Kid's Christmas Mantle with Fairy Lights

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  Have you recovered from the feeding fest yet?  Not me, I'm still pigging out on leftovers.  The holiday week was more chaotic for me than I had thought it was going to be.  Lots going on and I was not able to be on the internet much.  I missed my little blog :(  

I did, however, start a few more Christmas decorating projects.  Unfortunately, I only started them...  More unfinished projects, imagine that, lol.  I did get my mantle decorated for Christmas though. 

I always decorate my mantle for my youngest son.  He is a special needs child and his "daybed" is in front of my fireplace.  As you can imagine, decorating the mantle for every holiday isn't easy but when I do, there is always LOTS of Christmas lights involved.  He LOVES to look at Christmas lights so I have them all over my house year 'round.

Here is a picture of his daybed with my mantle decorated for spring/summer/fall.  Remember, I don't change it often, lol.

For Christmas, I decided to use red, lime green and a touch of pink in my decorations.  I wanted the mantle to be bright and cheerful with lots of lights to entertain my sweet little man.

My inspiration came from Pinterest, of course.  I have seen lots of door wreaths made from deco mesh ribbon on Pinterest.  I loved the colors in this one.

And I loved the idea of lights behind fabric here.

I decided to use the deco mesh ribbon on the mantle instead of making a wreath.  I bought one roll each of red and lime green at Hobby Lobby.  I attached it to a "Christmas" green branch swag that I already had.  I followed the same instructions to do it as was shown for making a wreath.  There are tons of tutorials on youtube for this.  Just search "deco mesh wreath".

I also pulled out some Holiday fabric that I got from JoAnn Fabrics a few months ago.  I bought a yard of it, not knowing what I would use it for...I just had to have it, lol.  I do that alot.  I liked it because it had all of "my" holiday colors and a fun, retro look to it.  I knew my son would love it.

I attached the fabric to another empty frame that I had using hot glue.  This frame was an ugly brown color with shiny gold accents but it was well made and large so I spray painted it white.  I added a string of white LED Christmas lights behind the fabric using the metal prongs on the inside of the frame.  These are the prongs that would have held the glass and backing to the frame.  I should have taken a picture of the back of the frame before I hung it but I forgot.  Oops, sorry!

I also added a string of white LED Christmas light to the swag on the mantle.  The two strings had 50 lights each.  My son loves it.  He is laying on his daybed, staring at it right now:)

Now I'm off to find more ideas on Pinterest.  Oh yeah, and finish the other projects that were started a few days ago.  

Linking to:

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