Christmas Mantel 2010

The mantel is decked and the stockings are hung...

I had so many great ideas for this year's mantel that it was hard to stick to one...

too bad it's not practical to re-decorate it once a week!

I decided to leave up the mirror and shutters along with the star and wreath since it all kinda went with my warm metallic theme.

I started out by laying a string of white icicle lights (found in our Christmas box) across the mantel and covered it with Burlap Garland (from Michael's).

 

On top of the burlap I laid two stick garlands that have glittery balls attached to them 

(from Joann's) 

and I sprinkled in some gold ball ornaments from our tree.

Then I added in some books covered in brown paper, a starfish, two glass vases filled with more metallic glass ornaments,

and a glittery silver wire tree (from Pier 1).

After standing back and evaluating the mantel, I decided it needed some height, so I stuck some twigs in the glass vases and hung some mini gold ornaments (from Target) from them.

 The only thing left was the stockings.

We have never had cute, coordinated stockings for the whole family, so I decided to splurge on a set for all five of us.
I had been drooling over the white quilted stockings in Pottery Barn for a while, so I decided to go for it.
To ease the pain of these pricey stockings ($30 each!), I ordered two to start with and was going to wait a few weeks to order the rest.

Two beautiful stockings arrived last week embroidered with "Mom" and "Dad" on them and they are exactly what I had been dreaming of. 

So then I went to order the rest yesterday and they are NO LONGER AVAILABLE!!!

WHAT!!????

You have got to be kidding me.

After my little hissy fit and some internet searching, I found that Target carries some very similar
(for only $10!)

So last night I raced out and bought 3 more stockings for the kids. 

They aren't embroidered like the Pottery Barn ones 

(I photoshopped the kids' names on in the pictures), 

but they look darn near as nice!

I hung them from the mantel using some of the Command 3M hangers that are hidden under the burlap garland.

So there you have it - 

our Christmas mantel 2010!

Happy Holidays!