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Thursday, December 05, 2013

I'm in Love with my Mantle....

Note:  I pinned the photo of my finished mantle to Pinterest so that next year, when I decorate I can remember what in the world I did (because Lord knows I can't even remember if I gave the dog her allergy medicine, much less what I used to decorate my mantle).  I just uploaded the photo--I didn't attached it to a blog post.  And I'm getting notifications telling me that all of these people have repined this photo.  I'm flattered!  But....because I've been seeing people take popular "pins" and attach it to their websites like it was their own?  I decided to write a blog post about it so that pinners understand that it wasn't just some random internet photo!


The week of Thanksgiving I decided to take Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off of work.  While we had no fancy Thanksgiving plans that required travel or marathon cooking sessions, I did feel the need for just a break from work!

My big plans included watching lots of bad television from the 80's and 90's as well as getting my house decorated for Christmas.  I have to admit, though, I was so, so, SO excited to decorate my fireplace mantle.  I've been waiting to do that since June when we made an offer on this house.  I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew that I wanted simple.  Nothing crazy or over the top.

I played around with ideas.  Surfed pinterest.  Looked at what I had in my after-Christmas-sale-Christmas-decoration-stash.  I looked through my craft room.  And here's what I found:

  • I had 3 old windows from the farm that I could use
  • I had another window that I made into a chalkboard using chalkboard paint
  • I had a small, faux-birch-bark "M" that I wanted to incorporate (for our last name)
  • I liked the idea of height but wasn't sure what that meant--a small fake tree?  a vase?
  • I wanted to stick with the colors I started using last year:  green, brown, tan, and white.

Here was the first thing I made:


This is one of the windows from the farm.  I went to Crafts Direct (a big crafting store in St Cloud that puts Michaels, JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby to shame) and found the metal barn star and greenery.  Total paid for the star and greenery was about $14 as everything was 1/2 off.  I had the "M" and the glittery metallic berry springs. 

I did drill two small holes into the star so that I could tie the greenery to it.  If I ever decide to use the star in another way, I won't be tied to just using it at Christmas.

While at Crafts Direct I picked up some garland.  I wanted garland that looked a little more realistic.  And because of that, you pay the price as it is much more expensive.  But because it was half off, I paid $15.  Still much more expensive than the garland you'd find at a big-box store.  But I liked the look much better.  With that said, here's what it looked like with the garland and the stockings:



I then went to Target and found two tall vases.  Total cost of those vases was $25.  A little more than I wanted to spend, but in hindsight, I can use those for different times of the year filled with seasonal items.  I have seen on pinterest the idea of filling vases with ornaments.  For $8 I got two "buckets" of ornaments (one green, one brown) at Wal-Mart.

But when I put the vases on the mantle, it was clear that I was still missing something.  I decided to add my chalk board window.  I added the Be Merry and viola!  My mantle was complete....

It should be noted that I've since removed the ribbon around the garland.  I lived with it for about 2 days and took the ribbon off.

So....there you have it!
My Christmas mantle.

1 comment:

Rebecca Jo said...

SOOO cute!!! There's something special about having a mantle at Christmas time! :)