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All Things Home

Decorating a Tree Without “Ornaments”

When I pulled my Christmas decor out of storage a couple of weeks ago, I found this sad looking table top tree. I purchased it a few years ago on sale at Tuesday morning to use in our 1000 square foot condo that was too small for a full size tree. I wanted to decorate it in a fun way this year, but I didn’t want to spend money on ornaments. I also didn’t want to steal any from my full size tree in our family room. It was already dressed in a berry garland and white lights, so I kept those. I had some upholstery webbing that I purchased at Wal-Mart a couple of months ago, so I thought that would make a nice garland. It was a little too overwhelming for my little tree, so I cut it in half length-wise and wrapped it around the tree. I

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More Attic Finds

Are you sick of me showing all of the wonderful things I found (and got to keep) from my grandparent’s attic? Well, I’m not, so here are some more lovelies… Isn’t this vintage Christmas ornament so cute? I love how the little bird is peeking out of her tinsel net. We found about 10 intact vintage glass ornaments. A couple of wooden duck callers that my grandfather used while hunting. A tub of vintage costume jewelry A vintage game called Tippecanoe. This is a challenging game and is going to be so fun to pull out to torture the teenagers who hang out at our house. You have to roll a tiny metal ball down the rails into the ring at the bottom. Not easy. A vintage Scrabble game and a wooden truck. I quickly combined the two to spell out a holiday greeting on my mantle. We also found

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Attic Finds Day 2

If you’ve been reading my blog the last few days, you know that I traveled to my grandparent’s house to clean out their attic. My grandmother died about 13 years ago and my grandfather died this fall. For years I have been scrounging treasures out of their huge attic (with permission) and my mom and I finally set the time aside to clean it out entirely. About 85% of what was left up there was trash. I did bring home an entire van load of wonderful pieces, though, that no one else wanted. They’re all mine! 🙂 Here are just a few of the things I found… a set of antique darts a miniature roulette wheel (it only has about an 8″ circumference) antique game pieces 4 five gallon buckets and 2 boxes full of shells, coral and sand dollars 20-30 antique glass telephone insulators two first edition Beatrix Potter

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Attic Finds – Day One

As I mentioned in my “Joy Banner” post, I am currently at my grandfather’s house to help my mom and uncle clean out the attic. This is quite a chore (and I get the heebie–jeebies digging through all of this bug infested stuff), but it is a treasure trove. Here are some of the things we’ve found already… Several antique Beatrix Potter books… (A Correction – the book pictured is an Edith Davidson book, but we have a stack of Beatrix Potter books and I just grabbed one. Obviously this is not one of those! Thanks to the Queen of Fifty Cents, a former librarian, for the correction.) …one of them dated 1918. Vintage glitter, sequence, rhinestones, and beads. This is funny…a liquor-lite. If you have a bottle of liquor and the contents of this box, you have an instant candelabra. Nothing says romance like a Liquor-Lite. Two gorgeous antique

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“Joy” Banner Tutorial

Here’s my tutorial on how to make this cute and easy “Joy” banner for the holidays. It was the kind of project I made up as I went along and I really like how it turned out. (Don’t you love it when that happens?) 1.) First, you need some chipboard letters to spell out whatever word you want on the banner. You can buy them, cut them yourself with an exact-o knife, or with a Cricut or other personal cutting machine. I purchased this package of 26 pages for $10.00 at AC Moore. One cool thing about this package is that once I use all of the letters, I can use what’s left as a stencil. 2.) I decided on the word Joy and picked three letters that were the same size, but different fonts to make it more interesting. 3.) Using a foam brush, apply Elmer’s glue onto the

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Weighty Decor

I love antique scales and balances. I’m not really sure why I am drawn to these, but I seem to gravitate towards the items that were functional or used daily in their prime. There’s something so soulful to me about antique fans, ironstone dishes, grain sacks, and old baskets that have been mended. Scales offer that kind of beauty in the functional.I love how the green paint peaks through the rust on this scale and the numbers on the face are so classic. This old grocery scale was a bit of a splurge for me, but I have always wanted one. It was $45 at an antique store in North Carolina and I picked it up as soon as I saw it. I figured I would rather have one item I really wanted instead of 3-4 items I liked, but didn’t HAVE to have. I HAD to have this! This

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Decking the Halls

Most years my Christmas decor goes up in an afternoon, but this year (with two toddlers, travel, a business, and did I mention I’m directing, acting, and singing in our church Christmas play…?) it’s taking me a while to get it all out. And it’s not done, yet! I just wanted to share some of what I’ve done. This gorgeous Santa is from Germany and is also a music box. I put him on my mantle, so little hands wouldn’t break him. Due to the two toddlers I mentioned above, I couldn’t hang our stockings on the mantle this year. I was very nervous about one of them yanking on a stocking and getting hit in the head with the weighted holder. So, I kept them in a stack for a few days while I thought about where I could put them. Genius finally struck (not sure where that came

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What I Appreciate About the Blog World

Don’t forget to enter my Frog Tape giveaway that is running through November 30! Wednesday I had the opportunity to spend about an hour in B&N; Books looking through the Home Decor section for books I might want to add to my inspiration library. (I then go home and buy them used on Amazon…) Anyway, as I was looking through the books, something hit me. These are not very realistic. I want to look at a Home Decor book that is beautiful, inspirational, AND real. I mean, how many of you have a bedroom like this? Or a bathtub like that? Or a kitchen like this one…oh my. Let me stop a minute while I wipe the drool off my chin. Don’t get me wrong, I love these books and I get so much inspiration and joy out of looking through them. The fact is, it would probably take about

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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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