An Inspirational Artist – Keith L. Cooper

You Tube Video: Invitation
Keith L. Cooper is a Christian guitar player that we happened across by accident several years ago and totally fell in love with his music. His website is www.keithlcooper.com and you can listen to many of his songs there as well as purchase cd’s and lesson books. His style is unique and wonderful. I’d love to get his lesson books and learn to play like that, but I suppose I should work my way through the Esteban lesson dvd’s that I already have first. LOL
Enjoy!

Living Room Before and “After”

Sharing a recent home decorating project.
Before:

North wall – a hodge podge of bookshelves stacked mostly two or three high – I thought someday I’d build floor to ceiling shelves, but wasn’t able to come up with the money for the project, so these were to fill in the gap in the meantime. Unfortunately, it just looked rather messy.
Great love seat that I found for $25 at a rummage sale and planned to reupholster. Cost of materials again along with indecision about fabric choices and fear of messing it up got in the way.

East wall. Just a very full room with a lot of furniture. The large expanse of navy blue behind the armoire is a quilted window covering.

South wall – clutter. Piano bench has a pretty needlepoint seat, but the support beneath it is broken so it’s very uncomfortable to sit on. See that tall skinny wooden thing between the violin cabinet and the door? That’s my Gramma’s folding screen with four silk panels that she and Grampa brought back from China. So special, but one of the panels managed to get torn I felt awful about it – and there’s no room for it anyway.

 

West wall – boring expanse, the beautiful big potbelly stove hopes to be restored and then take the place of the little one.
Sooooooo – how to help this room?
After:

North/Northeast – I started by paring down the bookshelves. One went to our bedroom to hold videos, another went to the kitchen along with all the cookbooks, and a few just moved to new places within the room. The many binders in which I stored my sheet music and Suzuki books were emptied and the music given a new home in the coffee table-esque stack of boxes. (My son made those out of pallets! They’re supposed to be crates for delivering arrows to the castle in the movie we’re making, but I’m borrowing them. The loveseat was able to find room between the bookshelves against the wall. I picked up two tablecloths which I’m using as a throw until I can finally reupholster both loveseat and chair. That left me with a large open space above the couch. We had a mirror that used to go on an antique dresser, so I got my sons to help me hang it. I’m not positive yet about what should go around it. I felt it needed something. But for now, there’s a neat looking clock and a little corbel pedestal for one of Micha’s beaded dragons.

East – We found another home for the armoire and generally reduced the clutteredness. I gave the piano bench a new seat, got the top of the piano almost completely cleared off, and cleared out some of the extra stuff. I also made lace valances for the windows.

 

And finally West – my favorite and the most dramatic change. I decided to paint an accent wall. (The kids thought it was just about the craziest thing they’d ever heard of – painting just one wall! LOL) My friend, Cathe suggested the color and it turned out to be just perfect. I kept looking at that right hand edge of the green. I didn’t want to move the bookshelves again, but it needed something. Finally I came up with the idea for the scalloped edge. I used a stencil – part of it anyway and marked it on the wall with pencil, then painted in the lines with a small brush.
I took apart Gramma’s Chinese screen and turned the panels into a trio of wall hangings. (The fourth, torn panel became a pair of throw pillows for the couch.)
So that’s it – although “After” is in quotation marks because there are of course things I still hope to do in this room (like the reupholstering). I really like the changes we were able to make so far.

 

Warmth Wishing

Sharing Two Recipes

My Gramma Gartman was a great cook. I especially remember her coffee cake, her chicken and dumplings, her banana cream pie, her chili lasagna, her rice pudding, her strawberry freezer jam… but best of all, the thing that we all looked forward to and that she made so often, were Gramma’s rolls. She made large batches and saved the leftovers in empty cereal boxes. (They were just the right size and shape and the waxed paper liners were perfect for keeping them fresh.)
There has been some disagreement among my siblings as to whether or not I have the recipe written down correctly, but I still remember clearly the day that I asked Gramma to teach me how to make her rolls and I jotted everything down as we went along.
They are a bit finicky. They really like a nice warm place to rise or they just don’t. But even our flatter results have had the right taste at least – that wonderful memory filled taste.
Gramma Gartman’s Rolls
Ingredients:
1/4 lb margarine
1/2 c sugar
1 egg
1 c scalded milk
1 c warm milk
2 pkg (4 1/2 t) yeast softened in 1/2 c warm water
5 c (or so) flour
Directions:
Start by scalding the 1 c of milk in a small saucepan and putting the other cup of milk along with the stick of margarine into a bowl to melt in the microwave. Let both cool to room temperature. Soften the yeast in the warm water and allow to bloom. (I usually do this while the milk is still warm and allow it to sit until the milk has cooled enough to continue with the recipe.) Add the scalded milk, the milk and melted margarine mixture, the sugar, and the egg and mix well. Then add the flour one cup at a time (I usually find it takes more like six cups.) until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise in a warm place for one hour. Punch down. Roll or pat out to about 1/2 inch thick and cut into 2 inch squares. Place on greased baking sheet and let rise in a warm place again. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
Our family loves these with soup or with spaghetti or all by themselves with butter or jam. Yum!
(The second recipe is in the picture. It is another of Gramma’s recipes.) Enjoy!

Hush, Be Still

This is a song I’m still working on. I have words and melody, but nothing really recorded yet. Hopefully, posting this here will encourage me to finally make some progress on it.
“Hush, Be Still” is a song that I wrote for a friend of mine while she was going through a time with a lot of anxiety. She mentioned one day that one of her favorite passages was, Ps.131:1-2 ” My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.” This song is based on that passage. The Lord speaks and the soul responds.
Hush, Be Still – by Heidi Kaether copyright 2011
Hush, be still. I am always here.
Peace, be still. Trust and do not fear.
Let the cares of the world all fade away.
Rest, My little one, in Me.
Take My thoughts in exchange for yours.
There’s no need for you to worry so.
Trust My heart, for you know I am in control.
Rest, My little one, in Me.
In silence, I will wait for You.
Let me dwell in the shelter of Your wings.
Lord, when my heart is overwhelmed,
You are the Rock to which I will cling.
Sleep, My child, in My arms tonight.
Cease to strive. This is not your fight.
Just believe that all will turn out right.
Rest, My little one, in Me.
Like a weaned child in her mother’s arms.
I have stilled and quieted my soul.
All those thoughts that are too hard for me,
Lord, I leave them in Your control.
Hush, be still. I am always here.
Peace, be still. Trust and do not fear.
Let the cares of the world all fade away.
Rest, My little one.
Hush, My little one.
Rest, My little one, in Me.

Mason Jar Chandelier

Mason jar chandeliers are becoming quite popular. I first ran into them on pinterest (of course) and saw many of this type.

I liked it a lot, but I liked these better:

and

AND THEN I FOUND THIS!

SWOON!

Ok, so I knew what I wanted to try to make. I started watching Craig’s List for a chandelier that was the right shape.
I found this one…

The ad written for it was hilarious.
“Awful chandelier must go. It’s been replaced with something much more tasteful.
Builder threw this piece of junk in when the house was built 10 years ago. We can’t BELIEVE the prior owners never replaced it. But then again their taste was white, off-white and beige – when they really wanted to spice things up.
Get it soon before it goes to re-store and uglies up someone else’s dining room.
This ugly light works perfectly and is in perfect condition, although ugly.
Hopefully you have bad taste, will like this chandelier, and come give me a few bucks for it.”
Truly beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?!
So I bought that “ugly” chandelier and brought it home to de-uglify it.

I left the light shades off (those may go to Good Will)

and painted the whole thing copper.

I then began the process of what my daughter called “re-uglifying” it. LOL I chose two green paints, one an ivy green and one a turquoise. I didn’t have a sponge, so decided to sacrifice an old washcloth, which I wadded up and used to dab paint onto the chandelier

first the ivy green

and then the turquoise.

I let that dry and mixed some light blue paint with water to make a wash.

I gave the whole chandelier a light coating with the blue wash. (I did end up going back later and adding more copper and re-doing the wash as I felt I’d gone a bit overboard in the turquoise.) Now the chandelier had that old copper verdigris look that I liked so much in the inspiration picture.
I tried and tried to think of a way to make it work with the mason jars facing up, like in the picture. But the pictured chandelier was made for candles. Using it for light bulbs meant I’d need to find a way to make a hole in the bottom, and I couldn’t find a good safe way to do that. I even called my uncle who does stained glass to ask him for advice, but the best he could come up with meant going out and buying new tools. So, we rethought it.

One of my sons came up with the idea of gluing mason jar rings into each light sconce, which we did with five minute epoxy. Genius! (We’ll be using the curly flourescent bulbs so there shouldn’t be too much heat generated, but we’ll watch it at first to be sure.)

I purchased crystals from here and put it all together.
I’m just waiting for my husband to rewire it and it will take up its duties in our kitchen!

Everyone Loves a Man in Uniform