are so many things in life that inspire me: books, magazines (I'm such a magazine junkie!), food, colours in nature, being in the city, and throughout the years, solid friendship. 

All of these things inform my work and the creation of Dessert by Deb's products and it's one of the best feelings when you have an "a-ha!" moment and come up with an idea completely out of the blue that you're so excited about that you can't wait to jot down or sketch for fear of losing the spark in that moment.  I've been known to turn off my bedside lamp at the end of my day only to turn it back on again 5 or 10 minutes later because inspiration struck juuuust as I was about to drift off into lala land.  Unpredictable - such is life!

With me, there's always a story.  So of course there's a story about the inspiration behind one of my favourite illustrations and products, the "You're The Cream To My Scone" design and greeting card!  And it's a story of such a special, important friendship in my life: the one I have with one of my two best friends.

My best friend and I have been friends for 20 years.  2 decades, approximately 1043 weeks.  That's a friggin long time!  We've seen each other through the most heart wrenching of times and the happiest, shared a ridiculous amount of laughs and probably just as many tears.  Teen years, school, jobs, work, dreams, Christmases, and birthdays.  And in the middle of all that, there was tv and afternoon tea - lots of it!

Do I have any fellow Gossip Girl fans here?!  My best friend and I looooved Gossip Girl when the show started back in 2007 into 2008.  It was our jam.  Season 1 will forever be one of the best things ever and I still watch youtube clips of it till this day.  She and I adored Blair and Serena (aka. Leighton Meester and Blake Lively) and while we loved both leading ladies, my best friend loved Blair and I loved Serena.  Which was ironically hilarious because my best friend was the taller one of the two of us (like Serena) and during that time in my life, I was constantly wearing hairbands as part of my everyday fashion (like Blair), but nevertheless, she and I were bffs just like them.  You know, without the Upper East Side lifestyle and frenemy bit, ha!

On my birthday card for my 23rd birthday, my best friend had written at the end, "the Serena to my Blair!" and I just thought that was the funnest, sweetest, most clever thing and from that point forward, she wasn't just my longtime, closest friend, she'd forever be the "Blair to my Serena".  

And about a handful of years later, she and I started having afternoon tea together all the time: birthdays, Christmases, random times in the year to catch up, just because.  I had had afternoon tea for the first time myself back in 2010, but much like Gossip Girl, afternoon tea became our "thing".  She and I would try different ones in the city, go nuts over scones, jam, cream, and lemon curd, and carve out those hours from our increasingly hectic lives to enjoy life.  There are certain things that you just do with particular friends.  Some friends do movies, some do lunch, some do sports or yoga as their "thing".  She and I do afternoon tea.  So when I came up with the idea to do a cute scone card for my afternoon tea collection, I knew just the perfect copy to write for it.

I am so lucky to have our friendship in my life and I can only hope that there will be 20 years more, full of tea, cute cards, and inspiring memories.  She is the Blair to my Serena, the cream to my scone.