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All Things Home
All Things Home

Live Painting Class | Clouds for beginners

Last Friday, we did another painting class!  It’s become a fun little part of my week to look forward to (and because I’m doing a live video, I am uninterrupted!)  I know I’m not the only one craving some time alone.  On Sunday, I requested that everyone clear out of the main floor for a little while, so I could clean and putter, listen to my music, and have some productive time alone.  This seemed like a perfectly reasonable request from my perspective.  It was a beautiful day, we have two whole other floors where the three other members of my family could go, and my kids are not toddlers.  But, alone time was harder to get than one might expect!  After seeing that mom might blow a blood vessel if people didn’t give me a wide berth for a little while, I got some time alone.  Anyway, let’s talk

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April 21, 2020 10 Comments
All Things Home

tidying the sewing room

I was hoping to post about our cloud-painting class on Friday, but it is taking an eternity for the videos to upload and process, so that’ll have to wait until tomorrow.  We will be having another class this Friday and a special cloud-painting class on Instagram Live with Megan Gray Wednesday, April 22, 2020, at 2:00 CST.  I’ll share more details in tomorrow’s post. So, today, I’m going to share the tidied-up sewing room!  This was one of the projects I worked on last week to get ready to work on bigger projects over the coming weeks.  The sewing room, also known as the “cat room” and “Sebastian’s room”, had become a dumping ground.  We loaded up on kitty litter before Minnesota was under a stay-at-home order, so there was a healthy stay of litter buckets randomly placed on the floor.  While cleaning other rooms, stray home decor pieces were

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April 20, 2020 14 Comments
All Things Home

washing & mending

I have found the weekends during this time to be especially difficult.  I haven’t put my finger on exactly why.  Maybe it’s because there isn’t much distinction between weekdays and weekends?  We’re just all home all the time.  Safe at home.  Well and happy, but home nonetheless.  Maybe it’s because the week is too busy with work and school to have much time to dwell on anxious thoughts. Whatever the cause, I’m learning that I need to keep myself occupied.  There are a lot of things I can’t control, but I can do the next thing and then the next.  So, that’s what I did this weekend.  I wasn’t feeling motivated to start a large project, but I could knock out several smaller ones or do some prep work for larger projects.  I worked from one thing to the next and got a surprising amount accomplished. One thing that took

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April 14, 2020 35 Comments
a slice of life

the best gift

Saturday was my 42 birthday.  It started off with apologies from Jeff and the boys that they couldn’t go out and buy me gifts and couldn’t take me out to a restaurant.  It would be another day hunkering down at home.  The fact that I wasn’t disappointed was surprising to me.  I’ve always been a “big birthday person.”  I love presents and cake and surprises. To plan for the day, I bought the ingredients to make a copycat version of Olive Garden’s lemon cream cake, but there have been bigger things than online shopping for potential birthday presents to occupy my time and thoughts.  We would just unceremoniously move some cash from the gifts line item to my personal spending money in our budget and I could buy something later. It was actually the precautions we’ve been taking to keep our family, particularly our type 1 diabetic son, insulated from

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April 8, 2020 64 Comments
All Things Home

“Boxwood” Green Studio Doors

Last week, I took some time to work on the studio doors.  It’s been on my to-do list for a while, but it’s one of those projects that isn’t urgent, so it kept getting knocked down the list in favor of more exciting or pressing endeavors.  With everyone home, trying to juggle school and work, feeding four humans and three animals all day, etc. it has been even more important for me to set out some small, tangible goals and get them done.  It’s good for my own mental health to celebrate small accomplishments! So, I worked on the studio doors.  I reinstalled the trim we removed to see if installing a new door was going to be a doable project, touched up the paint… …and then repainted the doors in the custom Boxwood green I used on my butler’s pantry, the kitchen island, and the cabinets in our laundry

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April 7, 2020 42 Comments
a slice of life

my silver patterns

I often receive comments about my flatware, even if I am posting about food or styling or something else entirely.  I will admit that I have a thing for flatware and have inherited and collected some beautiful pieces. The pieces I inherited from at least five different women in my family are stunning and hard to ignore, which is the main reason why I started using them as our everyday flatware several years ago.  They are just too pretty to keep in a box 363 days of the year, only making appearances at Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, despite being valuable heirlooms, we use them every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I doubt my boys remember using anything else and I know they just see them as regular ole forks and spoons. HERE is a post about why I use my silver every day and how I clean and care

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April 2, 2020 60 Comments
All Things Home

studio DIY built-in shelf dimensions & cut list

Reminder – Always use caution and common sense when using power tools on all DIY projects including this built-in shelf.   There are some projects that go beautifully as planned.  It’s smooth sailing and there aren’t any hiccups or bumps.  This DIY built-in shelf was not one of those projects!  It wasn’t a disaster, but it sort of felt like that when we were in the middle of making it. The calamity that happened while building this shelf came down to a lack of precision, not following my own good experience, and being impatient while trying to build it in a messy garage on a cold and dreary day.  I just wanted to knock this thing out and that’s usually the mindset that leads to mistakes. You wouldn’t think it to look at the finished shelf, though, so all is well that ends well. Several people asked if I would share

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March 31, 2020 6 Comments
All Things Home

productive decorative play

I was in a real funk on Saturday.  I think it had a lot to do with the dreary weather.  It was gray and our daily walk was shortened by a cool wind and a spittle of rain.  (Jeff’s second walk with Sebastian was shortened by a downpour laced with hail!)  The weather was just not conducive to a cheery day.  On top of that, I was just feeling down.  I wasn’t focusing on gratitude. I did something I rarely do and just sat on the sofa and watched a movie on my iPad, tuning everyone else out with headphones.  I reconciled my bank accounts because it was something that needed to be done anyway.  And Jeff gave me precious time alone in my studio to listen to music and make color charts. It was just what I needed.  I focused on mixing colors and applying them to a grid

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March 30, 2020 54 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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