SASKATOON -- As part of an annual tradition, IKEA invited kids from around the world to submit drawings for its Soft Toy Drawing Competition. Audrey, a nine-year-old from Saskatoon, is among five children whose drawings will be brought to life. She and her mother, Katherine, spoke to CTV News at Noon’s Jeff Rogstad about the experience. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So first of all, Audrey, how did you find out about this contest?
Audrey: My mom got an email notifying us about it, and she told me about it and I went for it.
A lot of people would think stuffed toys, they're thinking animal characters, things like that. You went with something completely different. What was it about your peanut butter and jam bread slices? Where did that idea come from?
I wanted to make a stuffy that represented friends. Peanut butter and jelly go great together and they’d make a great stuffy.
And clearly, the folks at IKEA thought so too. How did you find out that yours was one of the five out of the 10s of 1000s of designs submitted.
They sent us an email saying, congratulations Audrey you have won the IKEA drawing contest.
An email?! Come on IKEA! That still must have been pretty exciting. What happened, did you guys scream your heads off? Were you shocked too?
Katherine: Yeah, I agree. When I opened the email I had to read it a few times to kind of make sense of it. It was unbelievable but very exciting.
Have you always noticed that Audrey has a significant artistic side?
Oh yeah, she's always enjoys doing arts and crafts, and we're always looking for things to do and this came through an email from IKEA Family and I thought it sounded like a fun contest and I knew her brother and her would be into it so I mentioned it to them and right away they just started drawing.
Wait wait wait, there's a brother in this story?
A little brother.
And his design wasn't picked? Audrey is this going to be your go-to for the rest of his life? It's like, whenever there's an argument, “Well I won the IKEA contest.”
Audrey: He’s fine with it. He’s wanting to get a stuffy.
Katherine: Yeah, I think it just gives him hope that he might win sometime.
When it comes to fostering these kinds of creative outlets for your kids, is it something that you consciously do or is it something that you started doing because you're all at home now?
Katherine: A bit of both. I’ve always looked for fun things for the kids to do. Definitely spending lots of time at home. When this came across, it just seemed like a great thing to try … It’s amazing how much the photo they sent looks just like her drawing, it’s really incredible.
And I understand it’s not just a retail item, it’s raising money for something important?
Katherine: That’s right. The proceeds will go towards children's charities so it's really wonderful and I'm just so proud of Audrey that she's able to do something like that.
I think many people in Saskatoon are proud of her accomplishment, that's for sure. Now, the tough questions. Here we go. All right, first of all, start with Audrey: smooth peanut butter, crunchy peanut butter?
Audrey: I like all types of peanut butter.
What are you, a diplomat? Come on. What about you?
Katherine: The same. Any peanut butter is good peanut butter.
So, give me a rough time here. Okay, we're gonna change it up here. Jelly versus jam?
Katherine: I think we kind of just use those words interchangeably here. We really like making our own jam. We got a great recipe from our neighbor for strawberry rhubarb jam so I guess I'll go with jam.
So, Audrey is strawberry rhubarb your favorite jam flavor or do you have a favorite that you would like to put with some kind of peanut butter?
Audrey: I love that strawberry jam that we make, it's definitely my favorite by far.
Well you know what, those are great answers. I'm just goofing around a little bit but thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us and congratulations once again on this significant achievement, it's going to be wonderful to see the PB and J. Do they have character names or are they just called PB and J?
Audrey: Just PB and J.
