Christmas carols have come to the Cottage! I’m so excited about the move toward Christmas! It’s my favorite thing to decorate for, I love the colors and the shift to warm and cozy. The feeling that even a simple candle can create. I love the smells and the sounds and the memories that find us this time of year- but it isn’t here yet. So we wanted to create a late fall mantel that nods to the coming Christmas season but isn’t smothered by it.
Transitioning A Fall Mantel
For me, this fall mantel looks like all the goodness we see in November- bright frosted berries, a light snow, evergreens, and sparkly ice. The garden has finished for the year but traces of it remain around the house in the form of melons and squash. It’s a time of year that we snuggle in with good books and enjoy a slower pace.
We kept that giant reclaimed pallet pumpkin that Mrs. Cottage and I created a while back over the mantel, I love the warm rustic feel it gives the mantel.
We wove three different garlands together to create the piece we have on our fireplace. We found all three at Hobby Lobby over the years- I’m not sure if they still carry all of these pieces. The first one is a simple cotton garland (you can get yours in our shop). The second is a beautiful red and burgundy winter berry garland, I love the rich winter tones it adds to our mantel. The third garland we used is this pretty flocked evergreen and pinecone garland, I love the pop of green it gives to the mantel.
Decorating For Fall With Antiques
We also placed these gorgeous vintage books to our mantel, along with some vintage silver candlesticks and the broken mirror trees we picked up at Big Lots last Christmas. To add some weight to the ends of the mantel we placed these dark candle holders.
We also kept our galvanized harvest sign (also from Hobby Lobby- can you tell we love that store?) for this look and just wove it into our garland.
We also sprinkled these gorgeous mercury glass ornaments for a nod toward Christmas. The cardinal was something Mr. Cottage picked up on our last trip to Hobby Lobby for his nature tree (you can see it here), but I got sick of trying not to lose it in the time between it ending up on the tree and now so I stuck it on our mantel. Figured it would be hard to misplace it there.
