ABC Mommy and Me!: Holiday Decorating

A little over 4 years ago we moved into our current house. The living room has a beautiful fireplace with gorgeous stonework and details. I have to admit it was this fireplace that sold me on the house. My plan since the day we moved in was to create boxes of holiday themed materials to decorate the mantle with. Especially now that we have children I want to make holiday times special for them. That plan has not fully come into place yet.

Normally, on the top of the mantle I have a nice big mirror. In front of the mirror are 5 rectangular shaped vases of various sizes from Ikea. Inside I put stones, twigs and different natural/organic materials. For holiday decorating I use the vases and fill them with holiday themed materials. I have a beautiful Christmas display that I fill with Christmas bulbs and last year I put together a cute Easter one.

My inspiration for my Easter display came from one of my favourite blogs, Modern Parents Messy Kids. It was creating a banner from paint samples.

Paint sample banner

Thank goodness I made it last year because with a 6 week old baby not much is getting done these days. St. Patrick's day came and went and I didn't do anything with my lovely mantle. And even though I have a box set up for Easter I decided that there was no way I was going to decorate it. I can't get the dishes and laundry caught up so clearly decorating the mantle was a frivolous way to spend my little "personal" time.

I happened to be on Facebook and I noticed one of my friends (a former teacher colleague) had decorated her mantle for Easter it is really cute, and if I didn't already have a banner made up I might have borrowed her idea :). Anyway, her photo inspired me to pull out my box and just go for it! I mean she's home on maternity leave as well, so if she can pull it together then so can I. So, during a rare moment when both kids were sleeping I went for it. I'm so glad I did it. When Keelyn came down after nap she was so excited. Every morning she points out the eggs in the containers and talks about how the Easter Bunny is going to fill them up.

So thank you L for inspiring me to pull it together!!