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All Things Home

Holiday

Maple Sugar House Cookies & Finding Home Farms

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by .  I’ve known Laura of Finding Home Farms for years and I’m so pleased to officially partner with her family’s business.  As always, all words and opinions expressed are honest and my own.  There is a coupon code at the bottom of this post to help you save on your holiday shopping. We need to rewind back to the very early days of blogging for this story.  Laura Putnam of was one of my blogger peers.  We did blog-hops together and linky parties and met up at blog conferences.  We also were both vendors at the very first Chapel Market in Pike Road, AL.  Laura is actually standing directly behind me in this picture! (Oh man, what a crew!  I’m still in touch and friends with so many of these people.) I even have her book!  It’s DIY Rustic Modern Metal Crafts. At that

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All Things Home

Casual Blue & White Holiday Table

Disclosure: This casual blue & white holiday table post is sponsored by   As always, all opinions and words are my own. I have some more fun goodies sold exclusively at to share with you today!   Of course, I’m inspired by classic blue and white color palette.  They are definitely speaking my language.  As I was looking through their home items to decide what to share today, I kept coming back to these playful blue and white dishes.   Most of the pieces I use for my own table settings as well as ones for photoshoots are vintage or antique, which can then be more of a challenge to duplicate.  For this casual blue and white holiday table, I thought it would be fun to use dishes from and other accessories and decor from so it could easily be replicated. that inspired this casual blue and white holiday table… I started

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Holiday

pre-lit christmas tree review

I just set up my pre-lit Christmas tree for the fifth Christmas and I figured I would share a review of my specific pre-lit Christmas tree as well as my thoughts about buying a pre-lit Christmas tree in the future.  This post isn’t sponsored, but the Christmas tree was originally a part of a sponsored post for Balsam Hill.  You can read the original post HERE. The prelit Christmas tree I have is the 8′ Noble Fir by Balsam Hill.  It came pre-lit with incandescent bulbs. (These pictures are of my tree from 2020.) To start this pre-lit Christmas tree review, let me state that I think expectations are generally unfairly high when it comes to prelit trees.  I can say this because my expectations were unreasonably high.  The tree can be well made, the lights can be high quality, and the design is perfect, but an incandescent bulb is

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crafts

collecting & pressing leaves & flowers

Over the past few days, I have become acutely aware of autumn’s waning beauty and how it will all soon be covered in snow.  We’ve had some unusually warm weather in our neck of the woods, so I’ve done a bit of foraging on my walks.  I don’t always know what I’ll do with the bits that I gather, but I don’t worry about that too much.  I just carry a small bag and gather the things that attract my eye.  I collected pinecones to use for Christmas projects and decorations, some pods and thistles that might be interesting to draw, grasses that can be used for making brushes, acorn caps that can be used as little natural paint pots, sticks that can be brush handles and dip pens, and leaves and flowers for pressing. I also took advantage of a pretty afternoon and got the garden beds in the

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Fall

simple fall simmer pot

This week, the temps started to drop and we only recently had our first frost here in Minnesota.  It’s actually come pretty late this year and we haven’t even seen a flake of snow, yet!  But, I am ready for fires, slippers, hot chocolate, and for the house to smell like fall.  So, yesterday, I made up a simple fall simmer pot with what I had on hand. I started by filling a 4 qt. dutch oven with water and then dropped anything in the simmer pot with a yummy, homey, fall scent.  Sliced apples, dried cinnamon sticks (these were out of a Christmas decor bin from last year), fresh rosemary, and a few drops of clove essential oil.  I thought I had some whole clove and all-spice, but I only had ground, so I just used what I had.  It really is hard to go wrong with a simmer

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Antiques

a new use for an antique typewriter table

When I hit the local antique stores last week, I shared this amazing antique oak Toledo typewriter table on my Instagram Stories.  I loved it immediately, but at $175, it was a bit more than I wanted to spend on this piece.  I was also wrestling with the fact that I just put “the last piece” of furniture in the studio, the antique post office register.  I made the decision that I couldn’t fit in another piece, even a small typewriter table with sides that folded down.  I passed it up. Well, all evening and into the next morning, I was thinking about that antique typewriter table and how absolutely perfect it would be as a side table for my easel.  I’ve used stools and other little rolling carts, but they were never quite the right thing.  This antique typewriter table would offer enough room for a palette, brushes, mediums,

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Antiques

cleaning an antique book cover & other little finds

Last week, my antiquing buddy, Cheri, took me out to my favorite local breakfast place to celebrate the launch of as well as her home being featured in the book.  It’s been an exciting journey for both of us and I’m glad she invited me to spend a morning together acknowledging that.  Afterward, she had to go home to do stuff with the grandkids and I decided to hit a few local antique stores.  There were a couple I hadn’t been to in a while and I felt like I needed a morning away from screens and work.  I ended up finding a few lovely little things and one bigger thing I thought about overnight and went back for the next day!  But today, I’ll share about the little finds and how I went about cleaning an antique book cover. This was the antique book cover in need of cleaning…

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Art

Handmade Watercolor Binder Recipe & Video

I’ve lately felt like I needed new creative pursuits.  It’s not that I don’t have enough, but I’ve felt the need to try new things, to be a beginner, and to create something without any expectation on the outcome.  I’ve just needed creative process.  Maybe it’s because of weariness from the pandemic or weariness from writing, styling, and shooting a book, or a combination of everything.  As I shared in my post about the pigments from Choosing Keeping last week, something I bought as a “book gift” for myself, this was also an exploration of what big things might come next.  It doesn’t mean that mixing my own paints is what’s next, but it’s something I’m curious and drawn to, so I’m allowing myself time to explore it, knowing that one new creative endeavor can lead to another.  Knowing that discovery sparks more ideas.  And I thought I would share

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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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