I have finally got around to dressing my Spring/Summer mantel.  I meant to do this the day after I took down my St. Patrick’s Day mantel.  Fate however, had other plans for me.  First we had out-of-town guests stay with us.  Next, we all had a bout with the stomach flu. And then I got a nasty kidney infection.  So finally after a month, I think (fingers crossed) I can get back to business-as-usual.

This year I recycled a few items, including this bird and DIY piece of art from last year’s Summer mantel.

I made the mossy “S”.  I just cut a sheet of moss to fit my purchased S. The rest of this side was borrowed from other displays I have around the house.

Next, I want to tackle the front porch.  It needs some Summer-izing!  I have not decided on a fun Summer theme yet though.  There are so many possibilities.  I need to narrow it down and get goin’!  Happy Weekend everyone!

I spent the day switching my St Patrick’s Day decorations for some Spring/Easter decorations.

 I have enough decorations now that I didn’t have to make or buy anything this year, which helps because I want to finish up the boys’ bedroom this week and next week we will have relatives visiting from out-of-town.  After that the kids have Spring break and I want to spend the week doing fun things with them, not working on stuff they don’t find very interesting .

I am linking this post up with Layla at The Lettered Cottage.

I wasn’t going to do a St. Patrick’s Day mantel this year.  I want to start setting up a permanent mantel here.  I haven’t decided how I want it to look yet though and I had a couple of craft ideas I wanted to try out.

This vase of four-leaf clovers was the first idea I wanted to bring to life.  I used some wallpaper and scrapbook paper I had leftover from other projects. I folded the paper in half with right sides together.   I made a clover template and traced it onto the paper.  I spray-painted a few wooden skewers green.  I inserted one skewer between the two wrong sides of the clover and then glued them together.  Voila, a bouquet of shamrocks.

This green sign was my second project.  It is an artist’s canvas with puffy paint writing.  It says “May the luck of the Irish enfold you.  May the blessings of St Patrick behold you”.  I will do a tutorial on this sign tomorrow in case anyone is interested in how it was made.  I think I may like this sign even better than the one I made for last year’s mantel.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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      Without any fun holidays to decorate for this month, I came up with this Winter mantle.  It is mostly white and silver Christmas decorations that have yet to make it to storage.

      This photo shoot (look at me being all fancy smanchy) was really the best part of this mantle because it gave me a chance to play around with my new camera.  My hubby and kids gave me a new camera (to replace my broken one) for Christmas.  They also gave me a tripod.  I have never used a tripod before and was amazed at the difference.  It is so much easier to take clear, bright pictures now.  I always run my photos through Photoshop before I publish them.  Usually just to try to get the colors in the photo to look like real life and to crop out things I don’t want in the shot (like a hand from a little mischief-maker who thinks it is so funny to get part of his little body in EVERY shot) but these needed very little touching up.  The light, color, and clarity were all good, I just had to crop out the tv.

      I set my camera up across the room and took these pictures.  My little one didn’t know what I was doing, he is used to seeing me take pictures with my iPhone (what I used between cameras), so I got to take as many shots as I wanted while he played Angry Birds on my iPhone.  Yeah!  An entire afternoon (without a nap even) where we are both happy.

     I spent the day getting our family room ready for Christmas.  I think I am just about done decorating now.  I only have two more DIY projects left.  One project is an idea I’ve had for a while.  I have never seen anyone else do it and I’m not sure if it is going to work.  Either way, I will post about it.  The other is a wreath I want to make from scraps of this and that I have lying around.  Not sure if that one will turn out either.  Anyway on to my mantle.

     I didn’t have to make anything for this mantle.  I just used some of our family’s Christmas treasures like the snowmen.  The Joy sign was a gift made by my sister-in-law years ago.  The wire mesh star was a thrift store find (fifty cents!) and is usually here.

     I decided to move my little shadow box Santa to the mantle.  And the red star is usually hanging in my craft/laundry room.

     I saved the best for last, our first fire!  This fireplace and mantle were finished just in time for Christmas last year, but just barely (Fireplace Project).  We never did get around to actually using it.  I’ll tell ya, there’s nothing like a real fire on a cold winter’s night.  The smell, the crackle and pop of the wood, the dancing flames just make the family room all the more cozy.  Merry Christmas!