Decorating a Neutral Christmas Mantle - Christmas Ideas Tour

Sharing a simple, budget-friendly neutral Christmas mantle that is full of texture, style and oozes Christmas spirit!

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Well hi there! I hope you've come for some Christmas inspiration because today's post is full of it!

In fact, all week will be full of Christmas ideas for you! I am delighted to join Angie from Postcards from the Ridge and 24 other bloggers on this Christmas Ideas Tour to share our Christmas decorating ideas with you all week! We've got tablescapes, DIY projects, Christmas trees and holiday recipes coming your way! Today is the first stop on the tour and the focus is Christmas Mantles.

Christmas inspiration from home decor bloggers!

I don't think I've ever decorated my mantle the same way twice! I get inspired during the year, and love to change up the look. Using chalk paint to update our fireplace last year really made all the difference in how our entire fireplace looks! I'm so glad I did this project last year and it has held up so well. I have not had to touch it up at all! The lighter color made for a beautiful backdrop for this year's Christmas mantle inspired by the classic Christmas colors of red and white! And I think it looks a little bit snowy, even though the chances of us getting snow here in Texas 2 years in a row is pretty much zero! Yes, we had snow last year for about 5 hours 😏

painted fireplace and neutral Christmas mantle

When I'm decorating my mantle, I always remove everything first and give it a good dusting. Then I start layering.

My white faux farmhouse clock (an IKEA hack) serves as a background for a flocked wreath that I picked up at Walmart for under $10! I added a red striped ribbon bow and a couple sprigs of berries (not always pictured because they were an afterthought...you live with something for a couple days before you see what it needs...and I felt this flocked wreath needed a little more red!)

Ah, so much better! It doesn't take much!

how to layer items on a Christmas mantle

I tacked a cedar garland along the front of the mantle using some tiny nails to hold it in place and added a string of fairy lights. I hung just a couple frosted ornaments along the garland using my favorite new ornament hooks that are beautiful as well as functional.

A variety of white candles were added next, all staggered in height. I elevated some shorter ones by flipping over glass votive holders and setting the candle on top.

Let's talking stockings for a minute. These are not our traditional family stockings...those ones are all different sizes and shapes and patterns and colors and I put them up on Christmas Eve. I wanted a set of stockings that were neutral and used just for decor. I found these cable knit stockings on Amazon; they come in various colors and sizes and were very inexpensive. I also used a pair of white sweater stockings that I made a couple years ago using an XL sweater I thrifted. And finally, a furry stocking to add some more texture. I actually found this one on Ebay. I love that they're all different in size and color, but they work together because they're all neutral. I used these mini 3M command hooks to hang them.

All the "business stuff" is hidden by the garland!

I put up three very fun trees this year. You can see my blue and white dining room tree here. It's a flocked tree full of handmade ornaments and real transferware teacups and saucers and ironstone pitchers. I'll be sharing more details about the other two shortly, but if you follow me on Instagram, you can find sneak peeks there.

Tree decorating is a LOT of work, so I'm striving to keep the rest of my holiday decor simple this year...we'll see how that goes 😉

rustic fireplace with neutral decorated Christmas mantle

Now it's time to see all the Christmas ideas from these talented home bloggers. Here's the tour lineup for the week. Be sure to visit everyone for wonderful Christmas ideas for the whole house. The links for each topic are below the images.