Thanksgiving Mantel

As you might have seen in my silly turkey garland post, our mantel has been de-Halloween-ed and is now ready for Thanksgiving. But last Thursday the boys and I made a little something to add up there.

I got the inspiration for this from pinterest, of course, but I decided to make this craft with stuff I had on hand.

I have been saving glass jars for the past few months, I'm trying to replace plastic food storage as much as I can, and I had a few pasta sauce jars that weren't all the same size but they worked in a group.

Then I added a band made of scrapbook paper, created the letters and border on Photoshop, and added some curling ribbon. The contents of the jars are dried out corn husks and stems from my backyard.

I think it looks nice atop my dark mantel:

As you can tell, my boys have started to pick off some of the poor turkeys' eyes and even one of the faces (look to the right end of the garland). As long as they don't eat them, I'm fine with it :D The dried sunflowers on the right are also from my backyard, we got tons of seeds, so yummy!

Hope you have a great Monday!

Our new mantel

The living room mantel is the focal point of our main living area. You see it as soon as you come in the front door - here it is decked out for spring back in March:

The problem is, the "wall" above the mantel was just a sheet of foam over the brick, which goes from floor to ceiling. We discovered this when we tried to hang a picture and made a huge hole instead.

We decided to tear down the foam and put up some sheetrock instead - at the same time, I really hated the current mantel, so my husband graciously built me a new one :D

Below is the 2x4 that is nailed to the brick wall - the mantel is attached to this and it serves as support.


Checking to make sure the fit is perfect.


Applying wood putty to the rough edges and nail holes:


Our oldest was a very big help!


Painting the sheetrock to match the rest of the walls - we chose to paint the new mantel and frame in a dark chocolate brown:

The rich brown is a very close match to our TV console, coordinates with the large IKEA picture above, and is a good addition to our warm-toned living room.

Here is our new mantel area dressed up with some vintage Paris pictures and pretty flowers:

I LOVE this area, it looks brighter, cleaner and so much nicer - hope you enjoyed our little project!






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