Our Christmas Mantel & DIY Ornament Garland

I hope you’ve been enjoying my Christmas home tours this week! It’s been so nice to be ahead of the game this year and have all of our decor up and ready by December 1st! Today I’m back sharing our Christmas mantel along with a cute and easy DIY ornament garland! It’s perfect to add to your mantel, on your tree, on your staircase or really anywhere!

This post is sponsored by JOANN and contains affiliate links. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I’ve been wavering on how to decorate our mantel this year. It’s the first year where I haven’t hated our fireplace (thanks to our fireplace makeover this summer). Which then makes me want to decorate it a number of ways now that I love the structural look! So, it was fun to try two different vibes this year to accent the new mantel and hearth! Here’s how I recently decorated the mantel for the holiday season.

For the sake of my marriage, I’m not allowed to over-accessorize the mantel for fear it may get in the way of the TV or remote signals. And given that I haven’t decorate the mantel much in the past, I was totally okay with that request. I’m okay with simple! Since everything was looking a bit sparse and monotone with just the garland, I made a quick and easy DIY ornament garland (instructions below). I used this snow cypress & pinecone garland for the base of the mantel and weaved in these Christmas lights. Super simple, but we love how it looks both during the day and at night!

The DIY ornament garland was very straightforward to make. I basically used this variety pack of ornaments along with some twine. I first cut off the amount of twine I needed (add extra if you’re unsure). I then tied my first ornament to one end in a simple knot. Next I fed another ornament on from the opposite end and slid it down towards the first and knotted it once I felt like it was the right distance apart. I repeated that step until I got to the end. It was that easy! It probably took me about ten minutes total to make the full ornament garland.

I rotated between the metallic red, white, and matte red ornaments to change things up a bit. I love the little pop up color and visual interest they add!

You guys know what a huge fan I am of anything cableknit, so when I found these cableknit stockings paired with plaid and pom poms, it was a done deal! The gray looks so pretty against our new fireplace tile! I held them in place with these pretty but simple silver stocking holders and I love how they aren’t in-your-face like so many stocking holders I see. I’d prefer the stockings to be the star! And yes, the image on the TV changed for the next few images. It’s so fun to play with this art setting and change up the look of the living room!

I’m forever a lantern convert after this holiday season! I picked up the smaller version in stores, but you can get this larger version lantern online! They look so beautiful paired with these pillar candles at night! I have them on their built-in timers so they turn on at dusk every night and then turn off shortly after we head to bed! They have a faux flicker effect too and look so beautiful! And how cute are these mini Christmas trees in tins?! I always love adding some greenery and height to my mantel to add some life around the TV.

We spend so much time around our fireplace in the winter so it has been fun to have it feel so festive and pretty this year! Thank you for stopping by to see this year’s mantel and DIY ornament garland!

If you would like to follow along on more of my home decor, DIY, lifestyle, travel and other posts, I’d love to have you follow me on any of the following:

Pinterest / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter

disclosure: some affiliate links used