mantel party

i always struggle to find the right mantel decor at christmas time. it's either good on paper bad in real life or i just can't make up my mind. i like it simple best, not a fan of the red and green usually. and i mostly dislike candy colored christmas too, unless anna spiro does it. but even still it wouldn't be right for me. for me i usually get some spruce and juniper garland from the nursery and plop it up there, add some candles and call it a day. i will more than likely do that this year too and i'm ok with that b/c it works for me. my real issue is those damn stockings. i hate them quite frankly. they are usually heinous anyway..all puffy with penguins, santa's or frosty's. i am going to do something different this year, like stocking buckets. or some such coolness. here are some mantel's that caught my eye..




this only needs slight modification to make it festive and my vote is for fluffy piles of fake snow and a few green branches:

lookit jen ramos's mantel...i love what she did this year. it's so simple and so gorgeous. her tree kicks ass too. those lights work so well b/c of the modern lines of her fireplace and the golden goodness of that mirror. i think this is my favorite mantel i have seen in blog land this year. way to go jen ramos!

i love this tree...why do not the homey D trees look like this? but that stocking-on-a-clothesline bullshit would be way too ghetto in my house. it would be ghetto in your house too, so don't do it. it only works in laura ingalls' house here:

simple, sweet...love:

meh...it's cute. probably really pretty in person. it seems like it's trying too hard.

holister hovey's frontier christmas:

here's a before and after from country living:
this is too cutesy for me. i liked it better before...maybe with some greenery added or some big globe lights.



this is pretty for red and green:

sweet jesus!! where did the fireplace go?!!



rita konig decorated this for the waverly inn in NYC. it's all fake. it looks cool though, like a secret garden.

not christmasy at all but i love it ever so much. the magenta logs are super duper:

this is a crowd favorite...simple, not so christmasy and should an intruder try to steal your christmas presents you can impale them with one of those horns:

maybe i'll just throw this up there and call it a day:

i am working on this today so i will most likely have reveal shots tomorrow. don't get your hopes up though.

***this just in...lonny part deux launches (lonnches??) in 18 hours. there better be a mantle for me to copy miCHELLE!!!!!!