Homefront: Valentine's Mantel Decorating

 My mantel post is late this month! I kept it low key with only one obvious Valentine decoration, my large glittery red love bird heart. I couldn't find my Valentine decor box, but that's fine. After seeing the photos, there are some changes I would make, but I'm trying to not be too fussy right now. One thing I miss though, was my heart doily arch from last year in our old home.

 This little tiny pic of us was when we were engaged about 8 years ago. Our first Valentine's Day, was a tad over a month after we met. We exchanged Fossil watches (total coincidence) and was the first time he officially told me the "L" word... unless you count the other time he said it on accident when we were hanging up the phone one night, so we totally pretended it didn't happen ;)

I finally found our family pictures, so while I have no frames, I thought it looked cute on the clipboard for now.

I made my paper heart garland out of a newspaper and twine, it took 15 minutes to make, and my 5 year old helped. Just cut out lots of hearts, stick some tape on the backs and hole punch over the tape. Thread it on the twine and you're done. I got lucky in that my paper had lots of valentine and marriage references in it. Justiana Blakeney has a good tutorial on this at Design*Sponge.

I am rally wanting to hang this mirror above the mantel shelf. Can you spy something that doesn't belong in this photo?
 

*More beautiful mantles here and here.*

Homefront: Sparkly Halloween Mantel

Here it is, my Halloween mantle. My pretty white pumpkin fall mantle shown previously didn't last too long this time. I'm linked up to The Stories of A to Z Halloween mantle linky party.

Many of these items are from after Halloween sales for only 10 cents. I love how design problems inspire creativity. For instance, the witch's hat headband was put on top of the wreath to hide a white door hanger

 

These little glow in the dark bat toys look cute perched in the trees.

When helping unpack the decorations, my oldest (who is 4 1/2)  said, "She's ugly mommy! But I can still love her." I guess he has really been internalizing our talks on accepting people no matter what they look like!