Romantic June Mantel with Flowers, Friends and Fun
I have always wanted a mantel. I just love them, love decorating them, love enjoying them. And every season when all the other bloggers start decorating their mantels with seasonal goodies, I am sad that I don't have one.
But guess what I finally figured out? Many of the bloggers who put up mantel posts don't have mantels either!! They are decorating shelves, pianos, cabinets, whatever they have on hand! Isn't that brilliant? Why didn't I think of that? All those years of wistful wishing and I could have been playing along all the time!
Well, no time like the present! I have a piano in my front room, and what better place to decorate for a mantel-like experience, no? So, without further ado, I bring you, for the first time, my piano, decorated like a mantel, for early summer. Ta da!
I love how it makes the room look. There's still a ton of stuff I want to do here, but even just compared to the last time I shared my living room, isn't it so much better? I also moved some of the books out so I could have a spot for my pitcher & creamer collection.
I've never decorated a mantel before, so I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. I've always loved it when people put old vintage doors and windows on things like this, so I decided to start there, then add things in that say "summer" to me. Of course, I didn't have an old vintage door, so I built one! Here's how you can build a faux vintage door, too. It's easy!
Of course summer always says flowers. I picked this bouquet out of the yard, and it has foxgloves, catmint and Lady's Mantle. (Lady's Mantle for my mantel, har har.)
I love foxgloves.
Then for fun I added a garland of pinwheels made from old comics. I love pinwheels and all the soft colors from the newsprint.
And you can't have summer without some good reads, right? Jane Austen is always a good choice, I think. Hee hee. Of course, my fantasy of curling up by the open window with a great book on a summer afternoon is probably not going to come to fruition. But that's okay. I can steal my reading time at night after the kids are asleep.
Lastly, I added the vintage sewing machine. Of course, I love to sew and hope to do more sewing this summer, but also I just really have a soft spot for vintage sewing machines. So far I only have two, and it's probably best if I don't have more. They take up a lot of space. But they're so beautiful! I love the scrollwork on this one.
What about you? Do you have a mantel? Do you decorate for the seasons? What does summer say to you?
Updated: I’m so thrilled and grateful to have this mantel featured on Home Stories A-Z Summer Mantel Roundup. Thank you, Beth!!
