Neutral + Vintage Christmas mantel

I am excited to share my vintage, homemade, and neutral Christmas mantel with you today.

This mantel is so different in many ways than my past Christmas mantels.

Here was last year’s mantel – all burgundy and gold.  This year I am trying to leave out as much red/burgundy from my decorations as possible.  Just wanted to go in an entirely different direction this year! 🙂

In fact I had been decorating with the same color scheme since we got married over 9 years ago.  So it was time for a change.

Here’s an old collage I did last year of pre-blogging, pre-reading blogs, pre-Pinterest mantels.  So glad my decorating skills, photography, stash of décor thanks to yard sales, and much more have improved since 2009!

So back to this year’s mantel!  I LOVE it!  Of course I showed you the focal point yesterday – my homemade vintage music page wreath.  It is hanging on a DIY chalkboard.  And you may notice a few things did make it back onto my mantel.  I LOVE the yardsale pinecone topiary and the white feather tree (Michael’s after Christmas clearance a few years back).  The mercury glass tree and candlestick were $1 yard sale finds and the owl was a Ross purchase.

Apart from my music page wreath, my other favorite part of this mantel is this display on the hearth.  I just started decorating my hearth as part of my mantel display when I did my fall mantel this year.  I was inspired my many pictures on blogs and Pinterest to decorate the ENTIRE space. 

I ADORE this area.  Doesn’t it make you want to just snuggle up next to the fire in the candlelight next to the tree??  Come to think of it – maybe I should make that a date night activity this December – snuggle by the fireplace next to the tree and play a game together.  (Sneak peek of my tree too awaiting a homemade tree skirt.)

The little bench was a free find and stayed from my fall mantel, I made the sweater pillow (tutorial here), and made the plaid snowflake pillow (tutorial coming for that – any ideas on what it is made from?)

The old wooden sleigh was a $5 flea market find and I borrowed the firewood from my brother (“Can I borrow some firewood for Christmas decorations?  Yes, I know I don’t have a working fireplace…”  My family is slowly getting used to my decorating craziness.)

I also love these JOY letters.  I am probably breaking every decorating rule out there by leaving them in their unfinished state, but I just couldn’t decide what color to paint them and the longer they sat unpainted, the more I LIKED them unpainted.

I also was inspired to gather some fresh clippings from my yard this year.  I don’t know what they are from, but we have a lot of these wild evergreen trees popping up in our yard – spruce trees?  I added little sprays here and there and more sprays to my faux garland.

I LOVE this mantel!  It is just “cozy” to me.  And I am SOO glad I got my painted brown striped curtains done cause they look amazing with it too.

I am rushing to get a few more DIY projects done (hence, why no stockings hanging from the mantel), so expect a few more tutorials coming soon.  And I will be sharing my tree next week too!

Don’t forget to hop on over to Christa’s today and see what she is sharing as part of our “A Homemade Christmas” series.

Are you done with all your decorating?  And if you say you are done with all your decorating, shopping, Christmas cards, baking, and wrapping – beware, I may just ban you from this blog.  Ok, not really, but I will come kidnap you and come put you to work at my house.