Running cold and hot ....

After our tour of the Winter Garden and the

Elgin theatres we had an afternoon of free

time to fill.   It was a cold day with a strong

breeze but the sky was blue and the sun was

shining so we decided to get out and enjoy

it.

There was an ice sculpting contest in the

Yorkville area of downtown Toronto so

we walked there from our hotel ... which

was perhaps a bit further then we realized

but we huddled in our winter gear and

kept going.

How do you get an ice sculpture smooth?

Well, you use an iron of course.

And if you are looking for a bit of 

refreshment you find a bar .... made

of ice.   I'm told the blue liquid (which

was non alcoholic) tasted like raspberry.

The little shots of red and blue liquids

were free ... and yes the red stuff was

alcoholic.

Lots of different icy creations with a theme

that seemed to be something to do with 

heat and the tropics.   I'm not sure if that

might be considered a bit sadistic given the

winter we'd been having and the weather

on that particular day ....

To balance the cold with some welcome

and much needed warmth our next stop that 

afternoon was Allen gardens and the 

conservatory there.

Aahhhh ... now that's more like it!!!

Spring flowers .... even though it was

February, a section of dessert plants

and palm trees.   

We stayed there until closing time enjoying

the flowers, the sounds of trickling water and

most of all ... the warmth!!!

Walking back to our hotel from Allen gardens we

passed Maple Leaf Gardens ... former home of the

Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.   The Gardens

is now a part of Ryerson University and a section

has been leased by grocery store chain Loblaws

and has become their flagship store.

Quite the spiffy looking place to buy groceries.

A wall tribute to the Maple Leafs.

A wall tribute to cheese!

And assorted other goodies.   Oh boy!!

I'm not keen on macaroons but the colours

that these came in was astounding!  I wonder

what blue macaroons taste like??

At which point we headed off to Swiss Chalet

for dinner again because for some reason we

were feeling a bit hungry.

Cheers!

The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres ....

This winter really got to me.   Most years I can

skip through the dark, cold, dreary days of the

winter season with nary a twinge.   I get out

when I can and hibernate in my craft room 

or take refuge in a good book when I cannot.

But this winter was different.  I think the

ice storm just before Christmas really got

the season off on a nasty footing and just

got gradually worse.    I'm sure you

all know exactly what I'm talking about

and have been experiencing it yourselves.

I've been eating stuff that I shouldn't in

quantities that I didn't need,  I've been 

voluntarily, morosely  housebound

because of the frigid weather and the 

treacherous conditions under foot, and

have had no ambition to do anything at all.

Because of this interminable winter

 I decided to skip March entirely.

March let me/us down.   No gentle

easing of winter's icy fist of doom,

no ever increasing bouts of warmer,

sunny weather,  no signs of tiny green

buds poking through the ground ....

Actually, no signs of the ground

whatsoever.

March was a bust!!!

So lets just move on to April and

forget that March ever even existed.

Okay?

When last we met I was describing the 

2014 Girls Weekend in Toronto that

my friend Darlene and I enjoyed in

February.   To continue that story

we are now on Saturday, the main

full day of the weekend.

We began by sleeping in a bit ... of course

and then rushed around getting showered

and dressed in time for the planned ... and

unplanned ... events of the day ahead.

Breakfast was at McDonalds since we were

in a hurry which wasn't too bad food wise.

They make good hot chocolate.

Our first event of the day was a tour of one

of downtown Toronto's theatrical gems ....

The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres.

Any theatre lovers out there???  

 I've loved the theatre and especially the 

musical theatre since forever!!   And I've 

been to just about all the theatres in the 

downtown Toronto area over the years for 

various shows.   But somehow I'd never 

been to anything in the Elgin and/or the 

Winter Garden theatres.  So the 

opportunity to explore and tour these two

historic theatres was an highly anticipated

event.

The Elgin and the Winter Garden are two

theatrical spaces built one on top of the

other and are the only ones of that kind

left in the world.    The Elgin is on street

level while the Winter Garden is seven

stories above it.   Built in 1913 the 

theatres were mainly intended for use

during the heyday of vaudeville and

for the showing of the newly invented

moving pictures.

The interesting thing about these theatres

though is that in 1928, when vaudeville

was no longer popular with theatre goers

and loosing money and patrons it was 

decided to close the Winter Garden theatre.

So they did.

One night, after the last vaudeville show

performed there, the staff covered stuff

with tarps, shut off the lights, locked the

doors and walked away.   For 60 years!!!

They even ended up blocking off the grand 

staircase leading up to the Winter Garden

to keep curious people from going up there

to poke around and perhaps carry away 

souvenirs of the place.  

Interior of the Elgin theatre.  This is the larger of

the two theatres and the one on ground level.

The Elgin theatre suffered the fate that many

former live theatre spaces did during the

1960's when it was turned into a movie

theatre.

Then, in the 80's, with a revival of interest

in live theatre and the successful restorations

of other historic theatres in Toronto the 

Ontario Heritage Trust decided to take on

the restoration of the Elgin and the Winter

Garden theatres.

They unblocked the grand staircase and 

opened the doors to the long abandoned

Winter Garden theatre and walked into

a time capsule.    Everything left just 

exactly as it was when the last 

vaudeville performance had ended

60 years earlier.   

They found the huge old movie 

projector,  they found stage equipment, 

the old lighting and they found an extensive

collection of hand painted vaudevillian

scenery just left there,  and although

the place had suffered the ill effects

of time, neglect and water from the

inevitable leaky roof,  they had 

plenty that could be restored or used

to reproduce to exacting detail 

what once had been.

And why was it called The Winter

Garden Theatre you might ask?

When you walk into the theatre you look up

in awe at the ceiling.   It is covered in foliage!

Branches and leaves and berries and flowers,

in many variations and colours.  With little

lanterns scattered around for lighting.  Some

of those had been stolen over the years, but those

on the main ceiling were still there.

This picture is of the ceiling below the

balconies.   The old foliage was not

salvageable so the restoration team

went out to wood lots around the city

and brought back real branches to use

and samples of leaves to recreate the

ceiling in all it's awe inspiring detail. 

One side of the theatre was badly water damaged

and had to be re plastered and re painted, but the

other side and the back were in good, salvageable

condition.   

We were taken behind the stage of the 

Winter Garden to see some of the 

old lighting system and the incredible

movie camera, some of the equipment

left behind when the theatre was abandoned.

One of the old vaudevillian backdrops, 

restored and used to cover the fire 

screen on the stage.

The delicate hand pained back wall of the

theatre. 

The tour, conducted by a volunteer well

versed in the history and the restoration

of the theatres, lasted an hour and a half

and was thoroughly fascinating.  I love

hearing about the old buildings and

the history of Toronto so this was

a major thrill for me to experience and

I know Darlene felt the same way.

Yes, there are ghost stories and during the

Halloween season there is a haunted tour

of the place.    The tours are conducted

on Thursdays and Saturdays for a small

fee and well worth the money.

Oh, one more story.

The old seating in the Winter Garden was

not restorable.   So they went looking

for seating from another theatre of the

same vintage to replace them.   They 

found a warehouse full of seats from an

old Chicago theatre that fit the bill

perfectly, cleaned them up and reupholstered

them and retrofitted them into the Winter

Garden.

Then they found out the history of those

seats and the theatre they came from.

Apparently it was a movie theatre (The

Biograph) and one night in 1934, after a showing 

of the movie Manhattan Melodrama, one couple in

particular left the theatre.    The woman was

wearing a red dress.   (Do you know

where I'm going with this?)

Waiting outside the theatre was the police

who were watching for that woman in the

red dress.  Her escort was accosted and told to 

surrender.   He chose to pull a gun and try to run 

for it.  The police opened fire and shot him.

The man was John Dillinger.

So if you go to the Winter Garden theatre

to see a show you might just end up 

sitting in the seat that John Dillinger sat

in on that fateful night.  

Unfortunately no one knows just which one

of the seats it is.   But that's fine.   Hopefully

you'll have a better night in it then Mr

Dillinger did.

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of Toronto

history and I haven't bored you too much.

There is more to tell of our Saturday after

we left the theatre but that'll do for another post.

Cheers!!

Link to the Elgin and Winter Garden site

for more info and history.

http://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/EWG/About-us/History.aspx

The wayward blogger returns!

Lack of news or anything of interest to blog about 

caused me to skip a weekend and then I came 

down with an annoying cold (with special

thanks to my DH for sharing) that is hanging

on into it's third week now and left me with

little energy or inclination to do much of 

anything for a second weekend.

But last week I had my first week of vacation for

this year and crammed a lot of paper crafting

and talk radio listening into that time whilst

also entertaining my cold.

Sooooo.....

I have so much to write about now but want 

to try and space out the tales of my adventures

of the past two weeks so I don't overwhelm you

all at once.

A new mandala from my doodle book.

I just realized that it's showing here on

it's side but since it's a circle design

I guess that really doesn't matter ... so

.... never mind.

This bird I made out of scrap papers and my

own hand drawn design plus lovely metalic

markers and a jewel for it's eye.   It's not 

stuck to the white background you see here.

It's a free range bird that fits in my hand

(edge of palm to finger tips in length).

I had fun making her and plan to make 

more with my paper scraps.   Why?

Because it's FUN!!!!!

I made a double sided collage page

as well last week, taking a picture

from one of my old Victoria 

magazines as a start and adding 

stamping, a bit of washi tape, 

scrapbooking embelishments,

a cut up and inked paper doily

and lots of adhesive.  

On the flip side I went with a blue 

theme and used all of the same 

sorts of stuff as was used on the

pink page.

I have a large pile of Victoria 

magazines that I want to go 

through and cut apart to 

remove any articles and pictures

that appeal to me to be saved in

some form or other.   Then I'll

recycle the parts that I don't 

want ... or do more collage

with them.

I did other crafty stuff too

last week since I was housebound

with my cold and the usual 

round of nasty weather that

seems to be making up the 

majority of this never ending

winter ... and that's all I'm

going to say about the weather 

in this post!!!!!

Will show more of my crafty

stuff next post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last weekend was our third

annual "Girls Weekend" in

Toronto.   My friend Darlene

and I have made this a yearly

tradition that we look forward

to with great anticipation during

the dull days of mid winter.

We had tickets to a show,

and we planned to do touristy

stuff and eat out a lot during 

our two days in the big city.

Yes sir,  we were two wild

and crazy gals being footloose

and fancy free, kicking up our

heels ... and all kinds of other

inane phrases like that.

We stayed at the Eaton Chelsea hotel in the

heart of downtown Toronto.   Within walking

distance of theatres, shopping, The World's

Biggest Bookstore, restaurants etc.

Sound like a commercial, don't I?

Anyways .... our room was on the 16th

floor and we had a great deal for our

two night stay.   That's our room

above.   The beds were really

comfy.

A bit of the view from our room's little balcony.

I did use the zoom lens on my camera to take

this picture of a side street next to the hotel.

Both Friday night and Saturday night

we had dinner at Swiss Chalet.  Why?

Because we love Swiss Chalet.   Great

food, great prices ... and their chicken

Spring rolls are to die for!!!!

Uh, sorry.  Another commercial.

After dinner we strolled around the

downtown and visited The World's

Biggest Bookstore which, sadly,

will be closing in March after 

close to 30 or more years in business.

Two floors of books and magazines

to browse through for as long as

you can spare the time.   I could kill

half a day in here no problem.

I came here about 30 years ago to

have my copy of Shirley Temple's

autobiography signed by the author

herself ... Shirley Temple.  That was

pretty cool.    She was a nice lady.

Ah, memories.

We admired a few  of the old buildings

that are scattered around downtown

including the Elgin & Winter Garden

threatres ... which I'll be writing more

about next time.   So stay tuned.

Okay ... no more commercial 

breaks.   I promise.

Well, except for this one.   Before

heading back to our hotel room at

the end of the night we stopped at

the Pickle Barrel for desert.

This is mine.

Frozen vanilla yogurt, whipped

cream, oreo cookies, a brownie,

chocolate sauce and a cherry on

top.   Tasty!!!!!

Then we returned to our hotel

room and rented a movie.  We'd

been wanting to see Frozen 

ever since it came out and so

when we saw it being offered on

the hotel's movies to rent site

we grabbed it.

It was fabulous!!!!!

And that'll do it for now.  

I'll be back with more of the

"Incredible adventures of

Darlene and Judy in the

BIG city" next time.

Cheers!!!

These days my blog posts are pretty repetitive ... or

at least so it seems.   Its snowed ... again!!!   This

time it was on a Wednesday, not a Saturday, so we

had to drive to work during the full brunt of it.

I worked the full day but Phil's work sent him home 

at noon so he spent Wednesday afternoon shovelling 

the driveway ... over and over and over.   

Since we haven't had a break in the cold weather

 for a month or more the snow just keeps piling up.

At this point we're running out of places to put the 

stuff. 

The back yard.   Note the pile of snow on top of

the birdbath to the right of the picture.   Phil's

bench is almost buried.    We were originally

only expecting about 5 - 10 cm of snow which

wasn't worthy of much attention given the

winter that we've had so far.   HoHum!  But

the night before the storm the weather service

 suddenly decided that it would be closer to 10 - 

15 cm and we began to sit up and take notice.

We actually got 21 cm of it.

It's snowing again today (well, it has been

almost four days since the last snow fall!)

and we've been told we're only suppose to be 

getting a few cm in total.    Since it began this 

morning it's been snowing non stop although 

it's been just a fine snow and not heavy flakes.

So what to do when winter breaks your heart?

Go to Michaels!!!!

I picked up a few choice Michael's coupons in

the local paper on Thursday night (A 30 

percent off entire purchase coupon for non 

sale items and a 20 percent off of sale items 

coupon  and a 40 percent off of one item coupon) 

and then convinced DH that actually the "official"

gift to give on Valentine's Day isn't roses

(as one has been given to understand over

the years by an evil Florists conspiracy) but

is actually craft supplies!   No really, it's

true!!

So off we went!  :)   

He got me the two Martha Stewart punches to

add to my collection and ... um ... I got the

rest.  

And what does one do with such bounty you

may be asking?  (Well, aren't you?)

I found an online collage/doodle class on sale

at one of my favourite art blogs and jumped 

at it. 

Here is the link http://cathyb.typepad.com/ 

The sale is on for another week and you

get 7 videos at around 12 minutes long

each that takes you step by step through

the process of making one of these 

doodle/collage combos.

If you're interested you can go to the Feb 

1st post for the offer which is running for 

another week.

Right side of page.   Flowers from 

scrapbook papers along with my

markers, washi tape and magazine

cut outs and old book pages.

Left side of page.    I started this

Saturday afternoon and couldn't

leave it alone so poor Phil 

didn't get much supper last night.

(Hangs head in shame)    I still

want to add a saying or something

to finish it off.

Rowyn was interested in the washi tape that

I'd mentioned before in previous posts.   Here

is my humble collection of tape.

Washi tape comes in every colour and in

an incredible array of patterns as well as

solid colours and in different widths.  It's

paper tape that can be seen through when

placed on a page to some degree.

You can use it for any kind of paper project.

Note:  washi tape is as addictive as cross 

stitch thread.

The newest rolls that I picked up yesterday.

Pretty patterns, pretty blues.

The only thing that I love more then washi tape

is scrap book paper ... and markers ... and 

punches ... and trims.

Okay, I love it all.

I'm not watching the Olympics since sports of

any sort bores me to tears.   Most of the few

TV programs that I watch are being pre-empted

for the Olympics (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

or are over for the season (Sleepy Hallow) or 

won't be back until March (Once Upon a Time).

So much for television.

I might mention that I'm really, really looking

forward to the Outlander TV series that's coming

this summer.   

I picked up this book at the second hand

book store not long ago and just 

finished reading it last week.   I'm not

really a huge Anne Murray fan music

wise but I do admire the lady and

found the book to be very interesting

and often quite funny.

Time to go make dinner.   Don't 

want to make Phil miss it two

nights in a row.   He won't

take me to Michaels again.

Cheers!

Guess what?    It snowed!!!    Again!!!!

Or

If it's snowing this must be Saturday.

Or

The blasted groundhog saw his damn 

shadow, didn't he?

Or

One weather system moves out (extreme

cold)  and another moves in  (snow, warmer 

temperatures, freezing rain and rain ... then

back to cold again). 

Or 

Will it ever end?????

Another big branch came off our tree.   There's

still four or six limbs dangling up there that

will probably require the attentions of a 

tree service to take them down.   Plus there is

still a huge branch skewering our Lilac tree

that will need to be cut out somehow.

However getting ahold of a tree service

these days is something of a challenge.   There

has been so much damage from the ice storm

those guys are just running from one end of

town to the other on a daily basis.   And

they will probably have to wait until Spring

arrives and the snow melts ... sometime around

the end of June I'm thinking .... to do a lot of

the more difficult, higher up limbs.

My craft project for this week.

I've been putting my ... um ... artsy photos

in one of my Smash books this week.   I had

them printed as 5 x 7 's to do this project

and I've been enjoying matting them

and placing them in the book.

I still have room for more but need to 

choose which ones I like best and get

them printed off.   Meanwhile I'm

pondering how to decorate each page.

Some I'm not doing much with but 

others, such as this spread, I'm

using Washi tape to create borders.

The afore mentioned "Green" Smash

book. 

Another spread.   Won't do much more to

this.   I love the sunset paper background

and don't want to cover it up any more

than I already have.

And I love this paper too.   So will keep

the trims to a minimum here as well.

I finished reading "The Virgin Cure"

by Ami Mckay this week.   Not a 

big book but a well written story

that takes place around 1870's and

tells the story of a young girl in

New York city names Moth.

I read Ami McKay's first book

"The Birth House" and enjoyed

it so kept an eye out for her 

next book.

More doodles.

Another one.

A Dude ... not a doodle.

Sorry.   Bad pun.    Rupert.

Happy February everyone!!!

Cheers!