SIMPLE CHALKBOARD & WREATH MANTEL

After packing up all of our Christmas decorations, I let the mantel sit naked for a few days and just kind of reveled in the minimalism.  When I finally got the urge to decorate again, I decided that I wanted the mantel to be simple and clean with no particular theme. I pulled out a few things from storage and my craft room and put together a simple chalkboard and wreath mantel.  Here’s how I did it.

I still use my year-round wreath, well, year round.  This time I covered it with some greenery from my craft room using floral pins.  HOARDER TIP:  If you have the room to store it, don’t throw away the leaves from any artificial flower projects you do.  I save them all in a grocery bag so I can make projects like this for free!

I pinned the leaves to the wreath in a counterclockwise direction, so that it looked full, but tidy.  This took all of 10 minutes.  If you don’t have a foam wreath form on hand, you could also make the wreath by hot gluing the leaves to a circle of cardboard.

I looped on a long length of satin ribbon using a cow hitch knot. The ribbon will be used as the wreath’s hanger.

I used duct tape to secure the ribbon to the back of my chalkboard.  This chalkboard started as a big piece of wall art that I found at Goodwill.  I didn’t like the print, but I liked the size so I covered it with a few coats of chalkboard paint.  Quick and easy!

Once the wreath was in place, I added some leafy embellishments around the wreath with chalk.

Two tips for prettier chalk art:
1)  Use a pencil sharpener to shave your chalk into a point.  Then it’s just like writing with a pencil!
2)  Keep your piece of chalk wet as you work.  The chalk will look faint when you first draw it onto the chalkboard, but it will dry a bright white.

Again, it only took a few minutes to mount the wreath and add the chalk embellishments.

I leaned the chalkboard and wreath against the back of my mantel and added in a few other simple décor pieces.  Nothing too fussy or fancy, so that the mantel stays looking neat and clean.

All said, this project took me about half and hour and cost me nothing because I had all the materials in my stash already.  How do you style your mantel after Christmas?