Chalky White Christmas Mantle

Welcome back to part two of the holiday link parties we are participating in!

                                       

This time I’m featuring my mantle I decorated with a little Christmas flair.  It was super cheap to do – costing me a grand total of $8!  Since my fireplace is white brick floor to ceiling I knew I wanted a dramatic feature to draw the eye to the mantle.  I decided I would chalkboard paint (no kidding!) the back of a matted frame and write a special Christmas saying on it.  I somehow scored big at Goodwill with a large frame that was $8.  However, it was one of those custom framed jobs so I had to pry each and every staple out of the back.  Luckily it was already white so I just took some Distress Ink to it to give it a little worn look.  On went the chalkboard paint and that was all it took.     

I added items from around the house to finish up the job and give it a wintery feeling.  I just added a candle display, some candlesticks from Ikea, our embroidered stockings (Ben and my stockings are from Pottery Barn and Bodie’s is from Target – cheaper and looks pretty similar huh?).  I stole had the nice guys from the Christmas tree lot load me up with extra tree branches and just layered them on.  I kept the colors simplistic because my tree is purples, silvers, and golds so I didn’t want too many contrasting colors.

Can't you just imagine the crackling fire?  Get me some hot cocoa and Christmas tunes stat please!  Make sure you check over at Rhoda’s blog to see us linked to the Merry Mantles link party.  18 days to Christmas!