I am so antsy for summer to start that I decided to put up my Fourth of July mantel already. If you are a regular reader you know I am pretty hard core about changing out my mantels for the different seasons. People often ask me where I get the ideas or how long it takes me to them up and so today I thought I'd show you what actually goes on behind the scenes of a mantel design.
I actually made a time lapse movie of the actual assembly of this year's mantel from start to finish! Even though the actual process took me a little less than 2 hours, I've condensed it down to about 1 minute.
The starting point for this month's mantel were this great collection of frames that were sent to me from Cut It Out. I loved that they were all different sizes and shapes but the fact they were all the same thickness made them the perfect fit for a layered look.
Here is how I painted them, layered them, nailed them together, installed them and decorated around them to get to the final polished mantel:
You can see that I tried lots of different variations and even tried using things that didn't eventually make it into the final design (like my paper straw flag.)
This big tin star was actually a christmas decoration but I thought it fit perfectly in this year's mantel theme.
And I love the CutItOut frames. The secondary patterns they form since they are empty are really cool.
Hopefully I've inspired you a little bit on your own mantel decorating adventures!
Thank you to CutItOut for providing me with the frames. I did not receive any additional compensation for this post, and the ideas are my own.
