So I don't know if I have actually come out and said this yet on the ol' blog but we moved! It is a long drawn out story but we are currently in a rent house and this is her mantel. I could say she really hasn't been taken care of if I wanted to put a positive spin on her...I am going to choose that road;)
So in order to make her more cozy and a bit more like home we have of course put things on the walls and attempted to warm her up a bit. (our initial plan was to not even hang anything because we only signed a 9 month lease) But.....we did and you know what? We are glad we did! We moved from our 2100 sq footer to this purdy 1500 sq footer and honestly it has been kind of nice! We essentially lived in the back living room of our old casa because it was cozy and convenient to the kitchen. When you have three youngsters you need to be close to the kitchen right? Anywho...the kids(and the "grown ups" love not having stairs and "baby girl" is happy to not have to climb over baby gates. She is on to other trouble making these days.
All that being said here is a icky phone picture of how I threw the mantel together when we moved in a couple of months ago in all her summer glory(or not).
This was all stuff we already owned(we didn't have a mantel at the old house) and had been spread out all over the house.
You think I'm kidding about the blurry icky phone pick?
I wasn't.
Here is what the Halloween mantel evolved into. We had this picture in our old formal dining area and to me it had great potential to be eery. I may never look at it the same:(
The eek sign was an after season purchase from a couple of years ago, the ceramic jack o lanterns were an after season purchase from Garden Ridge 7 years ago. I have no clue when I bought the random fallish galands. I don't remember a thing about the fall floral picks either so that means they have been around for a while.
See the "framed" spider web. Uh..not so much. The picture frame was a gift from a friend a few years ago and I just stuck a spiderweb sticker(from a recent project and upcoming post) right on the glass. Viola! Classy!
Aren't the ceramic Jack's cute?! I have always liked those guys.
How about the random placement of the jeweled garland that I tacked up on the edge?
Seriously if you know nothing about me know this. I am not a planner when it comes to decor. I have had several people ask me to help them decorate and I explain that I literally decorate our house by slowly but surely buying things that I find on clearance that I like and then eventually finding a place for them. I am going to attempt to approach decorating our new house differently but it is hard to teach an old maid new tricks right? (that's not how it goes but in true form I always mess those sayings up;)
Got a spare fall pick? Shove it behind a pumpkin...
fire hazard? yes..we don't light these often so we will be o.k.
Got an old but still pretty mosaic vase
that you forgot to take the candle out of years ago when you started putting stuff in a hot storage unit?
stick something in it...nobody knows(well until now) and no one cares.
Even though she was all thrown together.....
(see how I taped my little "eek" to the picture frame (again classy..especially when it falls and scares us to death)
I still think she turned out just fine! I think this mantel is happier now. I am pretty certain her previous visitors never dressed her up so if anything I am happy to make her happy. Nerd Alert! I am in a dorky kind a mood can you tell?
So how do you "work" your mantel. Do you plan it out or throw it on? Do you have a theme, change it every year or do you just wait for the "big one"(Christmas) before you deck her out?
Do tell! Make me feel better about my disorder. Or encourage me to be better. I will take that too.
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I put things on the mantel that I want to look at daily, or think that others may enjoy looking at when they are sitting on my couch.
Currently, there are pretty star(Texasish) candle holders that I bought years ago. A small art print of Texas that I got at the renegade craft fair this year, and a truly adorable picture of Xia on farm day at her school(western). Semi-Texana-themed right now.
It evolves constantly, sometimes even being naked. It is so shallow that it's sometimes difficult to put anything on it that I want to look at for more than a day.
I love a pretty mantle. My walls can be bare, but I will usually spend a few moments dressing the mantle.
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