Merry Christmas in July!

Good Morning!

No, I haven't been time traveling and forgot what season it is, it's Christmas in July time!

Basically, you have 5 months until Christmas... 5 months to start shopping, planning, crafting.  A lot of stores get in on this idea, Target just had a Summer Black Friday, a lot of online shops are offering a discount for their Christmas in July sales... groopdealz has a ton of Christmas items as deals today... well, you get the drift.

So, I decided to go ahead and share our Christmas Mantle from last Christmas, which was one of my favorites even though it wasn't super ornate, it was more fun which fits our little family...

I had made a bunch of Christmas subway signs for the shop last year and the Reindeer one was my favorite.  Since it didn't sell at any of the boutiques, it found a home on our mantle!

I also hung a Christmas bunting from my friend Crystal over at The Lil' Cupcake!  You should definitely check out her blog and her shop... you'll be ohhh-ing and awww-ing over all her sparkly sweet baby items!  And there's a photo of Adam... of course.  I have a 4"x6" photo of our wedding day on the wall and 5 photos of Adam... he's just so darn cute!  Guess you know who the star of our household is!

I had found some old frames and repainted them, then Big A cut boards to fit inside the frame and I painted them with chalkboard paint.  I made 3 of them to sell at the boutiques and this green one was left behind so it now is a permanent chalkboard in our home!  I drew a "fire" scene in chalk on it and leaned it in front of our fireplace opening.  It was a fun burst of color and I was able to hang our stockings on the corners. 

I had seen ideas on pinterest about "Santa's Boot Prints" where people mixed baking soda with glitter and made a "boot print" from the fireplace to the presents so your little one could see where Santa went in your house.  I loved this idea - minus the glitter - so I traced one of Big A's boots on cardstock, cut it out and sprinkled baking soda in the negative on our fireplace and carpet to make Santa Tracks.  Lil' A loved this!  It was so fun bringing the magic to life for him, he now has irresputable evidence that Santa is real!

So that's it!  An easy and fun Christmas Mantle... I like it to much, I think this year's mantle is going to look pretty similar!

So there you go, hope you enjoyed Christmas in July and now go on out into the 100 degree heat!  You're welcome.

Have a happy day!
Andrea