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I was going to post the second look for the Arabesque dresser I shared yesterday, but I realized I had one more Christmas post to share and I has better share it before it isn’t Christmas any longer! I don’t usually share the work of others here, except for my favorites on FFF. It’s not that I don’t like to link up and support others, but I don’t want my voice to get thinned out by sharing the content of others too often. I am also a bit compulsive about writing blog posts! It’s an outlet and can be very therapeutic for me. Today, though, I am featuring some beautiful photos styled by Melanie Beilner, taken by Annetta Bosakova. They are both extremely talented ladies and I thought it was worth sharing this shoot… (I’m really into seeded eucalyptus this year. We used some for the Cottages & Bungalows shoot we
I’ve been wanting to make cinnamon ornaments for our tree for a couple of weeks and there just never seemed to be a good time to take over the kitchen counters with the endeavor. We had a dusting of snow this morning and I had a relatively open day, so I decided to dive on in. There are a lot of different variations on this recipe, but this is the one I settled on… Start with two cups of ground cinnamon… Dump it in a large bowl and add 1/2 cup of smooth applesauce. Mix the two ingredients with a spoon (or spoonula). I thought maybe I did something wrong, because it looked “mealy”, but I pressed onward… …and added one cup of all-purpose white glue. The “dough” started to come together more, but it was pretty thick and sticky. I pressed it into a ball with my hands and dumped it
I’ve been using a lot of handmade wool poms in my Christmas decorating and I didn’t even think about making a tutorial for them. A tutorial was requested, though, so I thought I would oblige. I made these when I was a kid, to use on hats, hair ties, socks, slippers, etc. I think most of the ones I made ended up as toys for our two siamese cats. (A little wallet I crocheted out of wool yarn became one of our cat’s “baby” for a time, but that’s another story.) My inspiration for making these was some wool “snowball” garlands I bought from Anthropologie. They were so fluffy…it was definitely a Despicable Me moment. “They’re so fluffy, I’m gonna die!!“ I might not have thought that if I saw them online, but in the store they looked so amazing draped over an antique ladder and I bought one. I
As we work in the studio, Kriste & I talk a lot about decorating. We chat endlessly about styles, trends, what’s inspiring us now, blogs we like, what we think is being overdone, etc. Having worked alone for such a long time, I love the interaction and find it makes me think through my own tastes and choices and it broadens my horizons a bit. One day, we were chatting and I stopped what I was doing and looked up at Kriste. “We need to put this on camera.” And that was it. We decided that day that we would start a weekly video series called “Design Ramblings.” Actually, we tried to come up with a name that was more clever, combining our blog names, Rosemary & Thyme and Miss Mustard Seed, but everything that combined those two names sounded like we would be talking about gardening or cooking. We also like that
I got out of bed this morning and was ready to do some more Christmas decorating. I had toyed with the idea of going to the studio and doing some work there, but the kitchen was calling my name. It needed a bit of cleaning and I really wanted to give it some festive touches. In typical “Marian-fashion”, I got so into what I was doing and didn’t want to stop, so breakfast didn’t happen until 11:00 and a shower didn’t happen until 2:15. I throughly enjoyed the process, though, and the result. The range hood is my favorite part. The boxwood wreath is around the cow head (Julia) year round, but I tied some homemade wool poms around her neck for a little something extra. I nestled some greenery, pine cones, nuts, dried artichokes and more poms along the “mantle” and hung mini stockings filled with cinnamon sticks and fresh evergreen
Decorating the house for Christmas this year has been so much fun for me. I stayed home from the studio three days last week to blast some Christmas music and fill the house with fresh greens and Christmas decor. The decorating is all very understated and simple, which I have really enjoyed. The rooms look festive, but it’s not a full overhaul that involves bins and bins of decor that need to be stored. The dining room follows that theme… (I caught this room in the morning light when the sun was streaming through the windows. It casts the prettiest shadows) As I did with chandeliers in the other rooms, I tucked a mix of greenery throughout the arms, allowing it to look loose and simple. Bunches of fresh greenery hang from each corner cabinet door. Eulalie is topped off with a garland of pine tucked over the frame. She
I’ve been sharing the Christmas decorations in my house room by room over the past few days. In case you missed it, here is the master bedroom and family room decked out for the holidays. And now, in the tour, we come to the living room. As with the other rooms I’ve already shared, I used mostly fresh greenery with a few wintry/festive touches. (And I finally made a scrunchy linen cord cover for my plug-in chandelier.) I have a live blue spruce in an antique bucket on the coffee table and some mixed greenery tucked in the chandelier. The pom-pom garland is from Anthropologie and I just let it swag over an antique screen door. I love how it looks like a garland of snowballs, so it will transition beyond Christmas to be winter decor. I made a loose wreath for my my milk-painted rocking horse. The primitive hutch
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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