Who is ready for winter to be over!?
(All the hands went up and the hearts said yes). Especially the ones in the northern mid-west of the United States. We got more ice and snow last night in Indiana, so it felt like the perfect time to show you what I did at our art studio yesterday.
I set up spring.
It was time to take down the winter-Valentines decor…
I went straight to warm colors, softer textures, and crafty bits for spring. It was inspired by these two baskets I found thrifting last weekend.
I wanted to use the baskets as little shelves to hold a vase of flowers in our new mantel display. Although I had this idea, I knew the vases needed to be light since the baskets are thin.
Since this mantel is at our art studio I constantly am trying to think of how to keep it easy, cheap, creative, crafty, yet not tacky. I want it to inspire others that pretty doesn’t have to be expensive and that you can mix some easy crafty bits into decor to look pretty and feel personal at the same time.
I decided for the light flower vases I would use old soup cans. To soften their metal look and give another texture, I simply wrapped some thick yarn around it a couple of times and knotted it off.
I stuck some fake flowers in the can, and my light vase to go in my basket was complete. I wrapped some wire around my new vase and stuck it through the basket and twisted the wire behind the basket to get my vase to stay in place.
I ended up putting the vases in the middle of the baskets, so the baskets look more like a frame than a shelf. It looked better to scale this way. If I had bigger “vases” I might have kept with the shelf idea. I like this process of creating where an idea might start as one thing, but as you create, you take it somewhere else.
It’s part of the fun of creating. We aren’t tied to our original ideas we see in our brain.
I strung up a clearance banner I found at Target for $0.50, put some Dollar Tree succulents in some wood pots we sell at the studio for people to paint, and hung up two umbrellas (for that spring rain) that I found at Hobby Lobby for $7.00 each and my spring mantel was complete.
Do you ever find one item that inspires a look? I had a bunch of random ideas in my head for this new mantel, but once I found the baskets- it all came together!
Do you remember what last spring’s mantel was with the butterflies!? Take a look here and let me know which one is more YOU!
Happy day friends! Spring will come, but until then we can make the most of each day for the gift that it is!
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! Although we aren’t huge fan’s of the holiday, we still have little kids that enjoy decorating and getting into it-so we do. I like to add a little touch of decor to our mantel without it feeling like you are blasted with red and pink and walking through some store aisles. Yesterday, I showed you how to make my 
My frame actually had a matte that came with it (for a $1.51 can you believe it!?), so I placed that on top of my cut wrapping paper and figured out where I liked my cardboard chip letters in it. I got a package of these silver letters in the dollar section at Target. The package had one letter of every letter in the alphabet! They would have been cute to place out in a bigger frame as an alphabet art piece for a kid’s bedroom, playroom, or school room. I opted to use my XO for this Valentine’s Day piece.
I used a little glue to hold my letters in place, and then I taped the wrapping paper to my matte frame to hold it in place tightly. I then placed the new art and matte back in my frame, and my simple art was complete!
It was so easy and quick. The best part was it was cheap. I can use the frame again and again, and the art I can simply throw away in a few weeks (when Valentine’s Day is over) and not think twice about it.
I love the pop of color it adds to some of the neutrals I have on my mantel. I hung a little gold heart I made on the frame and I love the way the two look together. NOTE: If you like that little gold heart, you can get your own (with the tutorial video) to create in my next Spoonful Tribe craft kit. It is one of three crafts that will be ready to ship together next Wednesday! Registration opens on Tuesday, January 21. So mark your calendars the tribe is coming!
Do you like to decorate for the holidays as well? You can check out my Valentine’s Day mantel from last year 
