My {Sweet} Spring Mantel

I have been inspired by Beth over at Stories of A 2 Z and all of her creative mantel ideas. To be perfectly honest, I used to be quite content with setting up a few vignettes on my mantel and leaving it at that...for months at a time, with no change...however, after Beth hosted several mantel parties at her blog a while back, and I got the itch to change things up on a more regular basis...but I still wanted it to be fairly easy to do. So, this is what I came up with!

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I bought this lovely old vintage window for $1 while out garage sale shopping last fall. It was sitting in my garage just waiting for inspiration to hit! I hot-glued burlap to the back of it to break up a bit of the wood paneling on the wall (I like the wood paneling, but a whole house
full of it gets a bit boring on the eye sometimes). I like that I can stick up whatever pictures I want on the window, whenever I want to, and can change out the look of the
focal point of my mantel with ease!

This little birdie was purchased at the Dollar Tree and painted blue to help spruce up my {Sweet} Spring Mantel!

The little white birdies were also purchased at DT, and left as is.

I made the cute little Easter topiary - materials from the DT - total cost under $3.

I just love how my topiary turned out! It was sooooo easy to make (and yes, I do have a tutorial, but I am waiting to put that up 'til later...you'll see why!).

My aunt gave me these lovely white tulips which are tucked in a vintage jar that I found at a garage sale last fall for about 50 cents I think. I also jumped on the tassel train and made two sweet little tassels from vintage thread spools and some leftover jute twine and other ribbon scraps. They are hanging from my soap dishes turned candle holders!

The little white pitcher was a cheap-o find at ROSS for a few bucks.

Here are two previous looks that my mantel had...this first one had been there, without change (not counting the little I did for Christmas) for about a year!

I switched it out for this one...but only for a day, and then changed it back to the previous look before changing it to what I have now.

I like the brighter look of my new mantel much better...I know, it's hard to tell from these pictures, but it really is much lighter looking in person...during the day. The only lighting in this room is from the two very small light fixtures over the mantel and a few other lamps I have in our living room. It is a fairly decent sized room, and I do not know why there is no overhead lighting...it gets really annoying and I really dislike the dim look this room has when the natural light isn't coming through the windows. Oh, well, I guess it'll have to do for now...there's only so much you can do when you rent! I am really loving my {Sweet} Spring Mantel...especially because the total cost to make it pretty for the fresh season of spring was only about $10! Can't go wrong with that!

Linking up to:
Toot your Horn Tuesday @ A Silly Little Sparrow
Talented Tuesday @ My Frugal Family
Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm