Preliminary Attempts at Decorating

Here are quick snapshots at my preliminary attempts at house-decorating. I never was good at house decoration, mostly just the dorm style of cramming as many snapshots of my family and pictures of Jesus as a wall could hold, interspersed with my favorite Bible quotes written on pieces of computer paper taped up to the walls.

Now, for the first time, I feel like I really have an idea of what I want my house to look like, something between medieval, and Rivendell, and some Hebrew thrown in.

I'm in an apartment, and have to deal with the colors the walls were already, very dark maroon in our bedroom, and dark brown in the hallway/kitchen/living room area. I crave light. I get depressed when there isn't enough light, more accurately, I get frantic. At least I had the energy to repaint the very dark turquoise living room light yellow before the babies came. The moment of futility of painting a rental hit me when after much work, I found a paint chip of almost the exact same yellow under the dark turquoise and dark brown. So after we leave (which is also very uncertain) who knows if the next renters will paint it turquoise again...

SO, I decided a better way to break up the dark wall was with wall hangings that reflected at least some light. I've found the dark colors work well to frame medieval looking hangings. Here are my preliminary attempts.

The border to Psalm 27 is copied basically from the border around illuminations of a Medieval Bible (I think Late Antiquity era, the pictures looked kinda like the Utrecht psalter, but with color) that I saw on the internet. I used gold foil from ALDI's chocolate wrappers fro the gilding, and a razored sharpee marker for the writing. (also a bottle of gold acrylic paint that Walmart sells for around 2 bucks. Its good to live in an age when creative things are easy to come by)

This one is Psalm 121, and the picture below is from the artist/writer Michael D O'Brien at studiobrien.com. Its a picture of the original which was sold, and to the best of my knowledge he doesn't sell prints, so my twin printed this out in college and we had it on our wall. Its Joseph holding baby Jesus while the Holy Spirit hovers over. I love his books too.

Here are my first attempts at wall hanging on the hallway wall, which sticks into the Living Area. There's alot more dark wall to cover up, but I was trying to miss the mess. I need to clean the house.

And a close up.

Paints also from Walmart. I am looking forward to getting up the other wall hangings, and I have some scrap wood and black paint and old L brackets I hope to turn into candle holders on the walls....

Why I love Tolkien

I love Tolkien. I was brainwashed at an early age, as my Daddy would read us Lord of the Rings every night as my 9 yr old self lay in my top bunk, the ceiling becoming a world full of gold and green and silver, soaking in the wonder of stars and self sacrifice. He says it much better than me...an embattled army whose only goal was to distract the overwhelming enemy long enough to give the rest of the world a chance 'There they raised, fair and desperate, the banner of the tree and stars." I loved all Tolkien meant by the word 'fair'....something to do with green trees on the golden light of high morning, of great deeds done for love of all that was good, of the intense longing for the undefinable something of the moonlight on rustling branches beneath a cold wind and bright clear stars. Something to do with the elk-calls in November in Yellowstone park when the mist still clings to the mountains. Something to do with Rachmaninoff's Vespers aching in my heart. But not so ethereal that it wasn't as homey as fresh bread with butter on it eaten with lots of jam at 10 am with the morning sunlight streaming onto a chaotic table of 8 siblings a baby trying to stuff the jam spoon into her mouth.
I couldn't find a word to describe what Tolkien called 'fair.' It was a long story, and follows the tortured musings of a preteen/teen mind, but in the end, I found the word that fit. Holy.
Holiness is something so little understood, so dismissed, so written off as already understood when in fact we are just categorizing it, instead of seeing it with open eyes...because perhaps if we did we would fall on our faces.

Welcome :)

I always loved Rivendell. I loved the stars and the lanterns and the elves singing songs by the fire into the night. It reminded me of family camping trips, only better.
I like to sew and make things. I have been making myself medieval/LotR things since I was a kid, from sticks with their epic sword names written on the 'hilts' and simple capes, to dresses and stories and jewelry. I spent a lot of time researching like-minded people on the internet. Then I got depressed about it all.
 There are so many of us, that loving something so beautiful and wonder-filled and real and big, end up in a costume with silicone ear extensions and a photoshopped backdrop that crops the highway out of the forest scene. But I want more than that. I want the real thing. I want Rivendell, the heart of Rivendell, what made me love it in the first place, not just the trappings.

This blog is about my attempts at making the heart of Rivendell now, in modern day America.