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Martha McGlothlin Bowman

@theconfettichronicles

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✨sentimental living.
🏡your home = a scrapbook.
🩵appalachian roots.traditions.
📚family stories.keeping it all.
@prettymessymahjong
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HEY Y’ALL! Welcome to the new folks around here & thanks for following! I’m Martha & the mom to 4 teenagers (3 boys, 1 girl) & 2 dogs. My life revolves around them & trying to make all the memories possible. Faith & my church are very important to me. My hubby, Mark, puts up with my craft projects & paint everywhere around the house, including the kitchen (which I consider my office). He’s the chef in the family, but...I don’t want to move my office. I have the best parents in the world who live around the corner and help me out so much because, it takes a village.

A few other things to let you in on some secret facts:

1. I save (almost) everything and try to use it in decorating, craft projects or just good old-fashioned scrapbooking.

2. I love small towns, the country, mountains & lakes….and cowboy boots.

3. I don’t like to travel much. I’ve never had wanderlust. I can’t explain it; I just don’t. Thankfully, hubby is not big on travel either. We like to be at home or at least not too far.

4. I’m a true crime junkie. This worries hubby when he finds me watching “Wives with Knives”! Ironically, I’m a scaredy-cat, which makes no sense that I will watch documentaries on Jeffrey Dahmer at home alone.

5. My ideal Christmas gift would be a large clear jar of Sharpies (great to use & pretty to look at).

6. I’m not a big chocolate fan {exceptions: Chocolate gravy (a delicacy where I come from), Milky Ways, Hershey’s Kisses}. Dark chocolate is a BIG NOT.

7. I took piano lessons for almost 25 years & practiced 2 hours a day in high school.

8. I love anything to do with home decor, vintage items, architectural salvage & especially using sentimental items. I’m not above dumpster diving. Yard sales are my fave! Using family treasures to decorate is my passion.

9….I hate celery. And about 50 other foods. Being this picky ain’t easy.

Well, there you have it, some random facts about yours truly. Also-my favorite shows of all time are the Brady Bunch, Andy Griffith & the Waltons. Oh, and I love turquoise. 🩵 by @theconfettichronicles

🦃 I was once invited to move to the grown-ups’ table for Thanksgiving. I politely declined.

Growing up, Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house meant sitting at the kids’ table with my cousins. And honestly, we had WAY more fun than the grown-ups, who talked about boring things! Even a few stray adults who couldn’t fit at the “big table” would sit with us.

So when I was finally old enough to graduate to the grown-ups’ table, I wasn’t interested. Why mess with a good thing?

All these years later, I still have a soft spot for the kids’ table. And this year’s is filled with color, whimsy, and, of course, a little family history.

🦃 A whimsical wooden turkey takes center stage, surrounded by colorful plates and little turkey friends.

🍁 The napkin rings? I made them in FOURTH GRADE! They’ve survived all these years and are right back where they belong.

🎃 My son made the pumpkin from Mason jar rings. Another little handmade treasure I’ll never part with.

🖍️ Crayons for writing on the “I’m Thankful For” sheets are tucked into a mug from the United Coal Company cafeteria in the 1970s. I love giving old things new purposes!

💙 Turquoise bandanas serve as napkins. They’re fun, washable, and not the least bit fancy. And the cups remind everyone that growing up is NOT allowed!

🍁 Place cards written on leaves.

Nothing has to match perfectly, spills are welcome, and nobody needs to worry about the good linens.

I love a beautiful formal table, but I think children deserve a table that feels like a celebration, too.

And my favorite part? Some of the things on this table were made by little hands decades apart — mine and my son’s.

Because the best things on our tables aren’t necessarily the prettiest or most expensive. They’re the things with stories.

And if anyone offers me a seat at the grown-ups’ table this Thanksgiving?

I think I’ll pass. Again. ❤️

Were you a kids’ table kid? And did you ever actually WANT to graduate to the grown-ups’ table?

#thanksgivingtable #kidstable #thanksgivingdecor #cottagesandbungalows by @theconfettichronicles

Last fall I went to a Christmas topiary workshop at the Southern Lion in Charlotte taught by the amazing guys at Parker Kennedy Living.

First we chose one of the fabulous vessels (I chose blue and white) and glued a styrofoam tree inside it. We then picked out our favorite colors from tubs and tubs of millions of Christmas baubles. Are you surprised I chose everything in the turquoise family?

Next it was a gluing fest! Alternating large and small and then inserting little twigs of tinsel in between the ornaments.

I LOVE the finished project and it found a holiday home near our tree. Everyone’s turned out beautifully.

What a fun day! 🎄 Thanks Parker Kennedy Living!

#christmas #christmasdecor #diy #topiary by @theconfettichronicles

Vintage Williamsburg purse circa 1970s that belonged to my mom, CeCe! It’s by Annie Laurie of Palm Beach and I carried it on Sunday to a dinner at Blackthorn for the Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate golf tournament. W & M is playing and my son James is on the team. The purse is in great condition and shows the Wren building and other colonial buildings! 🩵

#vintagepurse #colonialwilliamsburg #williamandmary #grandmillennialdecor by @theconfettichronicles

Add in a few surprises here and there on your porch! 🧡🎃

#falldecor #pumpkindecor #frontporch #frontporchdecor by @theconfettichronicles

Apparently, I’ve managed to make Mahj on the Rocks sound like an advanced calculus course. So let me try this again.

OPTION A: Play mahjong Friday at The Olde Farm.

OPTION B: Play mahjong Saturday at the Hard Rock.

OPTION C: DO BOTH.

That’s it. That’s the whole test. And there are no wrong answers.

Want to stay at the Hard Rock? Stay.

Want to sleep in your own bed? Sleep.

Want to book a spa treatment? Book it.

Don’t want a spa treatment? For heaven’s sake, don’t get one.

It’s mahjong, people. Not a timeshare presentation.

Now here’s the part where I get serious.

I have TEN DAYS to figure out how many tables to rent, how much food to order, and whether we’re actually having this party.

So if you’re coming, PLEASE SIGN UP.

Because I would much rather be picking out party favors than canceling the party.

Three choices. Ten days. Zero excuses.

Love y’all. Mean it. 😂🐲 by @theconfettichronicles

I’ve always LOVED cows. When my kiddos were younger, every time we drove by cows (which was a lot since we live in the country!), I would stop the car, roll down the window and yell “MOOOOO”! It embarrassed them but somehow I think it will be one of their favorite memories. 🐄

#cowsofinstagram #easttennessee #countryliving #lifeinthecountry #cowstagram by @theconfettichronicles

I started playing piano at age 5. I took lessons until age 25–training solely on classical music. Played in recitals and competitions. Placed #1 in Tennessee even. Then I stopped. I’m rusty and I’m sad about it. I’m going to play a piece from memory each week even if it’s not to my standards - and it won’t be! It’s all about the muscle memory. Being classically trained if I stray at all it’s hard to get back on track (at least I blame it on that!). But here goes. So wish I had the ability to improvise but that’s a foreign concept to me.

Have you ever given up a hobby you wish you hadn’t?

Follow along! 🎼

Fur Elise by Beethoven. Learned in 6th grade.

#piano #beethoven #classicalpiano #classicalpianist by @theconfettichronicles

If these little vintage diaries could talk…the stories they would tell! From my grandmother and great-aunt to my uncle and even myself, I have a collection of little diaries spanning generations. And I love displaying them around my home instead of tucking them away.

Also this prayer book of my dad’s in amazing turquoise our cousin Van Hamlin gave him in 1947.

I have diaries of great aunt Mary Lockhart, my elementary school diary (embarrassing!), my Mamaw, Sally Ann Cook McGlothlin…

My Granny’s (Martha Jane Lockhart Epling) high school autograph book from the 1930s.

And the sweet but tragically short diary of my uncle Butch Epling who passed at age 21 shortly after writing this in 1964:

“Spent Christmas Eve with Alice and know now I love her deeply. She is the girl I have always hoped and prayed for.”

It makes me happy to know he found true love.

I wonder if any of them imagined someone would still be reading their words all these years later. To me, that’s the beauty of sentimental living—keeping little pieces of the past alive in the present. Because even the most ordinary days become history someday. 🩵

#vintagediaries #countrylivingmagazine #grandmillennialdecor #antiquedealersofinstagram #keepsakes by @theconfettichronicles

Back in the day, families saved things like this. I found a few more shoes my granny had bronzed.

This little cowboy boot and these shoes belonged to my mom’s brother Darrell, who was killed riding his bike when he was only eight.

And this penny loafer belonged to another brother Butch, who died in a car accident at just 21.

I love that my granny saved these little pieces of them but I can’t imagine what she went through. I wish I could have met them. 🩵

#keepsakes #sentimentalliving #nostalgia #bronzedshoes #grandmillennialdecor by @theconfettichronicles

There are still places in Appalachia where families have their own cemeteries.

Ours sits way up on a steep hill, overlooking the family property that has been here since 1907.

It’s hard to imagine carrying someone all the way up here for burial so many years ago.

My great-grandparents are here. My grandparents are here. And so are generations of others who belonged to this place.

The old tombstones are tall and stately, many engraved with words and verses meant to last.

And I love that they’re here—high on this hill, looking out over the land they once called home.

A family cemetery.

Quiet. Beautiful. And still very much a part of Appalachia. 🩵

Do you have a family cemetery?

#appalachia #appalachianmountains #southwestvirginia #familycemetery #cemeteries by @theconfettichronicles

“How Great Thou Art” is my favorite hymn! Today, CeCe, uncle David, my cousin Cody and I went to Homecoming at Grundy Church of Christ, the church we all grew up in. It was a wonderful day of worship and visiting old friends, not to mention the fantastic home-cooked meal in the GBI building.

This was the opening hymn and I came home inspired to play it…from my Grundy Church of Christ hymnal that we have had for at least 45 years.

What’s your favorite hymn? Follow along as I dust off my piano skills. 🩵🎼

#pianoplaying #piano #hymns #churchmusic #choirmusic by @theconfettichronicles