Decorating your Mantel for the Holidays!

Decorating your Mantel for the Holidays!

You have a fantastic looking mantel for your fireplace, and it really sets off your room. No matter what you have on it, whether it be pictures, decorations, or something else, you can use that mantel to spice up the room it’s in for the holidays! A mantel is a great place to have a holiday-themed construction right at eye level to anyone walking into the room. It’s also out of the way, not taking up floor space or usable table space, making it the perfect place to decorate. Read on to get inspired by a few ideas for decorating YOUR mantel for the holidays!

The Perfect Color

Pick your favorite holiday-themed color, whether it be gold, silver, red, green, white, or any other color your family associates with the holidays! Then, stick to it. Get some tasteful decorations which can stand by themselves, and begin arranging them on the mantel. Make sure that if you have a lot of pieces which are of differing heights, they are arranged in such a way as to not confuse the eye, i.e. some symmetry is appreciated, though perfect symmetry isn’t. That slightly off-kilter geometry of the decorations can look very appealing and tasteful. Also, you can add a garland of the same color into the mix to tie everything together if needed. If the garland doesn’t look quite right on the top, consider hanging it on the underside of the mantel to create a visual link with the top.

Natural Elegance on a Budget

Decorating your mantel doesn’t mean you have to spend your gift fund on it!  With a few natural materials, you can make a holiday mantel theme the envy of everyone who sees it. Just head outside to get yourself some thin evergreen branches with fresh looking needles on the ends (make sure to get fairly pliable ones!) You can arrange these on top of your mantel tastefully, and thread some of them together to hang off the sides. Gather up a bunch of pinecones and liberally intersperse them with the branches on top. Some green apples, ornaments, and/or candles mixed in will create a very cozy look. Idea: try lightly dusting some of the pine cones with silver spray paint. Let it sprinkle on them from a few feet away. Then, add a few thick but taller (6 to 10 inches) silver candles about ¼ the way in from the outside of the mantel, one on each side. This can really add a nice touch of class to this look. For a warmer touch, try the same thing, but with gold.

Nothing Says It Like Stockings

There’s just something about having a mantel with stockings hanging on it that really shows the Christmas spirit! There are many different ways to do this, and you need to consider the type of mantel you have to determine the color of your stockings. Warm colors go great with wood mantels, while solid colors, such as white, go great with stone mantels. To attach the stockings, there are two easy ways which won’t permanently damage your mantel. The first is to get a number of suction cup hooks, and firmly press them down onto the top of your mantel, with the hook jutting out from the edge a bit. If you are actually going to stock your stockings, you may want to get some 3M Command clear hooks to stick down for the holiday season. They’ll come right off with no damage when you are ready to change to the next mantel decoration theme. After your stockings are hung, get a garland which will match your stockings, and use it to run the edge of the mantel, also conveniently covering the hooks which your stockings are using. To bring a calm and brighter look to the whole thing, twist one Christmas lights strand around the garland, and set the lights to that one setting which everyone likes, the slow brightening and then dimming of alternating lights. A few tasteful Christmas statues and decorations behind the garland and you have a holiday mantel theme that everyone will remember.