How to Create a Rustic and Elegant Mantel for Christmas

It’s officially November!  In the blogger world, that means most of us are starting to share our Christmas posts. Today I am partnering with JOANN and I am sharing how to create a rustic and elegant mantel for Christmas. I know, I heard you “sigh” and you’re thinking it’s too early. I agree it’s early, but don’t worry I haven’t gone all-in on Christmas just yet. I’m sharing my mantel a wee bit early in hopes that I will provide a bit of inspiration for you as you start your Christmas decorating plan. It’s never too early to start the planning process, right?! 😉 (I promise, I won’t forget about Thanksgiving and the rest of my house is still in full Fall mode)

I absolutely love Christmas, sharing inspiration with you,and plus this mantel has been swirling in my head for a few months now, so I figured I would show you first!

* This post is sponsored by JOANN.  As always, my opinions are my own. Affiliate links for product sources are included for your shopping convenience. You can read my disclosure here.

How to Create a Rustic and Elegant Mantel for Christmas

Planning

Before I even start decorating for a big holiday like Christmas I always like to make a plan. I start by creating or adding to my Pinterest boards. This year I pinned a lot of fun ideas to my Christmas Inspiration board starting in September! I also like to narrow down my focus before I let myself loose in a huge store full of beautiful decor like JOANN. So I narrowed my shopping trip down to items for just our mantel.

Shopping

This is always the fun part!  JOANN had such an amazing selection of Christmas decor and I was like a kid in a candy shop. I asked my mom to come along with me and we went without any children. (this makes a huge difference by the way) I showed her my inspiration pictures from Pinterest and told her that I was looking for elegant pieces that would fit with my favorite rustic pieces, specifically my dough bowl. We had fun laying things out on the floor and basically creating my mantel right there in JOANN. It was awesome!

Color Scheme

The color scheme is pretty important to me. Last year I went with the traditional red and green color scheme but this year I decided on using metallics like gold, silver and mercury glass. I also incorporated wood tones and greenery. All of these elements say elegant with a touch of rustic!

Garland

The foundation of a Christmas mantle is usually garland. That was the very first thing I picked out. I chose the  Hemlock Garland. I loved the way it had natural pine cones, a mixture of greens and a light dusting of sparkly snow. I used three across my mantle and easily hung it with command strips and a few small nails. It looks so real and I am excited to use it for years to come. Investing in quality garland is always a good idea!

Centerpiece

My vintage and rustic dough bowl is the foundation for the centerpiece on our mantel. You can see the full tutorial for my Christmas Dough Bowl Centerpiece over on the JOANN app. Just click HERE if you are on your phone. It is a quick and simple DIY that anyone can do, I promise. I added taper candles and moss and just like that I had the perfect rustic and elegant statement piece! The best part is that this can be created in any type of container if you don’t have a dough bowl. I think it would be just as stunning in this green crate, this farmhouse crate, or even this large white washed crate all from JOANN!

 

Details

For me the details on the mantel are really what make it special. Plus, they were really fun to shop for. You should have seen my mom and I …I’m sure the people shopping around us were like, who are these crazy ladies! Ha ha

1. Containers : The large mercury glass containers were a fun find as were the glass floral mason jars. They compliment the ornaments perfectly and I love the way they sparkle with candles in them in the evening.
2.  Ribbon: If you have followed me for awhile now you know I love the color blue. So when we saw the light blue velvet ribbon that JOANN had…there might have been some squealing! I love the look of the blue mixed with the cream velvet and goodness gracious is it soft! I’m thinking I will need to add this to our tree and gift wrap too!
3.  Ornaments: I went for sparkly and interesting. The vintage drop ornament , glistening pine glass bulb and gold glitter snowflakes (on the back wood wall) were calling my name! They are like the jewelry of the mantel and you can never forget the jewelry, right!?

Shop My Mantel (affiliate links provided)

 gray snowflake pillow, Hemlock Garland , Gold Glitter Snowflake , vintage drop ornament, glistening pines glass bulb, velvet Ivory ribbon, velvet light blue ribbon, mercury glass container, glass floral mason jar, preserved moss, white tapers, triple gilded pine cone spray, glitter berry spray, 

JOANN is truly a one stop shop for all of your holiday decorating needs. I am in love with how my rustic and elegant Christmas mantel turned out. What do you think? Have you started planning your Christmas decor yet? And like I promised above…it won’t be full Christmas mode around here just yet! 😉

xoxo,

Kelly