Thanksgiving Mantel Display

Earlier this year we moved into a new home. We now have a fireplace with a gorgeous mantel. Of course, my first reaction was, "I could do so much with this!" .
I knew that I wanted to display our name, but wasn't sure how. I'd seen several of the frames with the words "Family" or "Love" or "Pray" spelled out in everyday things and thought that was pretty neat, but just didn't really have the time to go photograph 100 different things. So I settled on using my Cricut. And I'm SO glad I did. I was able to not only make our name frame, but also create a beautiful scrapbook paper tree using the same paper as our name. Both of these sat up on our mantel until now.
(I stole this idea from StumbleUpon, which is a similar site to Pinterest.)

I am very excited for the holidays because up until now, I really haven't had very much space to display all my decorations. The first order of business was to create a new holiday mantel display. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is only 2 days away, but hey, better late than never, right? Plus, it's simple enough that it didn't take me long to put together, so I won't be too sad when it comes down. Especially because we'll be putting up my favorite decorations of all- CHRISTMAS!!!
Here's the display:

Left to Right:

• I bought this lantern last year at Pier One and stuck a plain white pillar candle in it. I've been using it as my dining room table centerpiece since. I had purchased some burlap ribbon at JoAnn Fabrics, so I make up a bow and used flower wire to attach it.

 

• Next is a piece of cardboard wrapped in craft paper to give it a more finished look. I then glued some of the previously mentioned burlap ribbon onto one side (folded it do give it a more dimensional look) and glued a coffee filter flower to the ribbon to add a little somethin somethin. I free-handed "give thanks" onto the front. I just drew a straight line with a pencil so the words wouldn't be crooked. I copied the font "Elegantlight" from dafont.com.
• The coffee filter flower is just 2 filters. Take the first one and pinch it together in the middle, add a little glue and let it dry, then do the same to the second filter. Then glue them together. Finally, use a scrap piece of the craft paper, all crumpled up and glue it in the very center.

• This is just one of the many decorations I haven't been able to put out for several years due to either cats or kids. So you can imagine my giddiness when I was able to pull it out this year. Nothing special with this one, just bought it at a store.

• I'm gonna brag about this one because it's seriously the EASIEST! I had a thin, tall flower vase that I filled with sticks that my toddler picked up for me outside in our yard. I took some burlap ribbon and wrapped it around the vase and tied it off with some brown ribbon I had lying around. Ta-Da!

And there you have it folks. My easy-as-microwave-popcorn Thanksgiving mantel display. I will definitely be posting about my Christmas mantel in t-minus 3 days!