Simple New Year Mantel Decor

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I know what some of you are thinking (ahem: MOM.) My definition of “simple” may not be *your* definition of simple. Some of you have a clock and two candlesticks on your simple mantel. (I call that minimalist. I am clearly not a minimalist… so roll with it just a minute, okay?)

If you saw my Fall and Advent mantel decor, you know that I tended toward the “full and overflowing” style of decorating. But for the new year, for the fresh clean start, I wanted to keep things simpler, cleaner, straighter. My focus right now is a “return to center” and I wanted the decor to reflect that. I put it off for a full two weeks mulling it over and finally got around to getting it decorated yesterday.

I decided to go with:

• DIY word art that reads “ABIDE” (I used www.publicdomainpictures.net to find pictures for letters, cropped, filtered, printed on some free photo paper that came with my ink, and hung in the frames I already had from my word art in the old house.)
• A $3 collage frame from the dollar store, with favorite family photos from 2013: a family field trip to a museum, a snapshot of us at Easter, the kids first day of school, the day Daddy brought home the puppy, our Christmas photo
• My one word painting for “Remain.”
• The DIY hurricane vases I made a few years ago (gorilla glue, glass candle sticks, glass cylinder vases.)
• A $3 “LOVE” sign from the dollar store and the “FAMILY” sign I have had a few years (also cheap from the dollar store.)
• $3 black candlesticks, yes, also from the dollar store, and yes, they don’t match exactly. 😉
• votive lantern I bought cheap from Amazon a few years ago
• Two other candles I have and some simple black ribbon I already had (leftover from the wall frames actually…)

See how easy it is to pull together a bunch of DIY stuff all on your own? It didn’t take a lot of time either, the photo editing and printing taking the most time. 

If you want to try to pull together something similar, I found a few things on Amazon:

• Word signs like this “FAMILY” or this “LOVE” or this “LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK.“
• Black multi-opening frame like this 6 opening simple frame for $15.
• Black pillar candlestick
• A candle lantern
• 4 inch glass candlesticks, glass cylinder vases, and REALLY GOOD craft adhesive

As I said, I found most of mine at the dollar store very inexpensively. You could also shop thrift stores, and stores like Michael’s. I would definitely shop local and cheap first. But if you can’t find anything locally, those Amazon links above will help you find something that’s not terribly expensive, either.

I enjoy decorating, I really do. I love making Home look “Homey” and “Pretty.” My downfall is the cleaning part. 😉 And with that, now that I’ve shared my pretty new mantel decor, I have plenty of cleaning that needs to be done to make the rest of the house pretty too.