Decorating Your Mantel For The Holidays
The time of the year the city starts to get overtaken by holiday decorations, stringed lights and Christmas trees—make it the best time of the year—when a city as big as Atlanta can feel reminiscent of a small town.
At my house, I started decorating for the holidays early rounding up a stockpile of holiday goodies from one store to the next to build my holiday mantel. This year, I wanted to keep things simple and classic yet modern. Here are some tips and tricks I used to decorate my mantel this year.
A Statement Piece As The Focal Point, Add a wreath
This over-sized photograph is one of my favorites in my house. I love the statement it makes over the mantel and that its neutral colors give it some versatility, so it can be paired with any color scheme. If you have a piece of artwork or mirror that is typically over your mantel and you want it to feel a bit more Christmas-y adding a wreath is also a good option.
Frame The mantel With Vignettes
On each side of the mantel, I pulled together a vignette with some seasonal pieces that are varied in height. On the left side of the mantel, I grouped together these little cityscape houses and bottle brush trees in neutral colors. I love that they elude to the holidays without over-powering the mantel so the red accents can really pop.
On the right side, I paired more bottle brush trees with this whimsical brass rabbit candle. The varying heights in the vignettes make the mantel and accents feel more styled. Working in odd numbers is also a good trick when creating a vignette to get the weighting right.
Add Varying Greenery (Cypress, Pine, Eucalyptus)
Across the whole mantel and down the sides I used a garland made up of pine and cypress and added in eucalyptus leaves to give it a more leafy look. Eucalyptus is one of my favorite greens for decorating because it brings that light and airy look I love. I also wrapped the greenery in a light pink ribbon to tie in the bottle brush trees.
Mix and Match Stockings
I love a traditional Christmas stocking - needlepoint with a Christmas scene and your name. LOVE. This year I wanted something a little more modern and I found this adorable Dashing Through The Snow stocking with little ski characters on it. It kicked off my whole scheme. I choose classic white cable knit stockings to pair with it and stuffed the stockings with treats. (If you haven't seen this line, it's awesome. Lots of stylish holiday wrapping paper, gift boxes, ornaments and ribbons. I love their office supplies too. Check it out because Target now carries it!).
Add A Basket Of Firewood
This last touch is really just for the pictures (especially since my fireplace doesn't work), but a messy pile of wood really does make the fireplace look picturesque during this time of the year. I choose a wire basket so you could see more of the wood by the fireplace and stacked a few logs outside the basket for styling a relaxed look. I bought my firewood at The Home Depot for around $9, which seemed like a great deal.
Extra Touch: DIY A Wreath
To make the mantel feel more like the holidays I made a modern wreath out of the extra eucalyptus using the leaves and seeded eucalyptus. You can still see the wire wreath frame, but I liked how that tied together with the wire basket for the firewood.
And that's it! Dare I say it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas?! Here is a quick cheat sheet and the shopping details below - a lot of the pieces I used are on sale today for Cyber Monday!
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