Fall Mantle 2013

And my oven in broken... So the pumpkin challenge recipe that I was to make will be delayed till Thursday. Because I can not make half the things I was planning to without a working oven. So I will have to figure something out to keep the challenge going without needing an oven. Sigh.

So instead I will go ahead and show you my fall mantle decorations for this year. Sorry in advance for the bad photography I only have the camera on my smartphone. Sometimes its great, others not so much.

When I was trying to figure out what to do I knew I needed to use mostly stuff I had and just make it look fall. So the best part about this mantle is that the candles with the brown ribbons were already there! All I did was remove the blue candles my mother had out. And half the project was done. Yay!
The next thing I had to do was fill in the rest. Which for some reason turned out to be a harder task then expected. I had to find the right vase fillers and the right thing to to fill the void of a missing candle on one of the pedestal.  I thought I was just going to waltz into Hobby Lobby and find everything I needed as usual. Not so much this year. It was only September and they already had their fall decor on a discount and was putting out their Christmas stuff. Seemed strange to me because the fall months haven't even officially hit us. But I managed to find this wonderful leaf garland, these beaded twig things (I don't know how else to describe them), and some other things for my outside decor.

Next thing we found was this adorable pumpkin at Twigs. I love that store for inspiration. But they can be a little pricey so I rarely purchase anything. But the glitzy pumpkin was too cute to pass up. And it fit perfectly on the pedestal and brought balance to the mantle (Almost typed the force. Haha)

So then the hardest part! Filling these vases that used to hold candles! Who knew it would be such a daunting task. I had seen vases filled with cranberries all over Pintrest and I loved the look. And cranberry vase fillers should be so easy to find right? Nope. I looked at four different craft stores with no luck. I didn't want to use real ones because I like to cook with those and the only ones I could find were at Pottery Barn for $14.95 and it would have filled only one vase. So that was not going to happen. Then I was in Old Time Pottery and I found these apples and some dried, red and orange babies breath. All together it worked great and brought a fall harvest feel with a touch of Halloween whimsy that will be great through Thanksgiving.

Let me know what you think or show me your fall decorations. I love to see other peoples ideas.