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Tag: Sprucing up for Spring

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.