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Decorating
crafts

glittered house & deer

Now that the floor sanding is behind us, I cannot wait to start decorating the house for Christmas.  I walked past live wreaths, garland, trim and tabletop trees at the store this week and was just longing to put one in my cart, but I’m waiting until Thanksgiving passes.  I don’t want my live greens to be dried to a crisp by the time Christmas morning rolls around!  I’ve been satisfying the craving with Pinterest, holiday magazines and some Christmas tunes.  I also started on a few projects, like the upholstered Christmas banner and the mason jar snow globes.  I also whipped out the MMS German Glass Glitter to use on a few things… I found this plastic deer at an antique store for $5.00 and knew it would look amazing glittered. It actually looked pretty as is, but you know how I am.  Can’t leave well enough alone! I brushed it

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November 26, 2014 20 Comments
Holiday

upholstered Christmas banner tutorial

A few weeks ago, I was browsing Christmas decor and tripped across this sweet “Happy Christmas” banner at Terrain.  The vintage-looking stuffed velvet letters appealed to me, but I wasn’t a fan of the color or the unevenness of the letters. I liked the idea of making one, but I had to think through how to make it.  The inspiration banner looks like each letter was sewn and stuffed.  That process was not even an option for me.  I am not precise when it comes to sewing, which is why I was a horrible quilter, and this project would take precision.  I needed to figure out a Marian-friendly way to do this. Well, I can do upholstery.  I wonder if I could upholster the letters…maybe on wood or thick chipboard letters.  I looked into a bunch of different wood letters, thinking chipboard wouldn’t hold the staples well, but they were

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November 23, 2014 44 Comments
Decorating

mason jar "snow globes"

I have to start off by saying how much I enjoyed reading all of the comments in response to my post yesterday.  In a way, it was very therapeutic for me to write and I’m glad it was encouraging to others as well. This is definitely one of those not-new-at-all ideas, but they are so cute that I thought I would make a few mason jar “snow globes”.  Kriste is the one who introduced me to them and she pointed me in the right direction when it came to picking out cute things to put inside the jars… I found most of the items, as well as the jars, on Etsy and at antique stores.  We found a few of the bottle brush trees at Hobby Lobby.  At first, I was a little perplexed at how to fill the jars and Kriste got a good laugh at me.  Just give me a

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November 19, 2014 21 Comments
crafts

block printed wrapping paper & snowball garland

I walked into the studio ready to work on Christmas things this morning.  I told Kriste at one point that I wished I could work on five different things at once.  There was a bee in my bonnet.  I had a lot on the wish list to get done, but I knew it was way too much for one day, so we  got started and just worked until we needed to stop.  We started making a grain sack tree skirt, did some housekeeping things for the studio and played around with some papers and ribbon I have been collecting over the last few weeks. I also used an antique wooden stamp I bought at an antique store to “block print” some craft paper and I love how it turned out. I see these wooden printing blocks here and there when I’m at antique stores, but I never though to buy one until Kriste

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November 14, 2014 24 Comments
Decorating

a chandelier, watering live evergreens & blue checks

The living room is in the front of our house, which faces south.  Most of the day, the room gets beautiful light..streaming through the dining room and front windows in the morning and in long, golden beams through the west-facing windows in the afternoon.  At night, though, this room is dark.  That is because it has no overhead lighting.  The house was built in the 1940’s and having lots of junction boxes and outlets was just not the thing to do.  I’ve wanted to add pot (recessed) lights and junction boxes for light fixtures to the old part of the house for years, but with plasterboard ceilings and no easy access the ceilings, it would be a major, messy project.  I think lighting is so important for a room, but lines have to be drawn somewhere when you’re fixing up a home that you’re not planning to live in for very

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November 11, 2014 21 Comments
Decorating

a girl can change her mind (and often does)

Soooo…the curtain saga continues.  I’ve confessed that rugs are my nemesis, but now that I’ve switched to sisal and jute blends, I’ve made peace with rugs.  It seems like curtains might be my new nemesis.  I think the struggle I have with curtains is that it’s not a design choice that’s easily (or inexpensively) changed.  In a room with one window…okay, it’s not that big of a deal.  But my family room and living/dining room have four windows each, which means eight full length panels are needed.  That’s at least 25 yards of fabric, plus the lining and a whole lot of time at the sewing machine. I’ve known for a white that I wanted to replace the curtains in the living/dining room, but the reasons above prevented me from doing anything.  I still love that fabric, but I’m ready for a change and I’ve learned a lot about making

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November 10, 2014 43 Comments
Decorating

blue spruce in a bucket

I have mentioned it a couple of times already…I am really excited to decorate for Christmas this year!  It’s just like old times when the countdown would begin leading up to the day after Thanksgiving and I could finally haul out the bins and put the Christmas music on.  For the past few years, I’ve been burned out on Christmas decorating.  Decorating for retail spaces and freelance projects all throughout the year left me unenthusiastic about decorating my own home.  This year, I only had a few Christmas projects in April and have otherwise been able to enjoy the seasons in their proper time. Kriste has been talking about getting her Christmas tree this weekend and I snickered a bit.  Well, I went to Wegman’s with the family today and saw a cute, squat live blue spruce and I immediately plopped it in the cart.  Jeff looked over at me, palms to

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November 9, 2014 23 Comments
Decorating

time-saving tips for painting a room

I shared the other day that I painted three ceilings and one room in just a few hours…while the boys were at home…in my jammies.  Truth be told, I could’ve painted the living room and the hallway, too, but I was getting a little sick of looking at a roller!  So, several readers asked how I get things done so fast and I thought I would share my tricks. These tips will help you get a room painted faster, but before you plan a painting marathon, remember that I paint a lot!  When you do something a lot, you get better and quicker at it.  So, be patient with yourself if you’re a novice or a once-in-a-while painter. Here are my time-saving tips… 1.) Do as much prep work the day before as you can.  Take down the pictures, remove switch plates, curtain hardware, etc. and fill in the holes

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November 3, 2014 27 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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