Design

Above: An indoor herb garden for your kitchen

Click the link below to check out 33 freaky or functional design ideas for your dream house.  Some of these are pretty awesome, others just absurd, but each in very interesting.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT PAGE

Kids

Dylan's New "Hab"-it.

He may live in the Ottawa Valley, home of many Senators fans, but our pal Dylan is clearly a Montreal Canadiens fan.

Although this jersey may seem too large for little Dylan, what he currently lacks in size is more than made up for by his big spirit!

You

The Ice Man Cometh

Kyle Whittaker posted this pix on facebook last week after he has come in from shoveling snow.  Kyle said his beard felt a bit heavier and as we see here, there's a very good reason for that.

I've told Kyle many times how envious I am of his killer beard. Mine is back to a trimmed goatee again. (Yawn, how boring)  I just couldn't get my beard to grow in like Kyle's. 

[Sigh] An old "50 plus" year old beard just can't compete with the non-conformist facial hair of today's youth...LOL!

Entertainment

SEE THIS PIX IN FULL SCREEN MODE - CLICK ON THE BEATLES

The Birth of Beatlemania

Although they were already enjoying success in their native England, The Beatles made their first U.S. television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

CBS will air a special tribute to the Beatles this weekend, appropriately enough in the exact same time slot The Ed Sullivan Show once aired, 8 pm Sunday night.  The pre-recorded show will feature music by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and an all-star cast of performers.

 
HERE IS THE AUDIO OF THE BEATLES ON THE ED SULLIVAN  SHOW...

Me

Movin' On Down

The rumours are true, I will be moving back to St. Catharines at the end of March. The building I will be living in has only 3 units (one per floor) and I will occupy the lower unit (not quite a basement, but it is a few steps down from ground level.)

I have my dear friend Shelley Stewart and her connection with co-op housing for helping set me up with the place.

Prior to seeing the place in person, I went on Google Earth to see the street view of where I will be moving and I was a bit surprised. From the front, the building is somewhat dull. But as we have been told, time and time again, one should never judge a book by its cover.

SHELLEY STEWART

The following day I met Ian the property manager, who gave me a complete tour of the unit, which is already vacant. The place has tons of windows and was very bright and cheery. In addition to the main bedroom, there is also a "half bedroom" which looks like a great place to put my desk and potted plants, so 50% office, 50% sun room and 100% awesome. 

I have a door at the main entrance in front of the building and a back door which leads out to a small back yard and will be perfect for Timmi.

The rent is quite reasonable but I do have to pay my own hydro bill, so I guess it's time to be a little more aware of what's turned on and what should be turned off.

There are a few things about this move that I am sad about.  I really do like my current apartment and I am truly going to miss it, the neighbours and some of the parks and places I like to go in Welland.

I use an indoor antenna for my TV, which currently sits on my third floor window, facing Buffalo and receiving many great channels. The new place is ground level, further away from Buffalo and the living room windows face North. What's that all mean?  It is very likely that my antenna will be useless at the new place, but with windows on all sides, I will be moving the antenna from room to room and seeing if there is a spot where I can pick up the most stations.

Of course what I will miss most about my Welland apartment is having my ex Rob close by. We are now good friends and see each other frequently since he is in the apartment on the other side of my bedroom wall and this is something that is really going to be difficult to adjust to.

But everything changes and it is essential that I return to St. Catharines where all my doctors, therapist and family are. Once I am settled in. I am hopeful I will feel happy with the big move.

Here's a glimpse of the layout for my future home.  Definitely has lots of windows and on all 4 sides of the building, that's a new one for me!

Pets

Krash Kitty 

Take one hyperactive kitten, add one breakable gargoyle statuette along with a scented candle, that I had placed on my kitchen table as a centrepiece, and you have the perfect combination.... for disaster!

I was sitting at the table, so I had a front row seat, when JJ decided to fly over the table and in the process knock everything to the floor with a crash so loud, it frightened the lady who lives in the apartment beneath us.

The candle and holder were fine, but my gargoyle pal was suddenly missing the bottom of his body. The smashed portion of the gargoyle was in pieces too small to glue back together, but his upper body still looked good.

So what to do?  Obviously Mr Gargoyle couldn't be used as a centrepiece  anymore and with no legs it would be hard to sit him up anywhere.   Then I looked up at my potted plant and thought "Hmmmm, maybe what's left of the gargoyle would look ok in that hanging basket and people wouldn't know he was a jagged mess from the waste down.

Through trial and error I quickly discovered that I would need something to prop the gargoyle on and an empty jar worked perfectly.

It could be have been much worse. It could have been his bottom part that was salvaged and his face that was smashed up or he could have been completely destroyed.

I guess half of my favourite little gargoyle is better than no gargoyle at all.

Art

We became friends with Rene Rowland through our mutual love of the group Walk Off The Earth. Rene hosts a facebook fan page, which follows the unique group's every move, including their current 'Gang of Rhythm" Tour.

But that's only one of Rene's many talents. She is also an artist and currently enrolled in art school where she is expanding her skills.

We asked Rene if we could feature an interview and some of her moseix's in Scribbles. Not only did Rene agree, she provided both the questions and the answers for the exclusive interview below (now that's a first.) 

Check out the time and effort that goes into each piece Rene Rowland creates. It reminds me of the passion I have for Scribbles....only on fabric, instead of online.

Rene and her "Moseix"

What inspired you to create this art form?

The very first art that inspired me in this direction was Pointillism, which I was first exposed to in the third grade. I was fascinated by looking at the dots, which were meaningless up close, and then seeing a real picture from afar.

Later, in college, I saw a hand-torn paper mosaic of Abraham Lincoln at a museum, done in shades of grey. I do not remember the artist, and I have not been able to find it. That was the seed of what I now call "moseix."

I thought I'd like to make a picture like that using fabric. I had started with a poster print of a sunset--surprisingly in color!--and cut it up into one-inch squares, then started stacking them to organize by color. That was extremely tedious and I didn't finish.

...Not long after, my brother sent me a picture of my nephew, and the photo file had a little icon showing my nephew's face. Well, I copied the icon and pasted it into my desktop program, then enlarged it, and A-HA! I had my very first "Photoquilt."

The finished size was only about 30 x 40 inches, but the squares were large and it was hard to see the image unless you were at the end of the block looking at it! It was all a kind of happy accident.

How do you actually make your "moseix?"

Through a lot of patience and eyeballing! But once I found Photoshop in the late 90s I had the key. It was then possible to take an image and decide exactly how many squares to use. Ah, genius, that Photoshop, it pixelates!

The next one I made was a reproduction of a beautiful portrait of my dad at age 27. Not every image will render properly as a moseiq, but a facial closeup with this kind of classic shadowing is perfect for it. It wasn't too hard to find many shades of grey cotton fabric for this piece.

I have forgotten how many shades are in it, but once I decided on my palette of white to black, I stared at the pixelated image in photoshop and plotted the cut squares of fabric onto a sheet on the walll, one by one. Then I sewed the squares together as patchwork. They are all made from 100% cotton fabric.

You have made at least two Disney-themed moseix, is Disney your favorite theme?

My brother is the Disneyphile! He asked if I could do a portrait of Walt, like the one of my dad. And so you see it here, and there's even a hidden symbol in the upper right corner, can you see it?

The colors in the photo are not completely true. When you see it in person, it's a whole lot of fun to find the hidden surprise. In the year 2000, Disney released Fantasia 2000. The Rite of Spring segment moved me to tears, with the sprite, and the forest dying and coming back to life. So this moseiq is done with exactly 2000 squares in (I forget how) many shades of green.

How do you find all of those different colors? Do you dye the fabric?

I looked into dyeing it, but there are many established dye artists, and from them I can get a graded set of one color ready-to-go. But the majority of the fabrics are prints, especially batik prints. These I find at great quilt shops, and I'll travel an hour or two to get there. I don't need to buy much of each color, just an 1/8th or 1/4 yard at most.

But I need to buy hundreds of colors. And for every hundred used, there are a hundred that were set aside. Finding the fabrics is half the fun of making a moseiq. It's as much fun as it was when I was 10 at the Sears paint shop collecting sample paint cards while my parents picked out their home decor.

You mentioned "photoquilt" and "moseix." Are they quilts? What is the difference?

When I first got the idea, the obvious name seemed to be "photoquilts," and I established www.photoquilts.com, where you'll see most of these works (The website is an archive only now). They weren't technically quilts though, because quilting is the stitches that run through the patchwork in various patterns of their own. Therefore, I could never display my work in quilt shows.

One day I realized that the pixel art was decidedly contemporary, even though it was through an old medium (the fabric), and so I tried stretching it on a frame as art, rather than finishing it in the old-fashioned way. That's when I changed the name to "moseix," and now I will only stretch the work on frames. I'm much happier with it stretched, and it has added a higher value to my finished product.

Your picture of the Madonna and child is amazing. It looks like something I've seen before.

That's because it probably is! It's a detail from a 16th-century oil painting by Bernardino Luini called "The Virgin Holding the Sleeping Child with St John and Two Angels." The reason this one is clearer is that it has a higher resolution. That's more pixels per inch, just like with photos.

By the time of the Luini piece, I'd found a way to make the squares smaller. This 20x30-inch piece has 1,1813 squares in more than a hundred colors. The Luini--a copy that I made after the one in this picture--is the first one I decided to stretch on a frame.

Do you sell your moseix? Are they displayed in art exhibits?

Yes and no. Technically I have only sold one, and I believe I parted with it for too little. However, I donated this horse to an animal helping organization, and it auctioned for $3,000. That was pretty good! It still doesn't really pay for my time, but I was quite pleased that it brought that much. The horse is taken from a gorgeous photo of a rescued mustang, an Arabian Mare. You can also see it at www.moseix.com.

As for museums, I made a replica of the Walt Disney that my brother has, and it's displayed in at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, Missouri.

Do you do work on commission? What will you do next?

I have had a few inquiries regarding commissions, but 'til now the cost has gotten in the way. But of course, now everyone at Scribbles will want one, and there'll be a wait list. HAHA

Here's a sampling of Rene Rowland's awesome art. For each piece, we see the original photo or artwork that was the inspiration, a small version of what the moseix would look like from a distance and a closer view of what each piece is actually made up of.

 Rene's Father

 "A reproduction of a beautiful portrait of my dad at age 27. Not every image will render properly as a moseiq, but a facial closeup with this kind of classic shadowing is perfect for it. 

It wasn't too hard to find many shades of grey cotton fabric for this piece." 

Walt Disney

 "My brother is the Disneyphile! He asked if I could do a portrait of Walt, like the one of my dad. And so you see it here, and there's even a hidden symbol in the upper right corner, can you see it?"

Fantasia

 "In the year 2000, Disney released Fantasia 2000. The Rite of Spring segment moved me to tears, with the sprite, and the forest dying and coming back to life. 

So this moseiq is done with exactly 2000 squares in (I forget how) many shades of green."

 

 Madonna and Child

"[This is] a detail from a 16th-century oil painting by Bernardino Luini called "The Virgin Holding the Sleeping Child with St John and Two Angels." The reason this one is clearer is that it has a higher resolution. That's more pixels per inch, just like with photos..... This 20x30-inch piece has 1,1813 squares in more than a hundred colors."

Horse

"The horse is taken from a gorgeous photo of a rescued mustang, an Arabian Mare. You can also see it at www.moseix.com".

Inspiration

PHOTO BY SCRIBBLES - PATH ON ROEHAMPTON AVE -ST CATHARINES

Video

 

Meet Bubbles the Elephant and Bella the dog. This unlikely duo are the best of friends and this is the story of their unique bond.

This video was forwarded to Scribbles by our Port Colborne friend Dave Webber. It seems appropriate that someone who's nickname is Animal, brought this Elephant and Dog video to our attention.

You

Our buddy Dave is back. Seen here in a photo found on facebook.  "Great Uncle Dave having fun at the Hubbard's" was the pix accompanying text.

Great pix Dave, I mean "Great Uncle Dave",  LOL!

Music Video

Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart salute Led Zepplin with this haunting rendition of Stairway to Heaven.

Inspiration

Clever Video!

This is no yolk! A fast and easy way to separate egg yolk from egg whites... 

Humour

Recipe

Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower

A PureWow Original Recipe

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 head cauliflower

1½ cups plain Greek yogurt

1 lime, zested and juiced

2 tablespoons chile powder

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon curry powder

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400° and lightly grease a small baking sheet with vegetable oil. Set aside.
2. Trim the base of the cauliflower to remove any green leaves and the woody stem.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt with the lime zest and juice, chile powder, cumin, garlic powder, curry powder, salt and pepper.
4. Dunk the cauliflower into the bowl and use a brush or your hands to smear the marinade evenly over its surface. (Excess marinade can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to three days and used with meat, fish or other veggies.)
5. Place the cauliflower on the prepared baking sheet and roast until the surface is dry and lightly browned, 30 to 40 minutes. The marinade will make a crust on the surface of the cauliflower.
6. Let the cauliflower cool for 10 minutes before cutting it into wedges and serving alongside a big green salad.

Read more: Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower | Recipes - PureWow
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Karin's Video

Our friend Karin Campbell-Gadd and her husband Gerald escaped Winter for a little while, with a trip to Cuba.

On her last day there, Karin recorded some breathtaking footage of the beach. We may not actually be there, but watching Karin's video is the next best thing.

Let's take a few deep breathes and enjoy a tropical break, with this trip to the beach.

Funny Ad

This reminds me of my mom who is a big zebra fan... 

Tropical Memories

We've all heard of having a creative block. Well in my case my creativity is much like the weather....frozen. I've told several friends they're going to be featured in Scribbles in the past few weeks, but just can't seem to thaw out my brain long enough to get at it.

Maybe I'll crank the thermostat to max, stare at my pix taken from A 2001 visit to the Bahamas with my friend Jeff and pretend I'm there again. Perhaps that will get those creative juices flowing again and we will all be enjoying new Scribbles posts again soon.

Take a look back at the time my friend Jeff and I went to the Bahamas.  View slideshow of photos CLICK HERE 

Pets Video

Not sure whose kitty this is, the video was found online.  I know it isn't my cat, he runs and hides the minute he sees the vacuum cleaner come out. But this kooky kitty seems to think this is one of his toys....cute!

Kids

The Blythin siblings keep warm and toasty together in this big comfy bed. Left to right; Keira, Rachel, Evelyn and William.

Pix

When we saw this breathtaking photo on our friend Christian Bisson's facebook page, we immediately contacted him to see if we could feature it on Scribbles.

Christian wrote back, "Hi Ken, feel free to use it for Scribbles, you can crop the right side, I just noticed my finger I think lol! It was taken in Quebec City at the Montmorency Falls".

Thanks Christian, it really is a great shot and we had no trouble saying au revoir to your finger  before posting the photo here.

For Sale

I HAVE POSTED THIS ON kijiji BUT THOUGHT I'D ALSO GIVE MY SCRIBBLES FRIENDS CHANCE TO BUY....

'DALLAS' ENTIRE 14 SEASONS DVD SET

Relive every moment of TV's most beloved prime time drama. Who shot J.R.? Bobby returns. Pam's dream. It's all here and waiting for YOU! Get reacquainted with the Ewings this Winter, for hours and hours of memorable entertainment.

Entire 14 seasons DVD set. [Season one and two were packaged together, all other seasons on separate DVD set. ] In good condition. Originally purchased each season for approx. $40 each. (Worth over $500)

Scribbles Friends Special Price!!! only $90


I am located in WELLAND ON and you must be able to come pick them up.  

 CASH, Visa, Mastercard or PayPal

EMAIL ME @ scribblesonline@sympatico.ca 

or facebook message me 

or TEXT 905-937-5725  

(No phone calls please, I am on a very limited minutes plan, but have unlimited text)

Kids

CLICK ON PIX TO SEE LARGER VERSION

Budding Artist

Would you believe this awesome painting was created by a 5 year old?  It's true. Morghyn Quinlan is the little artist responsible for this work of art!

Morghyn's mom, Jodi told her facebook friends "P.A. Day fun - Morghyn had a blast taking an art workshop and creating this masterpiece to celebrate the year of the horse."

Great job Morghyn, we sure hope you create lots more artwork for us to show everyone!

Beat the Winter Blahs

Let's face it, after we're finished dreaming of a white Christmas and the holidays are a thing of the past, Winter can be a very depressing time of year.

This article was first featured in Scribbles Magazine's March 1990 edition, right around the time we've had more than enough of snowy, blowy, frigid Wintery days.

Some of the tips included here may be a bit outdated (remember, this was published before the days of computers, tablets, smartphones and other devices that distract us from the world outside our doors.)  That having been pointed out, there are still plenty of ideas that you might find useful.

Hang in there. Groundhog's Day is Feb 1st and after that it's six more weeks before we truly start thinking about Spring.

Here, in its entirety is Scribbles Magazine's 'Beat the Winter Blahs'.

LOL... There you have it, Scribbles tips to forgetting about Winter, as written in 1990 (on a device called a typewriter and obviously well before spell check.) 

We will continue to bring you highlights from Scribbles Magazines throughout this, our 35th Anniversary Year.

Kids

DALE WITH JETS ERIC TANGREDI IN ARTICLE FROM INFLIGHT MAGAZINE

Our Buddy Dale Featured in Inflight Magazine

The latest edition of InFlight magazine includes a feature story about the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Club visiting the Rehab Centre for Children (in Winnipeg) to meet some of their young fans.

Dale Eckert was amongst the kids who got to meet many of their hockey idols, including Eric Tangredi, Bryan Little and Ondrej Pavalec.

According to Dale's mother Ginny, the players signed autographs and gave the kids toques and a cool book called The HOME Team.

It was sure a delight to see Dale featured in InFlight, although Scribbles readers may recall that we featured this story and photos in mid December....so you read it here first friends!!

To revisit Scribbles post about Dale and the Jets CLICK HERE

Entertainment

PHOTO FROM WOTE FACEBOOK PAGE -PHOTO BY TJ CHAMPAGNE PHOTOGRAPHY - CLICK HERE TO GO TO TJ CHAMPAGNE FACEBOOK PAGE

'WOTE' Tour Off To a Great Start

PHOTO COURTESY WOTE FB PAGE -CLICK PIX FOR LARGE VERSION

Walk Off The Earth's Gang of Rhythm Tour began last week in Minnesota and is already receiving rave reviews. And why wouldn't it? Walk Off The Earth (or WOTE as their fans refer to them) have a unique style and sound that's hard not to fall in love with.

We recently featured an encore of WOTE's version of "Someone That I Used To Know" along with tour info and photos of Scribbles pals Megan and Rene meeting the band. You can find that post by clicking here.

Meanwhile, here's a couple more exciting videos from WOTE. The first is their original hit Red Hands which was shot in one take and then expertly tweaked to come up with the amazing video found here.

Next is a very cute video featured on CBC Kids, featuring both the band and kids performing as junior versions of each member of Walk Off The Earth.

Both videos are amazingly creative and perfect examples as to why Scribbles pals across North America are such devote fans.

Scribbles thanks our pal Rene in L.A. for keeping us and the rest of WOTE's fans up to date with her facebook fan page.


RED HANDS by Walk Off The Earth  
GANG OF RHYTHM by Walk Off The Earth & kids