New Spring Mantle

I was going to post yesterday but we had the worst windstorms here.  Nothing like the devastation in the rest of the country but we did lose our cable/internet for most of the day and I had to go get the kids from school as the school lost power.  There was so much damage to trees and power lines that the kids also don't have school today.

Anyways, I finally did something with the mantle.  After seeing the latest Pottery Barn I decided to jump on the bandwagon and use the seashells and such that I already had on hand.

I moved the printer's drawer from the hallway to the mantle.  I thought it was a nice focal point so then I  added the conch shells and the starfish.

I ended up putting the candles up on books to give it some more height and movement.  I'm not sure I like having the books backwards but it definitely looked less distracting that way in the pictures.  

The picture below is without the books.  Still nice but I wasn't loving the arrangement.

I do, however, love the little stone bird.

Here's another view of the finished arrangement.  I may add some fresh flowers at some point.  Maybe just a couple of bud vases filled with simple white flowers.

I am putting in this last picture as a lesson learned thing.  The picture is a close up of one of the bookcases on the sides of the fireplace.

For the first 5 years we lived in this house I left these empty.  I thought that they were too dark and that if I put things in there they wouldn't be seen.  So they sat empty as I tried to think up ways to light up the book cases.  I tried puck lights and lining the back with paper and a few other things before I finally just tried loading them up.  And guess what?  Once they had things in there it was fine.  In fact, they looked great.  I couldn't believe that I went all those years with empty bookshelves.

Now, of course, the key that locks the doors to keep them closed has gone missing (by missing I mean that one of my darling children decided that they must play with it and then lost it).  So I hope everyone likes the current arrangement because until we find the key the bookcases are going look that way for a while.

~ Gold Shoe Girl ~




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