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All Things Home

All Things Home

Organizing Process | Qualifications for Keeping Things

As I’ve been going through my house, purging and organizing, I’ve had several people ask about my thought process for what I get rid of, what I keep, as well as how I organize it.  I feel like I’ve shared it sprinkled throughout my posts about organizing, but I thought it would be helpful to put it in one post in a more concise, organized way.  So, here we go… Do I love it? I usually start with this question because it weeds out obvious things.  If I don’t really love it, why have it in my home?   But, I have found this question alone can be problematic because it’s such a subjective judgment call.  It can easily turn into a lengthy internal debate about all of the different types of love and varying degrees.  And it’s a question that just doesn’t apply to certain things without sounding crazy…  Do

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Art Supplies

Organizing & Purging the Studio | Paints & Papers

[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] Well, I’ve spent the better part of the last three days going through my studio with a fine-tooth comb.  I’ve organized the studio before and have cleaned out a few things, but nothing compares to the thoroughness of this most recent endeavor.  As I’ve been working in my studio over the past few months, I’ve realized that the quantity of supplies, instead of being inspiring, has been overwhelming.  It doesn’t look out-of-control because everything is in neatly labeled drawers, but it’s a lot of stuff and I realized the full extent once I started pulling it all out! Having all of this choice might seem like an artist’s dream, but I found it to be more of a hindrance.  It reminded me of when my boys were younger and, after a successful dentist visit, they were able to pick a prize out of the treasure chest.  The experience

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Antiques

Fixing & Cleaning Paint Brushes

As I shared last week, my Victorian-era watercolor box came with a bunch of brushes and other tools.  I finally took some time to give them a little TLC and I thought I would share my process for fixing and cleaning paint brushes.  This is helpful not only if you buy/acquire a lot of vintage or antique brushes, but if you just need to take care of some of your favorite brushes that get heavy use. The first thing I do when fixing and cleaning paint brushes is to pull on the tops to see if they are firmly attached.  Most of these popped off easily, so that was the first thing I needed to address. (Those little marks of dried paint are from Violet’s paws!  She has a knack for stepping straight in any paint if she sneaks into the studio.) I bought waterproof, neutral PH adhesive a while

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All Things Home

organizing the studio | sorting the yarn

After our knitting organization chat last week, I was ready to tackle my yarn stash over the weekend.  I have to say that I was dreading the process, though!  So many decisions to make and categorizing the yarn by type seemed a little overwhelming.  But, I started pulling all of the balls and skeins off of the shelf, emptied baskets and made a big mess that I would be forced to deal with.  Sometimes that’s how I have to coax myself into organizing – force the issue. Of course, the kitties loved it.  They took turns laying among the mess, finding sunny spots and loose strands of yarn to play with. The first thing I had to do was start a bag of yarns to donate.  I’ve bought a lot of yarn over the past year, mostly to test out what I like.  I also bought some yarn without any

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All Things Home

charcoal, a glass dip pen, and a Victorian watercolor box…

It’s time to share some more antique and vintage art supplies!  Obviously, I haven’t bought any this month because of “no-spend February”, but I bought an antique Victorian-era watercolor box with some Christmas money in January and I received a few little things last week as a gift. An antique dealer from PA who used to buy things for me to resell sent me a few art supplies she picked up as a part of an auction lot.  It was a total surprise and so sweet of her to think of me! She sent me a box of vintage Flair vine charcoal… I love the label on the box, but was even more delighted to see it was full of vine charcoal sticks!   And she also sent a glass dip pen!  It has the most interesting nib.  I haven’t had the chance to use it, but I’m looking forward

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All Things Home

slipcovering the living room sectional

Whenever my schedule starts to open up, I seem to fill it beyond capacity in no time.  It can be a blessing and curse, but I can’t seem to help it!  I like having a lot of things to work on and to bounce between.  I work more efficiently when I am forced to stay on task to get everything done.  I have certainly filled up a slow February, though, with organizing, accepting more commissioned art pieces, recording art lessons for a future class, getting ready to launch a new look on this website, and working on the layout of the book.  It’s been busy, but I’m enjoying the work.  So, my next big home project will have to wait for a few more weeks before I can start it… I’m going to make a slipcover for the living room sectional… When selecting the sofa, I decided to go with

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a slice of life

uncle George, grandpa henry & other organizing rabbit trails

It all started very innocently.  As a part of my organizing push in February, I tackled the lower right built-in in the living room.  It’s not a cabinet we’re in and out of a lot, so it’s been sorely neglected.  It houses our photo albums, boxes of photos, some family mementos, and it’s where we would drop the school photos each year.  It’s also where I would stick random decor, apparently, like the antique scale. I’ve been avoiding this cabinet because it’s such a mess, but I finally dove in.  As is the case with most messy cabinets, it looked worse than it was.  It didn’t take me long to get things sorted and labeled.  I readjusted the shelves so the photo albums could stand upright.  I sorted the remaining photos and documents into categories and put them in bins.  I also added labels to everything… Everything that is loose

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a slice of life

scanning old documents, photos, & postcards

One of the big projects I want to work on while organizing and purging is scanning antique and vintage family photos, letters, postcards, and documents.  Fortunately, I have a lot of them!  Unfortunately, that means the task is a little overwhelming and I’ve been putting off most of it for years.  So, I’m just going to chip away at it.  Here is the basket I’m currently working through, but it’s just a fraction of what needs to be sorted, scanned, and properly stored. I started by scanning the letters that are most important to me – my Opa’s letters and telegrams to his family when he was serving in WWII. I organized them and made copies once before, but now that I have a nicer scanner, I scanned them all.  I have uploaded them to a Google Drive, so I can share them with family members who are interested, but

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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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