A Christmas/Holiday Mantel and Link

I'm pretty new to this decorating-the-mantel thing.  For the first seven years of living in this house, we had an antique, rectangular mirror hanging over the fireplace, a topiary on either side, and some photos scattered here and there on the mantel.  That's it.  It didn't change much, even around holiday time.

In the spirit of trying to flex my creative muscles, I decided to try a holiday mantel this year.  I covered the whole thing with lights, pine boughs (fake) and poinsettias (fake) and lived with it for a couple of days.  And every day I hated it more.  Maybe it's because Gavin kept trying to climb the pine boughs, or maybe it's because Nathan thought he could eat them.  Either way, I really just wanted something simple this year.


I found some wrapping paper that I liked at Target, so I started there.  I bought a piece of foam board at The Dollar Tree and covered it with the paper:

I also wanted to include these vintage ornaments.  They were my mom's when she was first married, and I think they're charming.

And I didn't want much else.  Here's what I ended up with:

I attached the foam board to the wall with sticky-tack, and hung my branchy (yes, I just used the word branchy!) wreath from a removable hook.  I also filled my hurricanes with fake snow and some pinecones from Michaels.

I also used these vintage candlesticks.  They were a flea-market find.

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And I had some leftover Scrabble pieces from a project I'm working on in Gavin's room (which is almost done), so I figured I would add those to the mantel too!

So there you have it! A simple, easy, no-fuss holiday mantel, which I find much more refreshing than the overly-ornate ones, at least this year.

I'm linking up to Layla's Mantle Party!  Follow this link to see some truly inspiring mantels!