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Winter

winter, holiday, and christmas home decorating ideas, recipes, and crafts
All Things Home

New Society6 Papers, Prints & More

Surface design is something I’ve played with on and off for a few years and this year, I decided to lean into that interest and create some new patterns for wrapping papers as well as other available products on Society6.  While only one is specifically designed for Winter/Christmas, I feel like these designs work well year-round, including for Christmas.  (Products are up to 50% off at Society6 for their Black Friday event.) I love Society6’s wrapping paper.  It comes in five sheets that are generously-sized, so they will cover most mid-sized and small gifts.  The paper is thick, but not too thick, has a matte finish, and a grid on the back so you can make straight cuts.  I only wish you could also order it on rolls for larger presents, but it is very high quality and definitely a favorite. I’m so excited about the polka-dots (in green &

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November 28, 2025 7 Comments
All Things Home

salt-dough season | traditional salt-dough ornament recipe

One of my favorite holiday projects over all my years of Christmas crafting is making things with salt dough.  It started with an impulsive purchase from an Instagram ad.  I bought two wooden cookie molds, not really even sure what I was going to do with them.  I just thought they were pretty and had good crafting potential.  After languishing in my tin with cookie cutters and piping tips, inspiration hit.  What if I used those pretty molds with humble salt dough?  I hadn’t even thought of salt dough since my elementary years, but it seemed like it might be an idea worth trying.  It’s cheap and easy to make and has the potential to be elevated with beautiful molds.  I made them and they turned out even better than I expected.  Since then, I’ve made several variations, shared my favorite sources for molds, and even made faux “gingerbread houses”

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November 17, 2025 9 Comments
All Things Home

my favorite realistic faux evergreens

I really loved my Christmas decorating last year, so I will probably do something very similar this year.  It felt classic and beautiful, and looking back over the pictures makes me excited to pull out the bins and deck the halls.  Well, almost.  But, while I’m thinking about it and while you might be planning and shopping, and before everything Christmas is sold out, I wanted to share my favorite realistic faux evergreens for Christmas and winter decorating. Years ago, I purged any artificial greens we had and only used live greenery and trees for several years.  But after a couple of trees dried out and died before Christmas (ugh), and we then moved to a house with forced-air heat (that dried live greens to a crisp), I was forced to revisit them.  While I don’t love storing more Christmas decor in more bins, it is nice to make the

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November 13, 2025 5 Comments
All Things Home

Handmade Christmas Garland Round-up

The past few Christmases, since our move back to the East Coast, I have been behind on sharing holiday and Christmas posts.  After years of working way ahead on Christmas for retail, articles, and blog posts, it felt good to decorate, shop for gifts, and share in real time.  I realized, though, that I was often sharing too late for people to make handmade decorations, or that all the products I was using were already sold out!  So, I’m going to share some Christmas decorating and gift ideas earlier this year, not to rush my blog readers along, but to give everyone time to move through the season at a comfortable pace—planning, shopping, and making things at their leisure.  As I’ve been looking through past Christmas ideas, I’ve felt excited about decorating, making things, and relishing the holiday season.  I hope the upcoming posts do the same for you!  I’m

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November 3, 2025 3 Comments
All Things Home

Christmas dining room 2024

This year, I focused my Christmas decorating on our home’s three public (and most used) rooms – the kitchen, living room, and dining room.  Some years, I will add decor to the bedrooms, bathrooms, or my studio, but I decided to keep it simple.  I enjoyed decorating the kitchen and living room this year, but my favorite was the dining room.  For our first Christmas in the house, the walls still wore remnants of wallpaper glue and an old minty-green paint.  Last year, the walls were simply primed white.   (You can see that HERE.)  This year, the ceiling is freshly painted, wainscoting and trim have been installed and painted in Oval Room Blue, and a hand-painted mural (in the French block-print scenic wallpaper style) is about 90% finished.  There are still things to do, but it feels like a finished room. As I did with the kitchen and living rooms,

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December 18, 2024 21 Comments
Decorating

Christmas Kitchen 2024

I shared our Christmas living room 2024 yesterday and, if you missed it, you can see it in THIS POST.  Today, I’m giving a little tour of the kitchen and eating area. Last year was the first year I had the chance to decorate our newly-renovated kitchen for Christmas, so I had a great time with it.  This year, I kept most of the decor the same since I really loved it.  There are a few differences, though. antique baker’s table | hardwood floors | Ilve range | brass pot rail | quartz counters I used the same wreath I made last year (you can find details HERE), but the velvet ribbons didn’t store very well, so I changed those out.  I used the same dried orange slice garland along the pot rail.  I made it last year and stored it in a zip topped back in the basement and

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December 17, 2024 12 Comments
Decorating

Christmas 2024 Living Room

Well, I might be (literally) limping across the Christmas decorating finish line, but I’ve made it.  I added things this year and left other things out, making decisions based on how I felt at any given moment.  Sometimes I had a spurt of energy and was really excited about what I was doing and then other times I thought I might be finished.  In the end, nothing in life hinges on Christmas decorations, so I did what felt fun and most important to me.  While I do share my Christmas decorating online as a part of my job, I am woefully behind, weeks behind, for that to serve its intended purpose.  I’m sure your decorating is done, so you probably don’t need to see mine to get ideas!  But there isn’t a time limit on when ideas can be used or when inspiration will show up at just the right

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December 16, 2024 23 Comments
Decorating

Christmas tree in an antique laundry basket

When I shared about using presents as part of Christmas decorations yesterday, several people asked here and on Instagram about two things: How did I get the Christmas tree to stand up in the antique French laundry basket, and where is the antique goat cart? So, let’s talk about those two things. First of all, I decided to try something different this year with the dining room Christmas tree.  Since it’s only our third Christmas in this house, I’m still playing with options.  I like to keep decorating for Christmas a little open so I can feel free to try new things or change things up from year to year.  I don’t want to do a full overhaul, but use the things I have differently.  So, I decided to leave the goat cart stored in the basement this year and tried putting the dining room tree in one of my

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December 11, 2024 20 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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