Look What Landed on our Mantel

I've had an idea for decorating our mantel that I've been itching to try for a few months now.  I couldn't interrupt the Fall-Hallowe'en-Christmas flow, though, so it had to wait. Can you guess what my idea is?

Yep I had the rainbow fairy visit my mantel.  I thought it would be a fun challenge to decorate the mantel like a rainbow using things from around the house.   As you can see I lack in the purple and orange sections, but more than made up for it in the blue ranges.  It was a lot of fun to hunt the house for things I could use.  Thank heavens for Anthropologie bowls.

The sideboard is at the other end of the room and I needed to do something with it as well.  I had rescued a few pieces of wood from my parent's woodshed at the cottage recently and was pining to use them in some way.  After some pondering it occurred to me that if the rainbow was at one end of the room, then the other end should be all white - all the colours rolled into one!

Anyone else have a collection of bark and wood?  Hmm, I thought not.  I love their textured weathered look and love including them in my arrangements.

Have you ever created a vignette that was a little out-of-the-box so to speak?  It was fun to do and we're enjoying the cheery colours at one end of the room and the calm natural palette at the other - just what we need to look at during all the sleet and snow and rain that we have been having in this crazy winter.

Linked to WOW Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style,
Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Link Party at Delightful Order,
Spring Decorating Link Party at The Lettered Cottage

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Come on in for a Visit

I'm so glad you stopped by for a visit - welcome.   

The front porch has a few Christmas touches - twig stars, shiny balls hung on twigs and placed in the lanterns,

and touches of white on the wreath and the little girl's skates.

 Come on inside out of the cold.  Would you like a cup of tea?

some cookies?

Let me show you around.  


I kept the mantel pretty simple this year - just the spindle Santas and some pine cones.  Can't get much simpler than that, but I love it.  Those spindle Santas are near and dear to our hearts - each one has a special story which you can read about here.

I did something a little different in the dining room.  I've never done a colour scheme before, but really wanted to try doing the sideboard in red and white this year.  I love how simple and fresh it looks.  (You can read more about the sideboard and see more pictures here).

I've been meaning to show you how I created the plates.  I wanted to let you in on a little secret about how easy they were to do.  They really depended more on my ability to copy designs and do some good Googling than on any actual inherent talent.  Oh, and it definitely helped my psyche to know that I could wash the Sharpie off the plates - I'm not sure why it would scrub off as usually Sharpie is permanent, but when I found out I could remove it I felt a lot freer to experiment and try designs.


The Christmas lights were from an image I found online.  The first time I drew the bulbs they were all different sizes and shapes and looked ... well ... not right.  So I made a little stencil out of cardboard and used that so the bulbs were similar to each other.

Lighting Pictures

The idea for the Christmas balls came from a Folio Society ad that we got in the mail.  I knew I couldn't draw the gorgeous designs they had on the balls so I improvised.

The snowflake picture came from an embroidery design that I found online.  I simplified it as well as you can see below.

Green Crafts

And the Christmas tree was a modification of the many scribble trees you can find online, like the one below.

Want 2 Scrap

I'm so glad you dropped by for a visit.  We're putting our tree up this weekend so pop back to have a look.   We would already have it up, but Kate isn't back from university yet and she's a Christmas-loving girl so we thought we would wait for her.

Linked to Virtual Christmas House Tour at The Inspired Room,
Holiday House Tour at Hooked on Houses,
DIY Ornaments Holiday Crafts Link Party at Centsational Girl,
Christmas Crafts at Bower Power

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Steven and Chris Helped me Decorate my Summer Mantel

I was reading the June 2011 Style at Home magazine and saw this article by Steven and Chris where they outline step-by-step how to decorate your mantel.  It looked pretty foolproof so I thought I would give it a try.

Our mantel still had the pussy willows in beer bottles spring display that you can see here.   It really was time for a change.  


So here is what I did:

We already have a large engraving hung over our fireplace which I used as my starting off point. Steven and Chris used a large vertical mirror resting on the mantel, but our engraving is already hung several inches above the mantel so I went with it.

I had to pinch the woodblock print of the woman fly-fishing from the front hall.   It not only had the golds and blacks that went with the engraving, but it seemed sort of summery with the fishing.   

I'm not sure if the Mason jars have movement or not, but I liked the summery colours so I used them.  I also had them in two different heights which was good so that I could get the all important triangle shape.

I had a much harder time decorating the right side of the mantel than the left.  I decided to try the nautical knots that I won in a giveaway from Suzanne at Meridian Road last year.  I really like their texture and symmetry and I love how much they help evoke the summer mood.

I tried several versions of tall wispy branches, but they all just looked strange in front of the engraving so I finally went with a tall glass cylinder candle holder (which you can see in the photo above).  It's tall enough to overlap with the frame of the etching which helps bridge the gap between the mantel and the etching.

When step 6 called for boxes, I immediately thought of the beautiful box that Malcolm and Christie gave us for our 30th anniversary.  The box needed a little height so I tried stacking numerous things on top of it which I will show you in the photos at the end of the post.  


I also added an additional item under the etching as it seemed a little bare on the mantel since the etching is hanging rather than leaning.  I tried several things in that spot as well.

So here's a sketch of Steven and Chris's final version:

And here are some photos of variations that I went through (trying out different things on the box and under the etching):

Any one of these versions call out to you as the clear winner?  I'm really not sure which one I like best, although the last version is the one I left.  

I have to say it was a useful exercise.  It helped me decorate the mantel with more confidence and made me try items that I wouldn't have ordinarily put together.  


So thanks Steven and Chris!  Anyone else want to give it a try?

Linked to Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style
Good Life at A Beach Cottage
Swing Into Spring at DIY by Design
Home May'd Summer Mantel Party at The Lettered Cottage
Magazine Copy Cat Challenge at Debbiedoo's Blogging and Blabbing

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Is It Wrong to Decorate with Beer Bottles?

Decorating with beer bottles really is a win-win situation.  Hubby is happy to drink the contents and then I soak off the label and put some pussy willows in the empty bottles for the mantel.  

Aren't the bottles lovely with the St. Peter's Brewery seal pressed into them.

I love watching pussy willows emerge in the spring.  They seemed just the thing to put out on our mantel right now.

Linked to Countdown to Spring Party at Domestically Speaking
and Metamorphasis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
and Spring Mantel Party at Women Who Do it All

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Heart Bunting on our Valentine's Day Mantel

I usually don't change the decoratations on our mantel very often, but I rose to the challenge this year and decided to decorate for Valentine's Day.  After all, not only is it Valentine's Day, but it is our 30th Wedding Anniversary on February 14th so it seemed like the perfect time to do a little something special.

Right beside the fireplace is a brown and gold sofa that just doesn't look very good with red and pink so I thought I'd be creative and decorate with cream and blue.  I decided I wanted  the mantel to have something a bit sentimental after all it is a celebration of love; something with hearts only they couldn't be red or pink; and I wanted to use things from around the house.

 

 My first inspiration was to use books that represented something everyone in the family is interested in.  The fireplace is in our family room and has an entire wall of windows so it is quite sunny which means that I didn't want to put any of our good books on the mantel.  So I stuck to using paperbacks that nobody would mind if they got a bit faded in the sun.  There were fossil and English literature books for the hubster, books by C. S. Lewis and Tolkien for Malcolm, for Kate books about New York City and Harry Potter (notice how the spine is upside down - that's how they print books in France), an Eastern philosopy book for William, and a book on Bangladesh for me.  I tied them all with a jute twine and put a couple of heart-shaped rocks on top.

I thought our tea cups would look pretty across the middle of the mantel - a sweet combination of delicate flowers and gold trim and a reminder of a relaxing cup of tea.  The tea cups were bought by my mother shortly after they were married over 55 years ago.  My parents no longer used them so they passed six on to us and we use them when we play bridge.   I think they are all so pretty that I can never decide which tea cup is my favourite.

I've been a bit obsessed with how cute those mini-bunting flags look strung across cakes that I see all over blogland and decided I wanted to try my hand at making a Valentine's Day one.  Now there are some people in the family who don't like my bunting, but then again long-haired 16-year old guys aren't usually the ones you poll for opinions on your Valentine's Day crafts.

To make the bunting I cut heart-shapes out of some drop-cloth material and then taped them all side-by-side so I could sew them together without them moving around.  I sewed a little closer to the top of the hearts than the bottom so that gravity would hold them upright and I used the bottom edge of the masking tape as my guide for sewing.  I also made sure I left long threads on both ends so that I had enough to tie it to the sticks.  When they were sewn together, I removed the tape, tied the bunting to the bbq skewers, and put a dab of glue to hold it in place.

I had some serious issues getting them to stay up-right in the tea cup and I'm sure there were better solutions than the one I found, but here is what I did.  I used a lump of sticky tack at the bottom of the cup with the skewer stuck into it, then put some rocks over top and then covered them with white pea beans.  It was an efficient, but not necessarily elegant solution.

 
On the right-hand side of the mantel I put a chocolate-coloured Valentine's Day subway art that I got free from Today's Fabulous Finds.  They are available in ten different colours and are yours free for the printing - thanks Janet!   I chose the brown one so it would balance the weight of the books on the other end of the mantel and would coordinate with the sofa.

I put our last tea cup on this side, because I wanted an uneven number across the centre and this one is brighter than all the other ones. 

 
Since the tea cup was turquoise, I wanted to have two more aqua blue accents so added my new mason jar and a Tiffany box.  Aren't those bubbles in the mason jar too much - I love them.

Don't think I'm too silly, but I still haven't opened my present from Tiffany's that I got for Christmas.  I didn't want to ruin the bow so I'm waiting to open it for my birthday which is just before Valentine's Day - I know I'm strange.  What can I say?  It seemed appropriate to include the Tiffany box since the Valentine's Day mantel is about love and family and this was bought for me by Kate and hubby in New York City just before Christmas.

The sun was shining brightly this morning and I just kept clicking photos as it moved across the mantel.  A lovely way to spend a chilly morning.

And one last view of the whole mantel.

Linked to DIY Project Parade at The DIY Show Off,
Project Party Weekend at Bubbly Nature Creations
Valentine's Mantel Linky party at The Stories of A to Z 
Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
Strut Your Stuff Valentine's at Somewhat Simple
The Valentine's Party at The Holiday Haven

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