As much as I love Summer it has been a nice change to see leaves and pumpkins scattered along the mantel. I like to keep it simple in a sense. Everything you see up there I just pulled from around the house except for the pumpkins which I purchased for around five bucks. It’s fun to see how I reused a lot of the same accessories from last year’s Fall mantel but achieved a completely different look.
Fall decor doesn’t have to come from the seasonal aisle. Instead look around your house for objects that are the colors you are wanting to use. Color is so powerful and pulling together the right colors really sets the tone of what you are going for.
Our living room can be dark at times so I used white accessories and pumpkins to highlight different areas of the mantel. The gold on the mirror frame and painted canvas work well with the warm colors found in the leaves.
The mums and greenery are left over from last year when I made a monogramed letter for our front door. See it really does pay to keep your scraps!
I just pulled vases from around the house. Like the McCarty Pottery vase and glazed ceramic vase above. Both have good earthy colors that again work well with the simple leaf garland that I used as my main source of color.
The candle holder adds height and balances the vases on the other side but it also reminds me of a bare leafed tree. Although, I am not sure what it was reminding me of when I used it for our Spring mantel.
The wall plaque normally hangs in our kitchen but it sort of has a Thanksgiving feel to it so I thought it would be appropriate for the Fall. Plus, it is just such a great reminder of our commitment to God.
Here’s a few more pics because apparently I can be pretty indecisive when deciding which pictures to use.
Now that we have officially hit Summer Spring I thought I would get in the mood a little by decorating our mantel.
I really didn’t know how I wanted to decorate it but I knew I wanted color. I have seen so many great looking mantels decorated with white for spring but I just don’t have a ton of white decor so I decided color was a better route for me. Plus our mantel and brick are both light in color so a little color would pop out against it.
Like most of my ideas these days I started looking on Pinterest for ideas. I really didn’t find any inspiration until I saw this table top display.
I loved the pop of color the tissue paper pom-pom balls added! Even though its a table top display the concept is basically the same. So the next time I was at Walmart I picked up a packet of tissue paper.
I decided on the multi-color packet because I was able to get a ton of sheets for a great price (it even says “Great Value” on the cellophane) and I figured I could use the leftovers for actual tissue paper for gift bags.
Even though we used tissue paper pom-poms in Noah’s nursery I didn’t make them. So I did a little Google search and decided to use Martha Stewart’s method. The directions are fairly straight forward and simple.
Does it bug anybody else that Martha Stewart is the queen of all things craft, gardening, and cooking but yet she probably doesn’t come up with 90% of the stuff… it ‘s all her staff. Oh, well the method and tutorial worked.
Since, I didn’t have enough of any color to make a solid color pom-pom I decided to go with the ombre look.
I made three pom-poms, used dental floss as string (because Noah was sleeping in the room with the thread), and hung them from the ceiling with a thumb tack.
I planned to hang one higher than the others to hide the brackets of the mirror that normally hangs on the mantel. Varying the height helped also to create some visual movement.
After playing around with some pottery, baskets, and other odds and ends this is what I ended up with.
I really wanted to incorporate some greenery into the decorations since Spring brings so much new life. And since Easter falls during the Spring I added a cross and our “As For Me and My Family We will Serve The Lord” plaque. I think it’s my favorite part.
I think the pom-poms add a whimsical touch to the mantel. Which is not really like me but I think it is appropriate now that we have a little one around the house. I wouldn’t even be surprised if these pom-poms make an appearance at her birthday party later this year!
So for less than five dollars I was able to give our mantel a little pop of color for Spring.
What do you think? Did you decorate your mantel for Spring? If so, did you use neutrals or pops of color?
Last month, when we went to visit my parents for Noah’s book shower, something caught our eyes in my room. I have always had a mantle in my room. It’s basically a decoy though since there isn’t a chimney connected to it… but it always looked nice. We noticed this time, however, my parents had moved their old set of electric heater logs in front of the mantel. As soon as we saw it, Michael Luke and I mentioned to each other that that was what we needed for our fireplace.
Our fireplace came installed with gas logs.
You can’t even really see them in this picture, but that’s basically how we viewed them, as non-existent. We have only turned them on once because natural gas has been expensive the whole time we’ve owned the house. It was also pretty pointless because there was no fan attached to the logs, so all the heat escaped through the chimney instead of heating the room. Basically, we just had a set of logs in our fireplace that was useless.
As I sat there looking at the logs in my childhood room and dreaming of a set in our house, it dawned on me that my parents probably wouldn’t care if we took them. It’s not like we would ever use them at their house because my room always stays nice and toasty. So we began making plans to have our gas fireplace converted to a wood-burning fireplace.
The gas to wood-burning fireplace conversion would make things easier since all we would have to do is just slip the electric logs inside. So ML began doing a little research on companies that could cut the existing gas line off to the fireplace and clean our chimney. Thankfully, Groupon happened to be running a special for chimney cleaning, so we snatched it up. For any local Birmingham peeps, we used Black Widow Chimney Services. They did a great job, and I wish I had taken before and after pictures of the inside of our fireplace.
On a side note, ML tried to make it home the day the chimney guy came incase I had to feed Noah or something and so I wouldn’t be home alone. Unfortunately, the chimney guy showed up early before ML had a chance to leave work. I’m not scared of being home alone or anything, but you just never know who you might be letting into your house… safety first. But it just so happened that he showed up when I was working on the Orange Sorbet dessert for Valentine’s Day. I was slicing the oranges with a large (probably 10″) knife, so when he came to the door, I answered it with the knife in my hand. Haha! I doubt that scared him, but if he would have been dangerous, he might have had second thoughts at that point. So for the first few minutes he was in the house, I continued slicing my oranges with my weapon. Not that I had any intention of harming him… he turned out to be a nice guy, but it did make me feel secure and like I was in charge. That night, I told Michael Luke how I answered the door, and he said I should answer the door like that anytime I am home alone and I am not sure who it is.
To get back on track, we were more than excited after our fireplace was cleaned. We still didn’t have the electric logs though, since we didn’t ask my parents for them until after we left their house. Last weekend, we went to visit them though and brought the logs back with us!
Sunday night, we installed them and had ourselves a nice cozy fire! They are perfect for us because our downstairs is always cold in the winter. One reason for this is because we have a crawl space underneath the house, so our floors never really get warm. Late Tuesday afternoon, I turned them on, and by the time we had finished supper, the little electric logs had warmed the downstairs up six degrees! Another plus is that while it warms the downstairs up, the upstairs doesn’t get overheated. So when we go to bed, it is nice and cool. Perfect for climbing under the covers.
We love that the logs have a light in them to add to the ambience of the room and to give them a realistic look. And because they are actually in the fireplace, they light up the whole inside. We are so excited about having them.
You can see where Michael Luke has the electrical wire coming out of the left side of the fireplace. It’s really not that noticeable, especially if you are sitting on any of the sofas in the room.
And if we ever have 10 or 15 people over at a time (which is possible, read about one occasion here), we can just turn the light on and leave the heat off.
So incase you somehow missed my excitement in this post, we are SUPER excited to have our new (to us) electric logs. Thanks Momma and Daddy!
What about you? Have you been excited about a new feature in your house? Do you have gas, electric, or wood burning logs? What are your thoughts on them?
