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Antiques

All Things Home

monogrammed smock

A little over two years ago, I borrowed a smock while teaching a workshop at Me & Mrs. Jones in Memphis, TN.  The smock was heavily used and smeared with paint, but there was a crisp new linen one tagged for sale on a hanger nearby.  I fell so in love with my borrowed smock that I removed the new linen apron from the hanger mid-workshop and gave it to the owner to hold for me to buy.  I only saw one and the paranoia set in that someone else might buy it before I had the chance to claim it.  (It turns out there was an entire rack, so I was being a little silly.) This smock and I have been like peas and carrots ever since.  I wear it during events, workshops, while painting at my easel, refinishing and painting furniture, etc.  I like that it doesn’t hang

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All Things Home

junk bonanza 2019 | part 2

Saturday evening, we packed up our remaining merchandise and headed home after a long three days at Junk Bonanza.  We were pretty much cleared out by the end of the event, which is always a victory.  Our little crew of three painted and finished a dresser, talked a lot about MMS Milk Paint, our finishes, and furniture painting in general.  We chatted with customers and other vendors, delivered purchased furniture to the loading dock, ate hot mini-doughnuts, and, of course, did some shopping ourselves. It was slow at times, thanks to the poor weather and snow, and tiring, but it was a wonderful weekend and a successful show.  We also had a strong turnout for all three of the milk paint demos. I showed our booth in THIS POST, but I wanted to share pictures from some of the other booths because there was a lot of amazing stuff. One

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All Things Home

junk bonanza 2019

I meant to write a post last night, but I just couldn’t.  It was taking forever to upload my pictures and I was tired and I knew I had three long days in front of me.  I just needed to get to sleep, so I did just that.  I have survived day one, though, and I have just enough in me to check in and give you an update. When I arrived yesterday (Wednesday morning) to set up, the roads were dry and the weather forecast looked promising.  The snow totals had been dramatically downgraded from 9-18″ to about 2″ and some rain and ice.  But, then it started snowing and the totals were bumped up to 12″ again and it has been a sloppy, snowy, icy, windy couple of days. We’ve been dry and toasty inside, though, working at the event. Late Wednesday morning, our space looked like this… Chris

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All Things Home

stuff I’m selling at Junk Bonanza

I sold a lot of pieces before we moved halfway across the country from PA to MN.  I knew that some of them just weren’t going to work in what would most likely be our new house.  And I don’t regret selling any of the pieces I sold.  There were a few things, though, that I didn’t know where I would put them or how they would work, but I just wasn’t ready to let them go. This step-back cupboard was one of those pieces. It’s been one of my favorite finds from the moment I found it lined up in a row of dusty furniture in a second-hand shop. It had a few different homes in my last house and I loved how versatile it was.  The base cabinet housed exercise weights, craft supplies, office supplies, and Legos at various times.  The top almost always showcased ironstone. But in

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All Things Home

Goodies for Junk Bonanza

Getting ready to sell out of a 10 x 12 indoor booth in a space predominately occupied by another vendor is a far cry from filling the entire Show Barn at the Lucketts Spring Market, but I am excited about getting ready for Junk Bonanza nonetheless.  And honestly, I’m glad that I’m only responsible for bringing a few things.  I just don’t have the space or the time or the shoulder for anything more. I am sharing the space with one of my amazing Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint retailers, Chris Hardine of Midwest Cottage & Finds out of Germantown Hills, IL.  She is also on my team and manages the MMS Milk Paint Facebook page. We’ve been talking for a few weeks about the look we’re going to have in our booth and last night, she sent me pictures of some of the items she is bringing and I

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All Things Home

“week” wall clock

When I was out shopping last week, I was poking through one of the antique mall booths and spotted a pretty clock on the wall.  I’m not so much into clocks, but I think I’m attracted to them as small pieces of furniture.  Does that make sense?  I like the shape of the case or the design on the face or the patina of the wood.  I don’t care if they work, although it’s a bonus if they do.  I just like them for their aesthetic quality. So, I leaned in to admire this small, curvy clock and was surprised to see it was only $55.00.  And, beyond that, it was in working order and included a key for winding!  I thought about it for about 2 minutes and then gently lifted the clock of its nail and took it to the counter to claim. I had several ideas of

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All Things Home

antique store finds & Junk Bonanza 2019

In addition to the dresser and mirror my mom and I found for the guest room, I found a few other fun finds on our two shopping trips to local antique stores.  I still need to do a lot more exploring to find “my honey holes”, but that will come with time.  I lived in PA for several years before I found all of my favorite places.   Junk Bonanza is coming up April 11-13 (more details are below) and I’m looking forward to doing a bit of shopping there while I attend to teach MMS Milk Paint demos and sell some antiques.  It was a great event last year with top-notch dealers, so I’m expecting to find some antique pieces on the running wish-list for my house. Anyway, here are the things I found while hitting some local places… I bought this cute little wooden horse.  It was just

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All Things Home

guest room dresser & mirror

Last week, my mom and I needed a break from hanging wallpaper and installing box molding, so we went to an antique mall (Countryside Antique Mall) and to a local consignment shop (Kismet) to see if we could find a few things on my “wish list” for the room.  One thing that was at the top of the list was a dresser.  The bed was flanked with antique washstands from my last house, but they looked a little dinky in the room.  I wanted to replace one with a dresser and the other with a desk. I didn’t find the desk, but we found the dresser! It’s a pretty oak piece with a serpentine front that works well with the other pieces in the room (the oak bed frame and the antique German wardrobe.)  I thought initially I would want to paint it, but now that I have it in

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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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