Happy Almost Christmas Friday y’all!

We are busy bees over here at TMD headquarters gearing up for our last wedding of 2013 next weekend, we just can’t wait for it to be here! But, we are making sure to enjoy the Christmas season, even if we just got our tree decorated!

We are in the season of decluttering our mess of a house and working on finding value in what we already own in hopes to transition into a season of contentment (more on that later!) but we took about 10 minutes to holiday-ify (I just made up a word!) and spruce up our mantel with things we already had in TMD inventory by using a few easy tricks!

First up, Statement Piece.

This is your dominant attention grabber on your mantel! For our home, its our big beautiful picture by Christa Elyce Photography! For others it may be a huge mirror, a wrought iron gate piece, or a large piece of artwork.

IMG_5809Second step: Layering

I have a pair of really tall gothic shutters that act as a base, then a painting in front of those placed towards the left side, in front of that is our statement piece, then my favorite print from the Lara Casey Shop placed yet again in front of our picture. They are all leaning on whatever behind them, nothing is hanging.

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Third step: Textures

I used a pieces of leftover Acacia foliage from a photo shoot, but you could take clippings from the bottom of your fresh Christmas tree, clippings of fresh cedar or any other type of foliage that you enjoy and says “Christmas” to you.

I also have different textures in the votive holders and candlesticks- mercury glass, glitter, crystal, and gold- oh my!

Fourth Step: Candlelight

My personal rule is you can never have too much candlelight- whether it’s at your wedding, on a table-scape, or around your bubble bath, so the same holds true for your mantel. 🙂

I stuck to the rule of 3’s on the left side of the mantel with the 3 gold taper candles, but on the right side I broke it by using 2 of the gold candlesticks to keep it from getting too symmetrical. I also added two different styles of votive candles across the center because they didn’t distract from our statement piece.

IMG_5815And there you have it our simple Christmas mantel that I will most certainly enjoy sitting in front of with K with a blazing fire below, well the fire will happen if it gets below the 70’s, but hat’s Christmas in Texas y’all!

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How did y’all decorate your mantel?!

I would love to hear how!

xoxo, Tamara