A Family Friendly Valentine's Mantle

This is not your magazine ready, professional photo shoot mantle. While I do definitely have my perfectionist, magazine-worthy, Martha Stewart-grade design desires, hearkening back to this post, I'm trying to be family friendly and more relaxed about how my home and life look. Simple, loving and homey are what I am focused on these days and I'm very happy with that.

After I put everything away for Christmas (in mid-January - it was one of those years), I left up the wood star and brought back out beachy elements. I also added this framed piece from this post. Then one of our resident artists added some of her own works. This is some of the creativity that flowed from this post.

In a past life I might have said, Nah, let's put those in your room for display. (Not on my pretty, manicured mantle...) But that's the old me. I can have a fussy mantle again later. This joyful, kid-filled time of life doesn't last long and I want to enjoy every creative, colorful moment. This is our family. You will notice that The Bug is so happy her feet aren't touching the ground. That was a very deliberate decision on her part about her joy at her new life here and how good and safe she feels now.

We do not have the two dogs but that is where fantasy comes into the artwork...and can stay. (We're not in a place for big pets at this point.) I love the flower bows on both girls' hair and the happy flower garden surrounding us. That is a bit how our life feels right now. She also built us a pretty house. Wouldn't it be fun to live in a world that is so colorful?!

I also worked up a little garland for a little Valentine's Day touch. It was super easy using construction paper cut to four inches by three inches. I used a punch for the hearts and foam squares to attach them to the dark purple construction paper. I cut in on the bottom for a little additional detail, grabbed some ribbon and a glue stick and a few minutes later I was done.

At night the wood star is charming and homey. I though it could definitely stay up a while. It is wintry and fun to turn on at night. It makes the living room very charming. We also left up the glitter stars from Christmas for a few extra weeks. We'll probably replace them with stained glass hearts soon.

It's simple but it feels like us and our life right now. I like that. Someday I'll have a stunning mantle, but right now I have a mantle that reflects us just perfectly. And I love that.