Welcome back for part two of my Thanksgiving tour! Today I am showing you my Thanksgiving mantel and buffet. I hope you will check out part one if you haven't already. You can see my farm table and some other little Thanksgiving touches I added around the dining room. Just click the link at the end of this post. Hope you enjoy the tours!
This year I wanted to do something different on the mantel, but I had no clue what, so I started thinking about the junk I
hoarded collected over the summer to get inspired. The idea really came together quite quickly once I remembered the old galvanized chick feeder out in my garden. I decided to simply fill it to overflowing with my favorite faux garland, some mini pumpkins and gourds, and some dollar store candles embellished with burlap and little Thanksgiving hang tags. I took a few deer antlers from the table and used them as well. I displayed my favorite prim turkey whose tail feathers are so long they got cropped out of the picture! For visual interest I used an arched mirror-less mirror, and layered an antique oval mirror to reflect the light of the candles. I like the contrast of the dark wood on the mirror against the shabby metal frame, as it adds just enough brown to balance out the mantel design.
At Halloween I created a "Queen of Halloween" vignette on my mantel using this vintage bronze trophy. (See it here:
http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2013/11/best-of-halloween-2013.html) Once the Halloween was packed away, I decided to keep the trophy on the mantel for Thanksgiving and fill it with a gorgeous variety of turkey feathers and a matching spray of florals and berries from the garland in the chick feeder. A winning combination, I think!
Yesterday I added the large acorn ornaments that I found in an old basket while cleaning. I didn't
remember them at all, and just got lucky that I was cleaning out baskets in time for Thanksgiving so I could use them.
I am so obsessive I almost went back and retook all of my mantel pictures because my red shirt is reflecting in the mirror and clashes! I should have worn white or ivory! I digress. Easily.
Anyway, I love, love, love this year's mantel! Our farm table may very well be the best $10 ever spent while junkin', and has inspired the use of more natural elements mixed with vintage junk, which I think it's the perfect style for our home.
A little blurry but you get a good view of the trophy.
Love the glow of the candles at night casting shadows, along with the cozy warm colors. I will miss the warmth of fall. I'm enjoying every last minute of it.
Below is a picture I took with my iphone but I wanted to use it since it shows the most of the mantel from another angle. It's hard to get the full mantel in any shot because our farm table sits where you need to stand to get the whole thing.
Now that you've seen the mantel in the daytime and evening, let's move on around the dining room...
My buffet is one of my favorite things to decorate, but nearly impossible to photograph due to the large picture window behind it. I hope you can get an idea of how it looks in real life. I have enjoyed creating this chic and elegant display, where all I did was tweak a few of my everyday buffet vignettes for Thanksgiving. The center features my vintage jewelry bust, "Grace." You may have seen her in my Halloween posts all decked out as the Belle of the Halloween ball. Now she is cozied up in a warm ivory scarf and looking dreamily ahead toward the upcoming Christmas holidays.
The buffet is packed with vintage pretties, amber goblets and salad plates, vintage amber glass bottles, loads of tarnished silver plate items, a few vintage turkeys, and my Johnson Brothers
"His Majesty" turkey teacups and saucers.
I am so in love with fall that I try to bring as much of it indoors as possible. To the right are some little ironstone leaf dishes filled with acorns my son picked from the yard. He and I went for a little drive to see what gifts nature could spare and we found these lovely orange and blue berries. I believe the orange is bittersweet. So pretty in the amber bottles!
Well dear readers, I am going to do my best to get part three of Thanksgiving up tomorrow, depending on whether or not my health cooperates. I still want to show you my corner cabinet, since that is where most of my favorite vintage Thanksgiving treasures are.
Have a great weekend!
Amber
Parties
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
