Fall Mantel

As I mentioned last week, I've got some serious fall fever going on and I've been itching to bust out the fall decor. When the temp is hovering near 100, it seems a little silly to be putting out pumpkins, but today I finally caved and fluffed up the mantel with some fall-inspired stuff!

Our mantel is now dominated by a 55" flatscreen so it's a little more challenging to decorate than before our renovation. We used to have this swirly Pottery Barn candle thingy hanging above the mantel and then I'd sort of fill in around it using it as a centerpiece.

Way before...

We bought the hubs a shiny new flatscreen and the most logical place to put it was above the fireplace so there it sits in all its glory. We've gone around and around about how to camouflage the beast, but we haven't found the right solution yet. To make things more complicated, it's on a swivel arm so anything decorative needs to be out of the way so it can be extended and turned on game day (which is actually a lot of fun and super convenient when everyone is hanging around the island watching the game). I just try to make the mantel look nice and work around it, like I did with our simple summer mantel. 

Recent before...

I've killed those pretty flowers with my infamous black thumb so I figured it was a good time to switch things up. Here's my first pass at our fall mantel.

After...

*Update: After looking at these pictures for a while, the mantel was feeling a little too sparse. I shifted everything toward the center a bit and added some fall foliage that I grabbed for 50% off at Michaels. I'm much happier with the new version.

I'm just not ready for pumpkins so I added in some warmer tones and some texture with grapevine wreaths, pine cones, and corn kernels.

Remember the book pillars from this Pinspiration post?? I followed Kelly's tutorial found here and did some serious page-folding while I was stuck in bed because of my back last week.

I kept the book bundle and the lantern from the summer mantel, but added a miniature grapevine wreath that I found with the pine cones in the dollar section at Target. The candle holder was a little spray paint job I did this summer.

What is your favorite way to bring fall decor into your home?

Linking up to...