5 Tips For Decorating A Christmas Mantel

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Sharing simple tips and tricks for decorating your mantel for Christmas.

Welcome to the Christmas Decorate Your Mantel Series hosted by My Life From Home.

If you are new here, thanks for stopping by.

If you’ve visited before you know I love to decorate mantels and tablescapes!

Of course I like to decorate all things but mantels and tablescapes are my favorite!

In my recent Christmas Home Tour  I shared my Christmas Mantel and today I wanted to give you 5 tips for decorating a Christmas mantel. 

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5 Tips For Decorating A Mantel

First Of all, these tips can be used in any mantel decorating, not just Christmas.

You can use this same process for all Seasons.

Choose An Anchor

This is basically your starting off point and needs to be a large statement piece to anchor the mantel.

For my anchor I chose a large Christmas Wreath.

You can also use a mirror or art work.

Add Visual Weight To Each Side

Choose tall objects to add visual weight to each side of your anchor piece.

I love symmetry, so I tend to use a pair of tall candle holders or vases for each end.

In this Mantel I used small trees and lanterns.

The  pieces on both end don’t have to be exact, but they should be similar in height and style.

Add Filler Items

The empty space of the mantel can be filled in with small items.

Try to stagger height of the pieces and bring in texture.  

Stacks of books and candles are popular.

In this Mantel I staggered smaller cone trees and a reindeer plus Flocked Christmas garland and picks for texture and dimension.

You see the bottle brush tree on this end is different than the cone tree on the opposite end, but they are of similar shape, size and color so they work.

The white deer ties it all in.

Create Balance

Something I learned many years ago in a design class was you want to create a natural path for the eye to follow.

The anchor draws you in while the weight and filler items create a triangular flow.

I’m sure you have heard of the Rules of 3.

Basically decorating in groups of 3 or 5 is better than 2 or 4.

Always go with odd numbers in groupings.

This makes the arrangement pleasing to the eye. 

If you look in the above photo, the anchor is the wreath, I have staggered the height of the 3 end pieces from the tall tree to the shorter lantern to the smaller tree in 3 groups at each end.

The filler is the deer and garland. 

Choose A Color Scheme or Theme

It helps to have a “jumping off point” when you begin to decorate your mantel.

For example my jumping off or starting point were the beautiful flocked trees I found at the Home store.

Once I picked these I knew I wanted to go with a winter white theme and it all fell in place.

I use this platform in all my Mantel decorating regardless of the season.

Don’t forget the hearth!

Be sure to visit the other bloggers to see their Christmas Mantels!