Christmas mantle decor

We live in a townhouse. Growing up, both of us lived in old Victorian homes. So, a lot of things bug me about our place. The one thing I do love is having a mantle to decorate! (Even if the fireplace is an electric fake)

I struggled a long time trying to figure out how I wanted to decorate it, for everyday use and especially for the holidays. I tried collecting a few pins to get some ideas on how I wanted to decorate. Last year I put our nativity set up, but I knew I wanted to do something different. After all, I bought lights and lots of other decor the day after Christmas last year for just this reason!

After I placed the garland and lights, I put up our stockings. I still don't have stocking holders, mostly because I'm too cheap and who knows if we'll have a fireplace at our next place. I hid command hooks in the garland and was able to hang the stockings without them looking out of place.

I added a piece with pinecones and berries to add a little color to the garland and hid the hook.

I decided I wanted to focus on candles to keep it simple and clean but classy also. I had four small candleholders my mom had given me that are probably from the late 80s or early 90s that ended up looking great.

I next wanted to do something different on the wall. I usually don't like to take down all of my normal decor for Christmas because that just gets to be a time consuming task. I took my small wreath and hung it where our clock normally does. It looked great and I only had to move the clock!

But, I still had my blue, yellow and brown sconces that just didn't match. I decided to cover them in some old checked fabric I have in my Christmas decor box. I used to use it as a tree skirt for my own tree when I was a kid. So I began wrapping the sconces with the fabric rather than remove them. This also allowed me to keep my decor the same and still match my theme.

Cut a slit at the corner to make sure it folds over evenly

Don't forget to cut a hole for the sconce to hang like I did!

My wreath is adorned with a burgandy poinsettia so I set out to find burgandy tapers to match to place in my vintage candleholders. I was able to find them for 47 cents apiece at Wal-Mart!

If you look at the pins I picked out, most have something drapped under the mantle. I definitely wanted to recreate something like this because it looked quite bare with just our two stockings. I was hoping I could find something like a burgandy star or anything in that shade with a sort of rustic feel. It was so difficult to find something in burgandy! All the Christmas decorations are bright, hot colors! I love the warmth of the deeper tones. I finally found these three snowflakes at Target. They were a little more than I wanted to spend, but it's pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

Tying them up became a little more challenging. I knew I wanted to hang them with fishing line, but attaching them was a different story. I thought command hooks would work, but when placed horizontal, everything just slips off. I tried tape, and it held for almost an hour, until one by one they came crashing down.

Thankfully, my husband came to my rescue and placed very small eyehooks that will be easy to patch the tiny hole when we're done.

Overall, I'm quite thrilled with how the mantle turned out! It didn't cost me much to decorate it since I've collected most of the items the past two years after Christmas. I even added some of the trimmings from our tree to give the garland some height and a more natural feel. I wonder what I'll be able to find this year to incorporate it in!

My Santa Isabel Bloom, a favorite reminder of where we grew up