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Tag: Fireplace Mantel

Summer Mantel with Frappe Accents

After many months, the warm weather FINALLY made it’s arrival and over the past few weeks, I’ve been sprucing up for summer.  One area of my home that I’ve been focusing on is making some updates to the fireplace mantel.

With a few simple switches and a couple DIY projects, it’s looking much lighter and summer-y!

Just to give you a peak at what it looked like before ~

The fireplace wall is quite the focal point in my home.  The wall is a burnt orange hue (the pictures distort the actual color a bit – – it’s not as bright in person), while the other walls in the room are cardboard brown.  The burnt orange color is continued throughout the space as an accent color, and can be seen in pillows, accessories, etc.  For the summer, I wanted to downplay the ‘orange’  and bring in a more neutral hue.  My new fav ~

frappe

I flipped the chalkboard platter so it’s now vertically positioned, and wrote the saying “Beautiful Blossoms” ~ I was just feelin’ cheery and thinking about the colorful flowers in the garden.  Then with a little frappe paint, I transformed an old green vase (that was sitting in the basement since we moved here) into a summer beauty!

What do you think of my new jars? I’m a lover of pasta and on occasion when I don’t have a chance to make sauce (or gravy as the true Italians call it), I buy jar sauce. I know, a sin, but out of convenience  it’s an easy substitute. Over the years, I’ve gone through quite alot of jars and have thrown all of them away (another sin), until now!

With my newly cleaned pasta jars, I painted the interiors with my frappe paint, filled them with flowers from the garden, and assembled them on the mantel. How pretty!

An inexpensive, but beautiful display.

On the other side of the mantel, I introduced one of my favorite TJ Maxx finds, the distressed $10 lantern ~ a must for summer.  Next to it, I lightened up the look with a framed “bloom” printable, along with two glass jars filled with a candle and potpourri.

And did you notice, I switched out the artwork for a mirror…another way to “lighten” things up! Here’s an overall view of the space ~

(FYI – my ottoman looks a lil’ sad, but it’s only because my 20 month old takes everything off and throws it on the floor.  I’m never one to leave an ottoman / coffee table bare)

I’m really loving the new fabrics on the pillows.  So refreshing!  Want to make your own Summer Pillows?  {check out this EASY-PEASY pillow tutorial}

I hope you enjoyed my little spruce up for summer!  Have you been doing any Spring / Summer updating?  I’d love to hear about it.

Valentine’s Mantel Decor

This week has been very busy and I took on WAY too many projects!  One positive result = I have LOTS to share with you.  My main focus was to decorate for Valentine’s (didn’t I just un-decorate from Christmas??).  To be honest, I’m really not into Valentine’s Day (doesn’t everyone say that) and I don’t usually change my decor for this somewhat minor holiday, but I had fun styling my home with a few homemade crafty creations!
Earlier this week, I posted pics of some Valentine’s ideas from other talented bloggers and I gave you a preview of the pillows (and now the mantel) that I pulled together for this LOVEly Holiday!
These cute pillows were super easy to make, especially using my all time favorite stand-by, Stitch Witch!  I own a sewing machine (thanks to my mom), but do not sew (YET!…it’s on my resolution list for 2011).  The other day, I picked up some fun V-day fabrics and accessories (ie: colorful buttons and iron-on appliques) and my creative juices started to floooow….  I had an idea in my head of the kind of pillows I wanted to create and here is the result:

The heart shape pillow is adorable, especially donning some colorful pink, orange, and yellow buttons!

And what about the L-O-V-E pillow ~ What do you think??  I used cheap inexpensive Muslin fabric ($2.50/yd) to create this vertical beauty.  I cut out the letters L, V, & E from felt and ironed them on, along with the heart applique for the O.  SIMPLE!
The other two pillows are basic sizes ~ the pink is 16:” x 16″ (which I’ll put in my daughter’s Honeysuckle colored room after V-day) and the black pillow is 8″ x 16″.  And of course the little mini….4″ x 6″
{The LOVE Mantel} 

Mostly everything on the mantel is repurposed from other places in my home. 


The candle pillars I purchased awhile ago from AC Moore ($5-$8).  The two taller pillars hold candles and the smaller version has newly made yarn balls.  They are so stinkin’ cute!!  Many of you knitters out there probably have a ton of ‘real’ yarn balls, but these are fake using styrofoam balls with yarn wrapping around (shhhh…)Jenn just did a tutorial on how to make them ~ check it out.  

Standing in front, is my latest LOVE plaque that I bought from AC Moore for less than $1.  It’s actually a picture frame, which I removed and added a little love heart. 

Adorable Valentine Subway Art ~ Get it for Yourself.
And of course, our tribute to Philly: a mini LOVE sculpture.
I dressed up the candles on the candelabra (from Willow House) using some burlap strands. 

That’s my wedding bouquet from 7 years ago….how nice to incorporate into my LOVE mantel!

LOVE the garland on my newly retiled fireplace?  I cut out hearts from white construction paper and hung it with two layers of red yarn (used from the yarn balls).
This was a really fun project to work on…I hope you’ve enjoyed it!
Have you decorated your mantel for Valentine’s Day?
I’ll be linking this to Home Stories of A to Z

Valentine’s Mantel Decor

This week has been very busy and I took on WAY too many projects!  One positive result = I have LOTS to share with you.  My main focus was to decorate for Valentine’s (didn’t I just un-decorate from Christmas??).  To be honest, I’m really not into Valentine’s Day (doesn’t everyone say that) and I don’t usually change my decor for this somewhat minor holiday, but I had fun styling my home with a few homemade crafty creations!
Earlier this week, I posted pics of some Valentine’s ideas from other talented bloggers and I gave you a preview of the pillows (and now the mantel) that I pulled together for this LOVEly Holiday!
These cute pillows were super easy to make, especially using my all time favorite stand-by, Stitch Witch!  I own a sewing machine (thanks to my mom), but do not sew (YET!…it’s on my resolution list for 2011).  The other day, I picked up some fun V-day fabrics and accessories (ie: colorful buttons and iron-on appliques) and my creative juices started to floooow….  I had an idea in my head of the kind of pillows I wanted to create and here is the result:

The heart shape pillow is adorable, especially donning some colorful pink, orange, and yellow buttons!

And what about the L-O-V-E pillow ~ What do you think??  I used cheap inexpensive Muslin fabric ($2.50/yd) to create this vertical beauty.  I cut out the letters L, V, & E from felt and ironed them on, along with the heart applique for the O.  SIMPLE!
The other two pillows are basic sizes ~ the pink is 16:” x 16″ (which I’ll put in my daughter’s Honeysuckle colored room after V-day) and the black pillow is 8″ x 16″.  And of course the little mini….4″ x 6″
{The LOVE Mantel} 

Mostly everything on the mantel is repurposed from other places in my home. 


The candle pillars I purchased awhile ago from AC Moore ($5-$8).  The two taller pillars hold candles and the smaller version has newly made yarn balls.  They are so stinkin’ cute!!  Many of you knitters out there probably have a ton of ‘real’ yarn balls, but these are fake using styrofoam balls with yarn wrapping around (shhhh…)Jenn just did a tutorial on how to make them ~ check it out.  

Standing in front, is my latest LOVE plaque that I bought from AC Moore for less than $1.  It’s actually a picture frame, which I removed and added a little love heart. 

Adorable Valentine Subway Art ~ Get it for Yourself.
And of course, our tribute to Philly: a mini LOVE sculpture.
I dressed up the candles on the candelabra (from Willow House) using some burlap strands. 

That’s my wedding bouquet from 7 years ago….how nice to incorporate into my LOVE mantel!

LOVE the garland on my newly retiled fireplace?  I cut out hearts from white construction paper and hung it with two layers of red yarn (used from the yarn balls).
This was a really fun project to work on…I hope you’ve enjoyed it!
Have you decorated your mantel for Valentine’s Day?
I’ll be linking this to Home Stories of A to Z