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All Things Home

gold leafing & antiquing a frame

Since I love using antique frames for my original paintings, I’ve been wanting to delve deeper into frame restoration.  I currently do basic repair work and sprucing up, but I haven’t gotten into anything too complicated.  I approach it much the way I did furniture makeovers – I just want the piece to look better than it did before I started working on it.  It’s old, and it’s okay that it looks old and isn’t perfect.  I don’t want the imperfections, though, to detract from its beauty or the painting.  Most frames just need cleaning, and maybe a rub-down with hemp oil and a few touches of some appropriately-colored Rub-n-Buff, but some pieces need a bit more. I have had this frame in my stash for a while.  I’ve tried it on several pieces, but it hasn’t been right for any of them.  I love the detail and chunkiness of

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November 5, 2026 5 Comments
Antiques

Newburgh Vintage Emporium Warehouse

On the way home from the Country Living Fair, my mom and I thought we would stop by a few antique stores.  We planned on shopping our way up to Rhinebeck, but the GPS routed us on toll roads, so we didn’t see anywhere to stop.  I should’ve planned out a route ahead of time, but I didn’t have the time to do that leading up to the event.  Our drive home could be a bit more leisurely, so we consulted with our friend Diane, who suggested a route and highlighted a few good antique stores. A few hadn’t opened for the day yet, but we finally came across one that was open and stopped in – the Newburgh Vintage Emporium Ware-House in Newburgh, NY. The antique mall was a good size with a quality mix of vendors.  I was pretty zeroed in on frames and potential pieces for displaying

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November 2, 2026 7 Comments
All Things Home

Shopping at Lucketts Fall Market 2026

As I shared last week, my plan for the Lucketts Fall Market was to shop Friday morning and then man my space in the afternoon.  As soon as the gates opened and people wanted to purchase prints and paintings, I knew that plan was folly.  I know, as a shopper, I would’ve been irritated if things were sitting out for sale and no one was there to sell them.  I took advantage of a few slow stretches to make quick passes to check out as many vendors as I could.  Before that, though, my mom and cousin went on a recon mission to spot frames for me. As my mom sent a barrage of frame photos and questioning texts while I was trying to use my phone to check out customers, I realized it was going to be a futile effort.  I also couldn’t really see the condition or size

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October 26, 2026 3 Comments
Antiques

Lucketts Fall Market 2026

Mom and I left early Friday morning to get to Lucketts in time to set up my paintings, books, and prints before the gates opened at 8:30.  Jeff and I drove down the day before to drop everything off, but we left everything packed in plastic bins under a tarp.  Not only was the weather iffy, but I was sharing the tent with the lovely ladies from Twin Oaks Tavern Winery again, and they hadn’t arranged the furniture yet.  We coordinated through text and, when mom and I showed up, they had arranged everything perfectly.  They set up their roped-off area to keep the alcoholic beverages contained while putting me in an accessible, visible spot for people milling by.  We learned during the Spring Market that I was a little hard to find when tucked farther back in the tent, so this was a great solution.  The Lucketts Store furnished

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October 19, 2026 15 Comments
Antiques

Display Ideas for Selling Art at a Market

I figured the 2017 Lucketts Spring Market, the last market I went to as a vendor before we moved to Minnesota, would be my last one.  We had a huge crew of helpers and two 20-foot trucks packed with antiques and furniture I had sourced, painted, repaired, upholstered, tagged, loaded, unloaded, styled, photographed, and written about over several months.  It became overwhelming, and I needed to take a step back and do something different.  I’ve sold a few things here and there, mostly online, out of my house, or once at the Junk Bonanza in Minneapolis, but I never thought I would consider popping up a tent and manning a booth again. But it keeps coming up.  People ask if I’ll be a vendor here or there.  I get invitations to fill a booth.  And, after testing the waters at the Lucketts Spring Market earlier this year with some success,

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October 13, 2026 5 Comments
a slice of life

Country Living Fair | Lovely People & Pretty Things

It’s going to sound like a cliché, but I think the highlight of my trip to the Country Living Fair was the people I met.  I connected with some friends and acquaintances I’ve known online for years, a few I haven’t seen in a long time, and some familiar faces I’ve bumped into regularly over the years.  As I’ve shared before, running a business based out of your home, shared primarily online, can be lonely at times.  These events give me the opportunity to experience this creative community in person when I usually engage through scrolls, likes, clicks, short comments, and emojis.  It reminds me that the connections made online aren’t enough for the human heart.  We need those IRL (in real life, as the kids say) events to see, speak with, and hug each other. I met a lot of lovely blog readers and social media followers.   It became

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October 8, 2026 3 Comments
All Things Home

Shopping Wish List for the Country Living Fair

I have become a big believer in sharing my shopping wish lists publicly before going to an antique market.  It’s a bit like wearing my “lucky sweatshirt” when the Commanders have a game (which I do), but it often proves to be effective. Remember before the Lucketts Spring Market when I posted that I was looking for an antique portrait painting similar to this one… ….and then I found the exact painting I had photographed two years prior and shared in that post? Yeah, that’s some spooky lucky sweatshirt kind of happenstance.  So, I thought I would share what I’m looking for while at the Country Living Fair this weekend.  In case you missed it, I’m attending as a speaker (you can find the details HERE), but I will have lots of free time to shop the event, so I want to bring a list to keep myself focused. The

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September 30, 2026 5 Comments
Antiques

Country Living Fair, here I come!

It is not lost on me how cool it is that I get to wake up each workday and decide what I want to do.  Some of that is dictated by deadlines and commitments to clients, but since 2008, I’ve been able to jump into working on my house, refinishing a piece of furniture, doing a photoshoot, writing a blog post, or painting at the easel.  In addition to getting to do creative work as a profession, I have been invited to do some pretty amazing things over the years.  I’ve been to New York City twice for guest appearances on TV shows; I’ve been a mainstage speaker at the Toronto Home Show and other home & blog conferences, and I’ve been able to teach creative workshops in Italy. And a few weeks ago, I received another exciting invite – to be a part of a speaking panel at the

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September 21, 2026 16 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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