Spring Inside My House

*Still experiencing technical difficulties with my camera.  

If my pictures all look like beaded board paneling, it's not just you....or your screen.  Sorry!  

(Good way to see how beaded board would look in my house, though.  Hmmm....)

I spent Saturday morning getting my house ready for spring.  And I spent Saturday night cleaning up the mess that I made!  It is sooooo nice to have a clean kitchen floor.  We were long overdue for mopping.

I tried something new, this year, on the mantel.

Other years, I have had an Easter tree there, like this one.  (This year I moved the tree to our our kitchen bar.)

 I have a lot of fun switching out my mantel decorations for different seasons and holidays.  Remember this?

Well, now it looks like this:

*Again, I apologize for the poor picture quality!  Maybe a new camera is in store for my upcoming birthday?  

Bionic Man, are you out there?  Are you reading this?  

For spring, I rearranged my apothecary jar collection around a vintage window.  


The window came from our first home, which I now refer to lovingly as our "Connecticut Cottage." (With a name like that, you'd think I spent weekdays at my Park Avenue penthouse, wouldn't you?)  Our first home needed lots of updates and renovations.  This sweet window was being used as the top half of a corner built-in hutch that had to be removed during the remodel.  The hutch was darling, so the Bionic Man disassembled it carefully.  We could never find another place to put it in the house.  I had our movers box it up and ship it halfway across the U.S. when we moved to our current home.  It's been waiting out in the garage for me to decide what to do with it, ever since.


Well, on Saturday I finally decided:  it should go on my mantel!  Only problem was, it was too tall to sit with the arch on top, as I originally intended.  But that's okay, because I kind of like things to be a little quirky and imperfect.  Besides, the door handle provided the perfect spot for hanging a spring wreath.

The vintage window is painted kind of a muted mustard color, which--I admit--really isn't one of my favorite colors.  I've always intended to paint it white, but obviously I've never got around to that.  When I realized that it actually complimented the colors of eggs in this wreath, I decided sometimes procrastination really pays.  Add that to the fact that I still haven't finished my Marathon Painting Project, so the wall is still Gacky Sage, and you have a room that happens to totally coordinate with this wreath.  Wow!  (Thank you Christmas Tree Shops, for selling this egg wreath last year!)

One of the fun things about my spring mantel is that nothing I put on it is new.  Like the window and wreath, I was able to repurpose decorative items I already had.  With the exception of the moss in the tall apothecary jar:  I bought a bag of that at Home Depot to put on some of my potted plants, and then decide to throw some in a jar.  Very organic, eh?  Not to mention very cheap.

There are a couple of things I like to incorporate every time I decorate the mantel.  This little Willow Tree figurine is one of them.  The balloon the child holds has the word "hope" written inside.  I love that.  See, I used it in my winter mantel, too:

One of the reasons I like apothecary jars is that they give me so many fun options.  The same jars can be used in different ways, filled with a variety of objects.  This spring, I've filled them with nests and eggs.  (And moss.  Can't forget that moss!)  Apothecary jars have to be the most versatile decorative elements since......um......since I don't know what. ( If you want to learn how to get your own collection without spending a mint at Pottery Barn, go here.)  It is sooooo simple to just replace the fillers for one holiday/season with fillers for another holiday/season.  You don't need to spend money on those fillers, either.  I used marshmallows for Valentine's Day.  Spools of thread, old buttons, rocks, seashells, little collections.....find a unifying theme (or not) and toss them all in your jars.  

I really like the way the birch bark candle looked with everything else.  And my little woodland critter.  My mantle looks just the way spring looks outside my window, right now: lots of brown, lots of texture, and just a few muted colors.  


I carried this brown and green and natural yellow theme over to the bookshelves next to the mantle.  

I really like this picture frame.  Found it on sale at the Christmas Tree Shop right before St. Patrick's day.  I think those twigs around it are the bomb.  The organic, textural, spring-is-coming bomb.

I love to pull out this little sign every Spring.  I'm looking forward to spending time in my garden, again.

My children are back in school now, after a fun-filled and relaxing spring vacation, which we spent at home.  I've got a few big projects to work on this week.....I may--just maybe, keep your fingers crossed--be able to surprise the Bionic Man again with some painting!  Wish me luck!

I'm linking this post to:

Mantel Party @ Nesting Place