A Winter Mantel.....Without the Mantel

Well the blog-o-sphere has been alive with Christmas decorating. So I figured it was time for another installment of Seasonal Mantel decorating without the mantle. This time we decided to expand a little bit. Instead of just decorating the top of our $3 cabinet we decorated the top of the bookshelf right next to it, too. But the real star of our (yes, Andrew even got in on the arranging) decorating is my wall of Snowflakes!

The whole idea came from Sherry & John Petersik's Young House Love book. If you haven't read their blog  yet, you have been missing out. Go check them out at YoungHouseLove.com They are a young married couple who are in the process of making their house more them. They have painted cabinets and furniture, built furniture, laid a brick patio, installed counter to ceiling tile as their kitchen backsplash and laid cork floor, plus so much more.

Well, they released their first book, Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update, & Show Your Home Some Love, last month and I had to have it.

On page 187 there is a project called Add a bunch of 3-D Butterflies. I thought it was the perfect fix for the blank wall above my Christmas display. But butterflies weren't going to work. It had to be SNOWFLAKES! They are so easy to make. To get a little color, I decided to use a cosmetic catalog that I got in the mail. It was filled with a bunch of red and gold pages.

Step 1: Choose your page and fold it in half the short and fat way, not long and skinny.

Step 2: Fold it in half again so it is almost square.

Step 3: Fold the folded short edge down to the long folded edge. Now it looks kind of like a cone.

Step 4: Fold it the same way as step 3 so now it is an even thinner cone.

Step 5: You'll notice some of the paper is longer than the rest. Cut it down so it is even and then you can start to cut all kinds of designs into it to create your flake. The wide part of the cone shape is the outside of your flake.

Step 6: Unfold and check-out your snowflake.

This one wasn't one of my favorites so I decided to make a different one to show you a better design. Here it is still folded.

And now laid out flat so you can see the repeated design. So pretty.

Then I just rolled some small pieces of tape, stuck it to the backs and spread them out on the wall. Here are a few close ups of some of my favorite flakes.

As for the  actual "Mantel" display, the only thing new is the Silver Owl. I bought him at TJ Maxx for $9 this past weekend.

He is so cute and looks a little bronzey in some of the photos but he is really silver. I popped him up on a empty box to gain some height in the center of a pre-lit Christmas wreath.

On the bookshelf, I have the Christmas rocking horse that my Grandpa & Grandma gave me, my Lenox Belle (found on clearance at Hallmark a few years ago) and my apothecary jars ($8 for the set at a garage sale 2 years ago) filled with ornaments, beads & tissue paper. I think all I need to finish it off is some pine foliage to fill in around the figures and hide that cord. And I'll end this post with some detail shots.