The month of October is in full swing and we are FINALLY getting some cool weather here in Houston! It probably won’t last long but I’ll take whatever we can get! This week on the blog I’m continuing my Elegant Halloween Home Tour. Last week I focused on my porch and entryway. This week we move into the Formal Living Room. As you get to know me you’ll discover that decorating mantles is one of my specialties and this year’s Halloween mantle is probably my favorite!
As I said last week, I’ve fallen in love with Harlequin during Halloween. The geometric pattern makes such a bold statement and works great whether your décor is contemporary or more traditional like mine. Since this fireplace is in a formal room, I went with a more elegant look.
This mantle garland was so easy to pull together! I purchased the black lit garland from Christmas Central. The garland was a bit thin and since I knew I was going to load it up with ribbon and ornaments I had to purchase double to thicken it up. Once the garland was up I added my harlequin ribbon. Since the ribbon pattern is busy, and also the focal point, I kept the rest of the decorations simple and used lots of orange ornaments. These were also purchased through Christmas Central. To give it interest and depth I chose different styles and textures. Some are beaded, some are shiny, some are round, and some are teardrop. Since I have little ones (and a hyper puppy) most of the ornaments are shatterproof. The handful that are glass however are attached to the garland VERY well just to be on the safe side. As a finishing touch, I added just a handful of beautiful orange, black & white patterned Shiny Brite ornaments found at Home Goods. I hadn’t initially included them in my design but once I saw them I knew they would be a perfect touch! The designs are simple and add just a little bit of additional interest. The gorgeous tall black lanterns are from Pottery Barn and the cute “31” sign came from Etsy.
I adorned the top of the mantle with some black crowes (of course), some spooky moss, black branches and some more fun pumpkins from GrandinRoad. As I stated last week, moss and branches are simple and inexpensive way to fill up “dead space” between décor!
Also on the mantle is a wooden vintage Halloween sign and a beautiful witch. She’s just the right amount of spooky without scaring my little ones!
And here’s the full view!! By far my favorite (and all the kids favorite!) feature of this mantle are the felt bats! Not only do they make a bold statement but more importantly they give some height to the design. I purchased these bats from GrandinRoad however these could easily be made out of black construction paper!
On the opposite side of the room from the fireplace is a little nook with a tall antique table. It’s one of my favorite areas to do fun vignettes! Since I love witches I decided to make this area into a potion-making, spell-casting theme. I purchased these adorable witch dolls from Home Goods. They are sitting on a little wooden bench. Since I have so many daughters (and they are all just like me) I thought it would be sweet to do a larger one and smaller one to look like Mother & Daughter. I found a great faux spell book at Michaels and a “crystal ball” from Ebay!
Aside from the witches, my favorite detail of this vignette are these spooky potion bottles. Although I purchased these from Etsy, they could very easily be made! All you need are varying sizes of jars, some burlap, twine, and some creativity for the contents! The Rotten Frog Eggs are black foam berries, the Vampire Ashes are just a mix of sand and dirt, the Twisted Twigs are simply twigs of course and the Spider Eggs are chunks of white Styrofoam. Super easy and fun!!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Halloween Home Tour of my Living Room! Next week I will be featuring the Formal Dining Room. There will be lots of glass pumpkins and a huge witch! Hope everyone has a great week!
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