Today my SIL Nora, our friend Nancy and I drove over to
St Jacobs which is a small town near Kitchener which
is well known for it's many small shops and restaurants.
We took the "scenic route" which was my suggestion
and of course since we also followed my directions we
got hopelessly lost. How lost?? The trip to St. Jacobs
started from here at 11:00 am and we got to the town
just before 2:00 pm. The trip home on the highway,
without getting lost, took 70 minutes!! Oh well, it was
a lovely day for a drive.

And the moral of the story is: don't follow my directions
unless I'm holding a very good map book in my hands.
I'm a good navigator as long as I have a map book to
refer to.

Anyways, getting to the point of this whole opening
monologue ....

I love sparkle and glitter. Especially at Christmas time.
Whenever I am out somewhere and come across

Christmas ornaments for sale you can bet that if there
is something that sparkles and especially if it is gold
or red or green (my favorite Christmas colors ~ yes
I am very much a traditionalist when it comes to
Christmas decorating) I am drawn to it.

Many of the shops in St. Jacobs had Christmas stuff
for sale and the picture that I have heading this blog
today was taken in one of those shops. I'm trying to
get a feel for pictures taken indoors that weren't
arranged by Mother Nature specifically for my
benefit, so I was taking photos of some of the things
in the stores that caught my eye.

Another shop was selling quilts and I thought
that this one was especially nice and that you
might like to see it since I know some of you
are quilters too.

I love the detail and the colors in this quilt, although
I have to say that I don't remember ever seeing pink
Lily of the Valley. Artistic license??

I did a little stitching on both of my currant projects
this week. I finished the big motif on the bottom of
Halloween Quaker and can now start moving upward
to do a few small motifs which will be lots of fun.

On The Book Store I added curtains to the upstairs
windows even though I haven't put the roof on the
building yet. Hmmm. Hope it doesn't rain (or
snow) before I can get that roof on else my curtains
will be ruined. More leaves and flowers on the
right hand tree and another section of fence under
that tree.

I've got four days off of work this week. I'd like to
think that I'll get lots of stitching done during that
time but I just might jinx myself by stating it as a
definite fact so I'll just keep my fingers crossed
and hope for the best.

I had the day off work on Thursday because it was
Remembrance Day but I didn't take advantage of
the free day to sleep in. No sir. I got up at my
usual time and had breakfast with DH. Then he
drove me to the Go train station and I caught the
7:06 am train into Toronto.

The trip took an hour so by 8:00 or so I was making
my way through Union Station and out onto Bay
Street. I use to work in this neighborhood and so
know it pretty well. I walked from Union Station
down to the shore of Lake Ontario and wandered
along the boardwalk there for a bit.

As you can see from the pictures above and below
the waters of the lake were an incredible dark blue
that day. It was sunny and remarkably warm for
this time of year and the opportunity to just walk
and enjoy the view and the wonderful weather
was a blessing.

The downtown area of the lake shore is lined with condos
and apartment buildings and co-op housing. And all of
this land is landfill and man made. Originally everything
in these pictures was covered by the waters of Lake Ontario.

Tourist season is over so the excursion boats are all docked
and closed down for the winter. Because not everyone here
gets Remembrance Day off (mainly just banks and the
government) it was fairly quiet with none of the summer
time crowds that normally fill the public areas of the
Toronto waterfront.

Once I left the lake shore I walked up through bustling
downtown Toronto until I reached the area where
the New City Hall and the Old City Hall are located.
The picture above is of the Old City Hall, now used
as a court house. This venerable old building was
restored a few years ago revealing details and
ornamentation lost and forgotten for many decades
under grime and pollution.

See the tall clock tower in the above picture??

I walked until I was across the street from the building
and then used the zoom on my camera to take close up
pictures of one of the gargoyles that flank the clock.
Pretty neat huh? I was thrilled that I could get such a
close up shot of these handsome beasties.

Tucked away amongst office buildings, hotels and
the Toronto Eaton Centre (a mall) is the old
Holy Trinity Church, built circa 1846. This church
and a couple of other buildings associated with it
are hidden and dwarfed by the newer, modern
buildings that surround them but when you find
your way to them they offer an opportunity to
spend a few minutes in Toronto's past.

The main reason that I went into Toronto on Thursday
was to spend the day at my friend Linda's doing some
crafty stuff. So this picture is me trying to make some
artsy pages in my so called "art" journal. I am a wanna
be artist. I gather my art stash and other stuff and try
to make something out of them. I have issues with
self confidence and a tendency to dislike anything that
I do like this which is something that I need to work
on and get over so an afternoon creating like this is a
good exercise for me.

I'm in the midst of reading a book right now so
instead of a book recommendation I thought
that I'd do a magazine recommendation instead.

My name is Judy and I'm a magazine addict. If
I really let myself go (and had unlimited funds)
I could easily spend all my precious reading time
with my nose buried in the pages of the magazines
that appeal to me.

Over the years I've loved and bought Country
Living ... Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion ....
the old Victoria magazine ... This England ....
Entertainment Weekly ... People ... the new
Victoria magazine ... Country Sampler
Plus many more. If it appealed to one of my
interests then I couldn't resist it.

This summer I discovered all the incredible and
wonderful magazines published by Stampington
and Company and went crazy for a month or so
hitting stores whenever I was in Toronto looking
for the many publications that this company puts
out. I think I picked up about six or so different
titles published by them that appealed to me
personally, but there are many more available
then those.



These are more like books then magazines in my
opinion and are just beautiful to look at and to
read. If browsing through one of these beauties
doesn't get your creative juices flowing then I
don't know what will.

If I had to choose just two or three magazines
from this publisher to recommend then I'd have
to suggest "Where Women Create" and " Artful
Blogging". The titles are pretty self descriptive
and either or both of these would appeal to any
one who loves crafting and blogging.




Each artist/crafter/blogger featured in the pages
of these magazines tells a bit about themselves,
their particular style of art, their inspirations and
their advice or encouragement for others who are
intrigued and interested in creating art and or
crafts. In the case of Artful Blogging the wonderful
photos are taken from the featured blogger's own
blog, as are excerpts from posts that they've written
for their blogs.

These magazines are well worth looking for and
checking out if you are like me and can't resist a
great magazine. Just don't blame me if you can't
help buying up more then a few of the different
titles available. At least most of them only come
out four times a year.

**********************************************

Well, it's bed time and I've had a busy day so am
ready to toddle off to sleep. Thanks for visiting
and may I suggest that you check out the two
extra posts following this one that features the
Burger King commercials that my godson appeared
in. As I said in those posts ... I'm a mighty proud
godmother.

Cheers!