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Decorating
Decorating

Christmas decorating | master bedroom

I bought some greenery over the weekend (and clipped some from obliging trees as well) and we picked up the Parsons’ family Christmas tree yesterday.  The intention was to have it all decorated by the evening, but that didn’t happen.  As soon as we got the tree in the room, I realized it was the largest tree we’ve ever had.  The diameter at the base is almost six feet and it is very full!  We had to trim down the top and reshape it just to make it fit in the room.  It’s beautiful and I absolutely love it, but it’s so big that I ran out of lights 3/4 of the way up.  I made a trip to the store last night and we’ll get it finished today.  I’m enjoying taking my time with it, though, and running out of lights forced me to slow down even more. This

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December 2, 2014 34 Comments
Decorating

ring mold advent wreath

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!  We got back from visiting family for Thanksgiving late last night and even after a long ride in the car, decorating the house for Christmas was on my mind as soon as I walked in the front door.  I saw my newly sanded wood floors, the house was clean and tidy and my decorating brain started working.  Of course, decorating at 11:30 at night was a bit impractical, so I waited until after church today.  We were all dragging a bit, so there was some loafing, napping and relaxing, but I did get a bit of a start. I started with a simple project I’ve had planned for a while…making an advent wreath out of an ironstone ring mold. Obviously, you could use any ring mold for this project.  I checked out Etsy and spotted several aluminum and copper ones for

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November 30, 2014 16 Comments
Decorating

Christmas decorating inspiration

Some of you have mentioned that you notice my style evolving, especially over the past year.  I have been making an effort to get rid of things I don’t really, really love and that editing has made a big difference in my home.  Most of the furniture is the same, but stripping away the excess is putting the spotlight on the special pieces I own. As I’ve been thinking through decorating for Christmas, I am taking the same approach.  I want to edit, so my style can shine through. I’m carefully selecting everything from the papers to the ribbons to the candles and I can’t wait to start putting it all together in my house. I’m pulling inspiration from my childhood in Europe and want to have an advent wreath this year. (via Mad & Bolig) I’m planning to mustardized it, though, and make one using an antique ironstone ring mold.

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November 28, 2014 20 Comments
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

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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