Valentine's Day Mantel 2015

I've been showing my mantel a little love lately. For weeks, the mantel had been bare and I kinda liked it that way for a while. But that only lasted until I pulled out our Valentine decorations.

Valentine's day mantel | cottage at the crossroads

Now it's all dressed up and I'm ready to show you our Valentine's Day Mantel, 2015 version.

I started with some Dollar Tree garland that I already had. I purchased this last year, but I've seen it in there this year as well. I had enough to double drape the garland. Simple and easy!

I was really liking the red garland so I decided to paint some shutters red. No, I didn't paint my green shutters because I had a shutter disaster when I was taking down the Christmas decorations. One shutter fell from the mantel and crashed to the floor, breaking it to pieces. No real harm, though, because I had another set that I had purchased in the fall for $2.

Wooden shutters | cottage at the crossroads

They were white and in good condition, but I wanted old, chippy shutters. So I read a tutorial online about how you could brush Elmer's glue onto them and then when you put paint on top it would crackle. Well, that method did not work for me! All I had was a mess and shutters that wouldn't operate because they had been glued! So I spray painted them a beautiful, dark red color (Valspar-Color Radiance-Radiant Red-flat) that I found at Lowe's. And although they aren't chippy, I think they are beautiful!

A few days ago, my sister-in-law Jean and I were out shopping, and I ran across some branches of artificial quince that were about $2 each. What a deal! I just love quince because we have some shrubs in the yard. But it will be a while before they will be in bloom.

So when I got home I tucked the branches into some milk glass vases. I just love the mix of Valentine-y colors on them!

Then I started placing some of my easy to make fabric hearts on the mantel, putting some of them in front of the speakers that reside on top of the mantel.

The mantel was starting to come together, but when I found these vintage-looking Valentine's, I stuck GOLD! I just adore them. They remind of cards that I innocently exchanged with classmates years ago.

I found them at Hobby Lobby and they were very inexpensive and on sale, too!

Just precious, is all I can say. It wasn't until I looked at the photos that I'd taken that I saw that the flowers on the girl's hat echo the colors in the quince.