Decking the Halls or Mantle…

Hi all.  I can  NOT believe it is December! We’re 20 days from Christmas! Ack….

While my own home is not yet decorated for Christmas, we did play at our little shop last night, KnB’s Marketplace located at 120 Raleigh St. in Fuquay Varina, NC.  Kim, the proprietor, hosted a ‘Sip and Shop’ night. Our little town had the town tree lighting and horse sleigh rides and Kim opened her doors to welcome people to a glass of wine or hot apple cider while browsing through our wonderful shop.  A few of us vendors also went a mantle-ing…….get it?  instead of wasselling?  ha ha

wasselling (v.):  to go door-to-door singing.  aka – christmas caroling 

We decided that the night of the ‘Sip and Shop’ we’d also play with holiday mantle decorating.  We’d have fun decorating and customers could get some inspiration for the holidays.

I found this beautifully weathered mantle at Suzannah’s Antiques (located off Durant Rd and Capital Blvd in Raleigh, NC) and it was the perfect blank slate.  We spent the evening decorating to our hearts content and even the customers helped!  We gathered items from within the shop – it was amazing what we found – and then decorated the mantle on the spot.  A few of the customers also got into the fun of it and went on the hunt to find items for us.

The Feathered Nest (Diane and Mary) did 2 mantle ideas – one was a glitzy, gold mantle and the other was a rustic mantle.  I even took a turn at a coastal mantle.  Below are our ideas for Decking Your Mantle:

Mantle before – blank and ready for staging

Glitzy Mantle

The foliage used are branches from a Leyland Cyprus and Magnolia tree!  Greenery adds softness but with a bit of drama.
Note the colors, gold and green tones.

Rustic Mantle

I love this mantle.  It is a true vision of re-purposing and bringing unrelated items into a cohesive space.  The washboards, cheese graters, and cobbler mold are not your typical mantle items nor would they typically be found together but when combined to adorn this little fireplace…they work!  You can never go wrong with natural elements like wood and steel – and of course, a little rust for good measure.  Note the color red is the center focal color but also the pop accessory color while the green foliage adds a neutral filler and the browns ground the vision to bind the look together.

Coastal Mantle

This was a fun mantle and 2 of our customers joined us to help decorate.  I wandered around the shop picking up any item that was seaglass blue or white, not focusing on if it was beachy only focusing on the color.  I had no pre-vision but once all the items were gathered it evolved.  An antique mirror gives depth to the Ball jars, a sea-colored pashmina (Thanks, Diane!) softens a white soda shop chair, and beach grass provides the perfect backdrop as if each item was hiding behind a sand dune.  Note the colors here are seaglass blue and white, the subtle brown from the basket and wreath and even the little green tree are neutral points that fill space without competing with the color scheme.   When placing like-colored items together the unusual can become a cohesive work of decorating perfection.

We had a blast! Thanks to Kim for letting us play and thanks to everyone that came out.  We’ll have to think of a new item to decorate…..hmmmmmm…….

Happy Mantle-ing.
-the urban peddler-