Our Autumn Mantle.

 

Since being home, I've enjoyed having more time to spend creating. Rosemary and I have a lot of fun making things together. She chills on the table and keeps me company while I get busy with arts and crafts. (I can't wait until she is old enough to help.) Nothing beats painting pretty pictures while your baby girl kicks her legs and coos beside you.

My mantle has remained mostly the same since I married Timmy and prettied up his former bachelor pad. But now, hours spent nursing on our couch, staring at the mantle, gave me great plans to switch things up. And so, our Autumn Mantle was created.

1. Autumn Canvas Painting

 After designing Hattie's wedding invitations, I realized that the illustration I used for those would make a perfect fall canvas painting. Using a projector, I transferred the illustration onto a large canvas and used black tea bags to stain the white canvas a pretty, natural off-white color. The rest of the painting is done with acrylics. I used to paint all the time in college and then I met Timmy and got completely distracted by his pretty blue eyes and I haven't really done much painting since. All it took was another pair of baby blue eyes giving me the ability to stay home, and my love for painting has been renewed.

2. Chalkboard Canvas

I got the idea to do a chalkboard canvas here. I decided to change it up a bit and give the chalkboard a decorative border. The edges are painted a pretty sparkly gold, and it's quite fun to switch up the chalky writing.

 

3. Feathered Friends

Timmy bought me a cute owl that he named Morpheus. Morpheus and little bluebird are besties and they add a lot of cuteness to our autumn mantle. (And I think they will fit in quite nicely with any future season mantles, too.)

4. Stacked Gourds

Stacked gourds on candlestick holders make me smile. I got the inspiration for these here. These cuties are stacked and held together with a LOT of hot glue. (I didn't hot glue them at first, but then I had the unfortunate experience of having a gourd topple off and land directly on my toes. No fun.)

5. Yarn-Wrapped Vase

I have seen these yarn-wrapped vases all over the place on Pinterest, but don't really have a specific link that inspired me. To give my vase a more rustic feeling, I used natural jute. This project took way longer than I thought it would. Over an hour of wrapping and hot gluing and lots of burned fingers later… my pretty vase was done. I bought some pretty fake fall leaves to put in it. (I briefly considered bringing a real branch with real leaves inside but then I thought of bugs and spiders that might be living on real leaves and branches…)

 

 

Ta-da!

It's kind of funny that I posted this on the day we had our first winter snow. I guess I had better get started on our winter mantle…