{create} a spring mantle

Based on my twitter feed, it sounds like a lot of the country is already welcoming spring-like weather. Friends, I'm a little jealous. It actually snowed at my house this morning. Brrr. 

Maybe it's my way of pushing spring to hurry up and get here already, but I updated my mantle this weekend.

Here is my *winter* mantle. AKA, I needed to take my Christmas decorations down, but I wasn't quite ready for spring-like decor mantle.

And, here is my spring mantle! I wanted it to be a little woodsy, afterall spring is about new life and blooms and greens. I also wanted to incorporate some fun colors. Hello, orange bird.

I'm trying to teach myself to style better. In order to practice, I've dedicated a couple posts to focusing on how I got to the end point of the styling process. These posts help me think through my process, and I hope they help you learn something and think through your process. I hadn't tackled a mantle in much details, so below are the steps I took to get to this.

Start with a blank slate. I cleared everything off the mantle but the mirror, because I knew that was staying. Add texture. Here I started with moss. So much fuzzy awesome texture to build on. Add color. For this step, I pulled in some mossy logs and green trees. Add objects. The "M" is a sweet gift from my sister-in-law, who cut out the letter and decoupaged one side. But, from the back, which is showing, you can tell it was a reclaimed piece of wood and I LOVE the color and texture. Once you've pulled together texture, color and objects, EDIT. This step is the most important. I knew something wasn't right, so I actually walked away for a few hours. When I came back I realized that I hated the moss ... it was too much. So I pulled that out, added some fresh daisies and LOVED the result. 

Besides a blank slate, I also start with a huge pile of possibilities: I walk around the house and gather things that might work for the mantle. Once I put it all together, I start to see themes emerge. For instance, the fabric became a new garland (more on that Wednesday!), and I ended up using the wooden *M*, the small bowls - as candle holders - and the planters.

I hope this helps as you're thinking about changing up your decor for the upcoming season, whether it be on your mantle, bookshelves or a cute corner of your abode.

I'll leave you with a few close ups of the new mantle-scape:

If you'd like to see more about my learning-to-style journey, you can see my wall shelf tutorial here and my bookcase tutorial here. 

So friends, are you welcoming spring in your neck of the woods? Or, are you still braving winter?

**Update: I'm linking up to the Spring Decorating Link Party at the Lettered Cottage. Come over to check out all the fun and inspiring spring mantles!

Happy Monday! :)