Tennessee Mantle Hop {Winter Edition!}

If you’re arriving over from The Country Chic Cottage, welcome!

If you’re starting the hop here,

you can backtrack to Angie or continue though at the end of this post.

Let’s start my little tour…

It would not be a proper Christmas tour without a little holiday lighting so I took all of my pictures in the evening so we could enjoy the warm glow. I love having Christmas lights be the only lights on in my house!

While I tend to decorate the mantel a little less during Christmas than the other holidays, I do like to decorate it from head to toe. We don’t actually use the gas fireplace much, so it really gets gussied up all over!

I’ve had this poinsettia garland for years, and I love for it to decorate the top of my mantle. One reason being it can stay up well after Christmas! It is a winter flower after all. I have some small lights hidden beneath the poinsettias to give them a little glow. I added the pine garland into the mix last year, but this year decided to draw more attention to it by letting it swag down in front of the mantle. I really like the effect!

I added some little red ornaments to the garland to make it more whimsical. Our stockings are hung with snowflake stocking holders. We’re short two stockings because I was a little late ordering my 8 month old’s first stocking. And the oldest had to sacrifice his to the store so the embroidery work could match. 🙂 They’ll both be back in the house early next week!

I made a couple of new bits of decor to add to the mantle this year.

To the left is my super simple Santa’s Belt hurricane glass. Its snuggled up to a vase full of gold poinsettias.

To the right is my Nagoya Wreath that I attached to a charger. I made a rustic little Christmas tree to decorate the center. I found a silver star to sit next to it.

Our tree is a 9.5 foot doozie that sits right near the fireplace. I love this tree! And, yes, it is a faux pre-lit tree. But I still love it all the same.

While we’re looking at holiday decor, I thought I would show off a few other areas of the house as well. I don’t know about you, but I love to see how other people decorate for the holidays! It provides a lot of inspiration.

On my old singer sewing table, I set up my new Framed Advent Calender. I nestled it in some old garland, snowflake lights, and surrounded it with my Santa figure and a snowman set. My snowman friends are sitting on a rustic cake stand to give them some height.

On our side table, I added some more of the gold poinsettias from the mantle and my Santa diffuser. He smells like a Christmas tree and its absolutely divine! I pull him out every year, and it only takes a few tiny drops of the scented oil to last the entire month of December.

I’ve been in search of the perfect printable to go in my frame. I’ve downloaded a ton of ideas from around the web, but didn’t truly know what I wanted until I saw this “Believing is Seeing” print from Less Cake More Frosting. I love the coloring and the pop of red! The phrasing wasn’t quite me, so I used Lara’s fun print as a template for the printable I created for myself. I adore how it turned out! It fun and a nice little reminder to my boys that Santa is watching. 😉

I’m offering this printable exclusively to my Facebook fans!

Visit my brand new welcome page for instruction for downloading.

But you must be a fan to get access! 🙂

The other part of my house that I always decorate for various holidays is my black hutch. I’ve kept it pretty much the same as last year, decorating with my DIY Chalkboard Bunting, Christmas Ornament Trees, and my little Santa Claus collection.

What can I say, I love them!

Since my kitchen is decorated with black, white, and silver for the holidays, I thought some of my leftover ornaments would look cozy in this wire basket which I have sitting in an old pie tin.

And finally I decided to have some fun and try my hand at a little bokeh photography. That’s obviously the Christmas tree in the background with all of those lights. The snowflake hangs on the banister of the stairs where I have more garland strung.

You can find my 2010 Christmas decor here.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my mantle and the little tour I threw in!!

To continue on with the hop, jump over to see Jessica at Sunny Tuesday!