A friend recently asked me to do a montly post on her blog about frugally decorating. My first post was about fall decorating...
Lets talk about fall decorating... for mantles in particular. If you don’t have a mantle don’t tune me out... you can work this idea into any area like a shelf, a desk in an entryway, etc.
My goal for my fall mantle was not to spend a dime so I shopped my house and yard! Fall is such a fabulous time for do lo-bo (low budget) decorating. Acorns and branches with some amazing texture cost nothing. A bag of whole walnuts at my grocery store is about $3 and everything else you use can either be found for free or probably in another spot in your home.
My mantle for the fall is going to be very simple... it'll be in the brown and off white family to reflect the colors of fall and blend in with our living room but it'll also reflect AJ and I. Here's what I have:
• Off white candles we had upstairs
• Stacks of books with the covers and binding ripped off and tied with twine (I saw this idea in a display at Restoration Hardware.)
• An old tape measurer from years ago that AJ inherited when his Grandma died
Challenge for You:
In these photos I don’t have the accents yet… it is a very clean looking, but honestly, boring, mantle. It needs a little more pizzazz…. So you see this simple mantle, what do you do to make it look autumnal and yet reflect you?
Here’s what I’m going to do because the typical colors of fall (the reds, oranges and yellows) don’t go with our color scheme:
• Place dried blue / pink hydrangeas within the displays to add color and texture.
• Remove the photo with the black frame above the mantle and replace it with an old window with the white paint sort of flaking off
• Surround the candles with acorns (walnuts also work beautifully, but I can’t find my bag of walnuts, we’re renovating the kitchen!) to bring in the dark brown color.
