Thanksgiving House: Fall Mantle

“Thanksgiving House” here at A Southern Discourse is a 4 part series chock full of Thanksgiving inspiration. To make gathering ideas for your Thanksgiving celebration a snap this year, I’m going to be sharing recipes, table settings, and fall decorating ideas here, all in one place, along with sharing a ton of other ASD Thanksgiving resources in the “ASD Thanksgiving House” link below! Every few days I will be adding something new, so make sure you check back often. Happy Thanksgiving!

There’s no better place to start “Thanksgiving House” than at the hearth. A fall mantle is one of the easiest and most festive ways to bring a little of the season into your home. I keep my fall décor up from the first day of fall (Sept. 22) until Thanksgiving. That’s a long time, so it’s well worth the effort. Even if you put your Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving Day while all of your family is gathered together, a fall mantle still has its place and gives Thanksgiving it’s proper spotlight as the real celebration of the day.

This year’s fall mantle was all about signs and banners, wonderful writings of thankfulness. (Don’t judge the lighting too hard!) A chalkboard print to remind my family “tis the season to be thankful” mans one corner while a little harvest banner and a tin “Count Your Blessings” sign normally found on my front porch take center stage.

Yep, you heard right. The tin sign in the center of the mantle usually hangs on my porch by my front door. I took it down because I am using a huge welcome sign out there right now as a part of my fall porch (you can see it here). Instead of storing it, I decided to give “Count Your Blessings” prime real estate on the fall mantle instead. Don’t be afraid to rearrange and repurpose what you already have to make your décor dollar stretch a little further. Sometimes, I can get caught up in thinking that I need to buy something to get a certain look. But buying all new décor or even new accent items every time the seasons change just isn’t reasonable. It is amazing the things we have to use, if we just get a little creative and put out minds to it!

Another little trick I used is working with balance instead of symmetry. ‘Symmetry’ means that both sides of the mantle have to match exactly, but ‘balance’ just means that each side has to complement the other. Neither side is too light or heavy when compared to the other. If the sides were a see-saw, one side wouldn’t tip the other over. In this design, balance is achieved by using repeating shapes and colors. Also, relatively the same number of items are used on each side, keeping to the odd number rule (use an odd number items in grouping, preferably 3).

I considered book stacks and what was sitting on them one item.

And the little pinecone candle and acorn finial on the right side were so small and didn’t stand out much, so I counted them as one item too.

Ok. These next few pics aren’t of the mantle, but they are in the living room so I just thought I would sneak them right in here. I hope you don’t mind.