Looking to switch up the theme on your mantel? There is nothing better than a fall yard to discover new textures and colors to bring indoors. With a little imagination and a pair of sharp scissors, a festive fall mantel is easily within reach.
The first step in decorating your mantel for a new season is to establish a color theme. In this case, I went with orange, green and yellow. Don’t be afraid to use items in any shade of the color spectrum. Various hues add depth and interest to the decorations, however, I usually like to limit my themes to 2 or 3 colors.
Next, take a lap around your house and grab a few items that might make a nice addition to a fall mantel (don’t forget to look in your “recent craft” area for things that might be leftover from another project). Finally take to your backyard and gather a few different items. For tips on what to look for in your yard, read my post: Decorating Inspiration is Right in Your Backyard.
Now for the fun part! Bring it all together and start playing around with various combinations. For this particular mantel, I was inspired to pull together a fresh and light look:
For my new fall mantel, I relied heavily on decorative glass items to make the green, yellow and orange look fresh and airy. On the ends, I used simple Waterford candlesticks from Macy’s. I love the simplicity of these candlesticks and use them often. The other glass vessels I used are antique apothecary jars from my grandfather’s medical practice. These jars move around my house continuously because they have so many decorating possibilities:
I clipped the ornamental grass from my yard. The key is to let the grass dry for a few days before decorating with it–that’s how you end up with the curly strands which I just love. I found this out when I put the grass in a waterless vase my fall porch revamp:
Back to the fall mantel, in the center I filled a simple square glass vase with water and clippings of yellow and green leaves from my yard. And last but not least, I hung a glossy white frame in the center above the leaf arrangement. I used manila rope to tie a simple wreath I made from dried oranges and grapefruits to the frame.
I sliced 2 oranges and 1 grapefruit about 1/4 inch thick and placed them on a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet in my oven on the lowest heat setting (for my oven, that’s 170 degrees) and left the door cracked a couple of inches. The citrus slices took about 6-8 hours to dehydrate (the thinner they are sliced, the quicker they dehydrate so some of mine were done a bit early because I did not succeed in slicing each slice the same). Once the citrus slices were completely dry (I left them on the rack another couple of days to really dry out), I cut the edge of a sturdy paper plate to use as my wreath form. Using a hot glue gun, I began gluing the slices in a circle around the wreath form. I knew I would add several layers so I wasn’t too concerned about placement.
The bonus is that this wreath smells AMAZING! What do you think of my fresh and bright fall mantel?
