HOW TO CREATE A FABULOUS CHRISTMAS MANTEL

Hello beauties!

Are you holiday ready? Christmas is only 28 days away. BUT, it's time to start decorating your beautiful spaces for the season. I've teamed up with Wayfair.ca (I've shared my love for all their home decor and furniture with you here and here) to give you some ideas for creating the most gorgeous holiday mantel. If you are lucky enough to have a mantel to decorate then it needs to be FABULOUS during the holidays. There is no better way to create instant holiday impact.

So, take everything off the mantle and start with a clean slate. This is also a great time to do any paint touchups on your mantel if it is painted.

Decorating for the holidays can be really overwhelming. Do you go traditional? Glam? Minimal? Gold? Silver? My recommendation is to start with one piece and build from there. For me, it was a faux pine garland. I bought it a couple of years ago and have used it in different ways but this year I wanted it on the mantle. So, up it went. I'm really digging the rustic glam look lately and love that this allows you to have the traditional feel and glitz it up with glam pieces.

These silver/gold glitter trees are tall and oversize and anchor the mantle. Aren't they puurdy?

The stag head has floated between my living and dining room all year. They're very trendy right now (on the wall or standing) and super versatile.

Take a step back. Look to see what's missing, what's too busy. I felt like a little colour was needed so Mr. Stag got some danglers. Rose gold is still hot! hot! so think about adding it to your Christmas decor. I think I'm going to add some rose gold ornaments to my tree this year. Girly and glam. I also love me some gold mercury glass ornaments.

To continue with the antlers, I added a textured antler wreath to the mirror. This boxwood wreath is also beauty! Classic. This wreath has a ton of texture, lights up and bonus-on sale!

Don't forget to add light to your mantel. String lights and VOILA! A fresh.fabulous.sophisticated Christmas mantel.

Once your mantel is done, you will hopefully have a theme for decorating the rest of your house. I know it's put me in the decorating spirit. It might feel early, but I promise you, the Christmas parties and shopping will be here before you know it!

Don't forget, Wayfair.ca ships for free. FREE over $75. Yes please!

I would love to see your holiday mantels. Please share them with me.

Keep it Beautiful.

Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Wayfair.ca. Thank you for continuing to support the brands that support this blog. 

WATCHING LEADING LADIES

Having downtime is critical to me. It's critical to all of us. Mr. Fix-It and I need downtime together away from the hustle of work, the busyness of after-school activities, cooking, cleaning, homework - the spin. Mr. Fix-It and I have Netflix series that we love to watch together. Honestly, there have been some series (Homeland, Orange is the New Black, Suits) that we have even rushed to put our kids down to bed (go ahead, judge me) so that we could run to the tv room to start our marathon viewing. However, there are shows on Netflix that appeal to each of us individually. 

Mr. Fix-It likes the suspensful good-cop-bad-cop shows, but sometimes I find them too dark to watch before bed. I'm drawn to the leading lady shows. She might make me laugh, cry or feel empowered - I like that before I go to bed. My very fav Netflix series right now (full disclosure: I"M TOTALLY ADDICTED TO IT AND HAVE A WHOLE NEW APPRECIATION FOR THIS REAL LIFE LEADING LADY) is...

The series (only one season so far) gives you a snapshot of a young Queen Elizabeth. I really have known nothing about our Queen except that she's always perfectly dressed, sortof looks like my Nana and has the infamous wave. After watching this season, I see her in a completely different light. I was blown away by the letter that her grandmother wrote to her, it encourages the Queen to find strength from within and to be an icon.  We will never be the Queen of England but we can be a beacon for each other, for our family, for ourselves.

 Even in the Orange is the New Black, those women inmates - all together, all the time. They tear each other down but they too build each other up. We need to not act on jealousy. We need to not act on hate. It makes us ugly. 

This month, if you're looking for empowering ladies, tune in to some of these shows. You'll feel good. Promise. Oh, and speaking of ladies...GILMORE GIRLS is on Netflix this month! WHAT?! NOVEMBER 29th is the date! Save it! Call your mom. Have her over for a Gilmore Girls date night.

Keep it beautiful.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I'M PART OF THE NETFLIX #STREAMTEAM AND LOVE SHARING MY ADDICTION WITH YOU EVERY MONTH. 

How to Create Industrial Shelves - An Easy DIY

hey everyone. long time no chatty. how you been? how is it November? The fall has flown by and it's been a zoo over here. I"m sorry I've been a little MIA, I have lots to share with you for the holiday season. Miss you! We took down all the Halloween decor on Saturday and now the house just feels naked. I'm so ready to bust out the holiday decor love. Are you ready? I've decided this year that I"m going to decorate way earlier (like start this weekend) so that I can actually enjoy the season and not be running around at the last minute trying to decorate, shop and entertain. There will be balance. At least in my head this is how it's going to go. Right? Right. 

Today, I don't have holiday decor just yet but wanted to tell you how to make these...

 and show you how we added them to our kitchen to give it a little shake up. I'm talking easy peasy and I love it. About three weeks ago, Mr. Fix-It and I randomly decided to paint the kitchen. The kitchen was not our first room on the list to re-paint but I started walking around with paint test pots throughout the main floor and the only room we could decide on the colours was, the kitchen. 

We put the kids down and had a painting party. Party of two. Of course, wine and beer crashed the party! We picked:

BM Grey Owl for the walls

BM Chelsea Grey for an accent walls (nope, accent walls are not dead)

Trim White for the cabinets and trim. All the white (trim, cabinets, fireplace) is painted BM Cloud White but I was really wanting to return to the bright and crisp contrast of wall colour and white trim. So, all the white in the house is going to trim white. Loving it in the kitchen.

 

I'm always thinking of painting the entire house white. I love it. Lurve it. But, obviously this is not ideal. So, it was a bit out of the box for me to choose the Chelsea Grey for one of the kitchen walls. But, it looks really great. If you look hard enough you can find a green undertone, but if there is nothing green around it doesn't pick it up in this room. Don't forget that what paint looks like in one person's house will not look the same in your own. It's all about the light and your decor. 

 

So, remember when I showed you how to make the industrial toilet paper holder? Honestly, it was so easy and buying them online is $$$ for the exact same thing. Barnboard is another trendy decor look right now. We need a new fence on one side of the backyard and have random boards that have broken away (good thing we have a big vine thing that covers the holes) and I knew they would make great shelves. Enter in a DIY.

 

Step 1 - Hit the hardware store. In the plumbing aisle, you need a flange, a medium size pipe (although you can choose whatever length you need) and a cap. That's it. You'll need two sets/shelf. 

Step 2 - Spray the piping with a metal primer. You need this or the spray paint won't stick to the metal. Don't skip this step!

Step 3 - Once the primer is dry, spray the pipes with your desired colour. For the toilet paper holder, I used a spray that had an "iron finish" look. For the kitchen shelves I chose black mat spray. Once they are dry, measure where you want them on your wall and secure. We didn't have any black screws so once they were all in place I dabbed the screws with black paint using a q-tip. Sorry for the blurry photo, it was pretty late when we were installing them.

Step 4 - Cut your wood boards (barnboard, fence board, deck boards...anything that's been outside for awhile will look fab! The more weathered the better) to the size you need. Place them on top of the brackets and VOILA! Fresh.Fabulous.Sophisticated industrial shelves. 

I'm definitely going to do more of the shelves in the basement bathroom. They're useful and look great for next to nothing. Take that Restoration Hardware shelving!

We need to paint the living room and dining room before Christmas because I've got test spots all over the walls. That or just hope that we have the current paint colour in the basement so that I can cover up the paint tests until January! 

 

I'm working on a couple new pillow designs for the holiday season and sharing our holiday mantle with you next week. Told ya I'm starting to feel the Christmas love!

 

Keep it Beautiful.