Christmas Mantel: Stage One

One of the first things you notice when you walk into a living room or den is the fireplace and mantel. I love decorating our mantel for the four seasons, but my favorite season is Christmas.

For the past four Christmases, I have used the same accessories for the mantel — holly vines with berries, gold doves in the center, and birds scattered amongst the holly vines (you can click on the pictures to get a closer look, if you'd like).

This year, I'm going to do something different.

Yesterday, I bought a nice lush garland made from three different kinds of greenery, and rescued a pair of brass candlesticks from the attic, along with two large glass globes.

I was dismayed to see that the globes wouldn't fit in the candlesticks, but you know what they say about "where there's a will, there's a way" — I turned the candlesticks upside down and, voila! ... the globes fit securely in the bottom of them.

I want to get red candles to go in the candlesticks and a battery-operated string of clear lights to add to the garland — and that's as far as I've gotten on the basic look I want to achieve. I'm going to work on it some more today, and may end up just adding the old holly vines and birds.

Have you started decorating for Christmas yet? I'm going to be working on mine in stages and, hopefully, will have some pictures to share soon of my "new look" for the mantel this year.

Decorating for Fall with Stained Gourds

One of my favorite Fall decorating accessories is gourds. They are inexpensive, come in all shapes and sizes, and can be stained or painted to complement any style decor. Here are a few ways I use mine:

On the mantel of our fireplace ...

The Welsh Dresser in our breakfast area ...

A few closeup vignettes of the shelves:

If you would like to read more about how to stain gourds, you can read a post I wrote a couple of years ago called Stained Gourds: A Fall Decorating Project. It's fun, inexpensive, and you'll be surprised by how many other accessories, besides gourds, you can update for your Fall decorating projects ... just with a can of stain (like plain, inexpensive terra cotta pots, which I plan to try soon).

Happy decorating!

A Traditional Christmas Mantel ...

Fireplaces and mantels are usually the main focal point of a room and are always fun to decorate. Like most of us, I change my mantel decor according to the seasons and I'd like to share my Christmas mantel with you. But first, I'd like to show you my summer and fall mantels. [You can click on the pictures to enlarge them]

When I found this picture of my summer mantel, I was kind of surprised by how simple and plain it was. I'm not sure that I like it and will definitely add more to it next summer. Perhaps some birds and different planters for the ivy (which is much larger now) ...

My fall mantel was more elaborate, featuring my collection of stained gourds and a garland of fall berries ...

And here is the way it looks now, decorated for Christmas ...

I've had the gold doves for many years and they're showing their age, but I don't know of anything I'd rather use for the centerpiece ...

The holly is very old, too, and every year I think about replacing it, but can never find anything I like better. I did add the two birds on stands this year, and I bought the candlesticks at a flea market back during the summer ...

For Christmas, I fill the copper coal hod with three rustic metal bells and some faded greenery ...

The little rocking chair on the left was our son's when he was a baby (he's 34 now!) ... and still has the hammer marks he made with his little Fisher-Price hammer. I wouldn't take anything for it!

The Christmas books in the rocker belonged to our son and daughter when they were little, and now we read them to our little granddaughter Avery Grace.

My next post will feature our Nativity Set, and I hope you will come back to visit.

Sincerely,