My Christmas Mantle

First off, I have to apologize for my mediocre (at best) pictures.  I blame it on the new-to-us camera.  Our old one got dropped by a little someone and the lens refuses to operate, and so we bought an identical one off of eBay (awesome deal, too!).  But it took me 3 years to get all the presets where I wanted them on our old one, and I haven't gotten everything tweaked on the new one just yet.

That's my story, anyhow.  Because it couldn't possibly be that I'm just bad at photography.

I don't decorate our mantel generally.  Unless you call the thin layer of ash and stacks of unused picture frames "decor."  I just haven't came up with something that says YES at me yet.  But at Christmas, I do try to do a little something.  Generally, it's a swag of greenery, and any of our decorations that are breakable and need to stay out of the way of little fingers.

As I was browsing the internet, I found this entry at one of my favorite blogs.  I saw it and said YES!  

So, not yes exactly.  Because it's not for our stairs (I'd have to clean the piles of junk I've been successfully avoiding).  (Plus, can you imagine the quick work my size 12 hoofs could do to one of those?)  

And it was definitely not the mice.  

But it was the jars that caught my attention.  I have jars.  Lots of jars.  I do home canning, folks.  I've inherited jars from several people who were getting rid of theirs.  You should see our shop.

I bookmarked the page several months ago, and I knew what I needed to get.  Fake snow, and electric tea lights.  I struck out at the dollar store several times on the tea lights, so finally this weekend, we went to WalMart to see if we could find what I needed there.

Bingo!  They actually had everything.

I LOVE how it turned out.  It is probably my favorite Christmas decorating I have ever done.  The sparkly snowflakes are something Paul suggested.  I wasn't really sold on them, but I try to be open to his ideas.  And I'm glad he thought it it, because I really like the pop of color and dimension they add.  I added red ribbons to the tops of the jars to make them stand out a little more. 

(Just pretend you don't notice the cord.)

 Having a wood stove, instead of a traditional fireplace, does present some decorating challenges.  Hello, stovepipe!  You see here I do have a little something hidden behind the stovepipe that you don't really get to see from straight on.  It was a gift from Paul's grandfather, and I do love it.  I thought it kind of went with the "country" feel of using jars for decorations.

The electric tea lights are a little more orangey than I would like, especially compared to the white lights that are in the greenery.  But the good thing is, the jars still look really pretty even without the "candles" on.  Which is how they will be the majority of the time around here, because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to wear them out, and also because I'm lazy and don't want to fish lights out of 13 jars to turn them off and on.

Anyhow.  I just wanted to show off my latest creativity.  I have a couple more projects that I was planning before we found out I was pregnant, but they involve sanding and spray-painting, which I shouldn't do currently.  Plus, it's too cold for spray-painting right now.  Someday......