Crafted - our Christmas Mantle!!

I am so thankful for a crafty husband!!!  We admired and talked about the vintage cardboard fireplace kits..

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How could we get ourselves one of those - well, when the husband is crafty, all is not lost, we now have our own vintage style fireplace!

I am so excited to share this - he did a beautiful job on it and it looks so great surrounded with vintage Christmas!!!  He made it to fit perfectly around our little display shelf.

It took him about a week to complete it, I can tell you it was a very stressful project, at one time he was about ready to give up, he just couldn't get the facade figured out.  He started with cardboard boxes but that was quickly changed - it's constructed with a light metal/wood frame covered with thin wood panelling.  His first idea for the facade was brick wrapping paper - but two things going against that, it's too flimsy and you can't find that paper anymore!!  His next idea was brick design panelling - no good either - too expensive!  His next idea was with stencils made first from wood, then cardboard with spray paint  on the panel but that was no good at all - it looked terrible with the paint getting under the stencils.  This is about where he thought his great idea was all for nothing - he wondered how he had got himself into this mess!!  Finally, his brainwave was to use painters tape and after a couple of coats of white background, laid out the entire brick pattern by hand and then 2-3 coats of red brick paint - removed the tape and we had a fireplace!  We were amazed, it looked so good!!  It's totally modular so it can easily be disassembled and stored until next year.  He mounted two low wattage lights in the mantle section to give a great effect of the display case below.  His only regret is that he didn't make one for our children when Santa needed to get down that chimney, but we'll have this forever, so hopefully, some grandchildren will get the thrill of waiting for Santa to arrive from this magical fireplace!!

I just love the way these things look on top  - here they are from left to right!

I am so happy to finally have a real Shiny Brites box!!

We bought this big Santa blow mold at a yard sale this summer, we plugged it in, poor Santa looked like a monster, he had been painted over, he was so creepy.  He won't ever be plugged in but he looks great here!  This old truck belonged to Dad, this is my first year for that, I love it!!

The knee hugger music box tree is probably my favourite thrifted item from last year, who cares that the music box doesn't work!  I put some little red lights on it this year which adds some nice Christmas red.  This year I have a real box of Gurley candles too - which I have been wanting for a while too.  Isn't there always something we need to add to our collection?

I just put up my little memory tree this morning, it is all decorations that belonged to my mother and grandmother.  The corner shelf is all vintage as well.  I used to have all primitive type decorations, I've switched everything over to red and green - I like this so much better!

I think I'm way ahead on decorating, it must be because of the all the early snow we've had - Christmas is coming!!  I took this on Thursday, the trees have been laden with snow all week!