Turn your mantelpiece into the true focal point of your living room by decorating it for each season! Your mantel doesn’t have to stay bare throughout the year. There are tons of ways you can decorate the mantel in your living room. We’ve put some ideas together featuring our favorite mantel decor for you to try!
Spring Mantel Decor Ideas
Spring is all about flowers and new life. On your mantel, you can place fresh flowers and other greenery that give off a springtime vibe. You can also add metal gardening accents such as watering cans to further create a spring feel. There are a few holidays during the spring you can decorate for, too!
- St. Patrick’s Day: For St. Patrick’s Day, it’s all about decorating in green and gold! You can fill a small bowl with gold chocolate coins to symbolize the pot of gold that is typically associated with the holiday. Hang a green triangle banner across the front–bonus points if you can find one with shamrocks on it!
- Easter: You’re definitely going to bring in the outdoors for this one! Stain some eggs and lay them in a DIY bird’s nest and then use that as the centerpiece on your mantel. Add some stone bunnies around it and then add some fun springtime wall art to rest on the wall above your mantel! From flowers to ivy to Easter eggs, we have the perfect home decor signs for you to add to the walls of your home!
- Memorial Day: Even though in many places it’s warm enough on Memorial Day to think it’s a summer holiday, the first day of summer isn’t until the middle of June! Your Memorial Day mantel will look a little different than your other springtime designs. Decorate with shades of red, white and blue and patterns of stars and stripes. Add some pictures of your loved ones who have served by using one of our personalized picture frames!
Summer Mantel Decor Ideas
Summer is all about bright colors and sunshine! Incorporate shades of yellows, greens and oranges to give your mantel a citrusy vibe. If you enjoy going to the beach during the summer, you can also introduce shades of blue to your decor to create a coastal feel. Consider using some of these items on your mantel to really bring in that summer vibe:
- Stained Sea Glass: Whether it’s vases, hung mosaics or glassware, stained sea glass is the perfect accent for any summer decor! You can incorporate stained sea glass in many different ways, too. Place flowers into one of the vases or arrange the jars with varying shapes and sizes to create fun focal points atop your mantel.
- Fruit: Your mantel is the perfect space to incorporate fruits! Whether it’s by using fake fruit in a bowl or incorporating it through watercolor prints to hang on the walls, decorating with summer favorites such as strawberries, oranges or lemons will bring in a summer feel. They’ll liven up the space and–literally–make it feel fresh!
- Wildflowers: Summer is all about having fun and being carefree–much like wildflowers! Decorate your mantel with different wildflowers and greenery to bring in a rustic summer feel. You can still incorporate summer colors, bright and clean, into your design to really drive home that summer atmosphere. Summer means warmth, so adding warm tones such as reds and light browns can also work well with wildflowers! Use a wreath made of wildflowers or place a bouquet on the shelf.
Independence Day also occurs during the summer! Much like for Memorial Day, decorate your mantel with all the colors found in the American flag, plus add some items with stars and stripes. Take inspiration from our collection of home decor signs, hanging them on the wall above your mantel. Incorporate pictures of sparklers or fireworks, too!
Fall Mantel Decor Ideas
We love autumn! Fall is such a fun season to decorate for. With so many options, there isn’t a limit on what you can do! There are traditional and contemporary ways of decorating your mantel for fall, each with unique features!
- Traditional: The traditional way to decorate your mantel for fall is full of reds, yellows, oranges and browns. Filled with leaves, acorns and pine cones, traditional fall mantels also feature cinnamon-scented candles and wall art with scenes of trees changing their leaves. Place a brown wicker basket with faux apples on the center of your mantel and golden accents around it. You should stay away from using real apples in your decor because they will start to smell and rot after a few days. Real apples are for eating, not decorating! If you’re looking to create that fall cinnamon smell, place your candles into golden hurricanes that will add an extra level of decor to the candle rather than the glass jar with the label on it.
- Glam: A glam fall mantel takes the traditional colors of fall–yellows, reds and browns–and turns them on their head! You can incorporate jewel-toned colors in this design style, plus add in some additional textures, such as sequins or sparkles. Bright and shiny is the way to go with glam, using the darker jewels to contrast. Glam is all about making a statement, and using purples and silvers or emeralds and golds for your fall mantel will make it stand out.
- Industrial: Instead of decorating with colors this fall, try metals! You can spray paint the faux leaves on a decorative tree branch in gold, silver and copper tones and then incorporate vases and buckets in those metallic colors as well. Your mantel will have an industrial, rustic feel to it–which is actually the perfect way to contrast with the warm tones of fall!
There are a couple of holidays during Fall as well that you can decorate your mantel for specifically. We couldn’t leave them out!
- Halloween: Probably one of the most decorated holidays, Halloween offers so many options when it comes to style. You can decorate your mantel in a glam Halloween style, filled with bright pinks, purples, greens and blues. Alternatively, you can go the traditional route with bright orange pumpkins, cotton spiderwebs and a wooden broom piled in the corner. Halloween also lends itself to minimalism, where you can place a few plastic spiders along the mantel and hang a wall sign with a quote from your favorite Halloween movie. Or, go gothic and decorate your mantel like a scene straight out of a horror movie, with spooky cobwebs, a witch’s pot hanging in the fireplace and spray-painted black candlesticks with glass jars filled with faux body parts in them on top! Your possibilities for Halloween are endless, and you can change it up every year!
- Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving is the holiday that comes to mind when you think of traditional fall. In addition to decorating your mantel in the traditional fall style, Thanksgiving lets you incorporate other vegetables besides pumpkins, such as squash, corn and zucchini. Using natural elements such as wicker and wood, your mantel will have a true Thanksgiving feel. Since Thanksgiving is all about family and friends, adorn the center of your mantel with fun photo memories in personalized picture frames. Not only will your mantel serve as the perfect backdrop for annual fall family photos, but it will also show off how important gathering together is to you.
Winter Mantel Decor Ideas
Winter mantels are fun to create. You can use a variety of colors, metals and other mediums to create different effects and styles. Each unique mixture gives off a different feel, but you can definitely combine styles for an even more fun and personalized effect! Here are some of our favorite ways to decorate for a winter mantel.
- Bold: Winter doesn’t mean drab! Incorporating bold colors, patterns and textures is one of the best ways you can decorate your mantel for winter. If you’re all about taking charge, then this mantel idea is for you. Take a large mirror or other statement piece and hang it on the wall above your mantel. On top of your mantel, use bright colored vases with bold stripes, dots or other designs. Since winter usually means bare trees, fill those vases with faux branches of all different sizes. Bold jewel tones such as ruby or emerald make the space feel warm–definitely a need during those cold winter months!
- Shiny: Use metallics to bring the outdoors inside for this winter mantel. Find reflective vases, candelabras or even trays to decorate the top of your mantel. Incorporate sparkle in small doses, too, such as in a banner across the front or even use sequins in throw pillows on the chairs near the fireplace. Stick to silver and gold as your colors if you choose this design format. Whether it’s in the vases you use, the details in the wall art or even in the faux foliage you add to jars, using silver and gold as your colors keeps the shiny, metallic theme of this mantel design going.
- Cozy: Cold winter nights mean that your mantel should feel warm and cozy to counteract that. In the corner beside your mantel, fill a soft weaved basket with plush, thick blankets you can curl up with at night. Incorporate patterns you typically associate with warmth, such as plaids or houndstooth. These patterns will make you think of cozy nights lounging by the fire. Line up candles on the top of the mantel, or add soft, hazy photos depicting cozy landscapes.
- Evergreen: Another mantel idea for winter is to draw inspiration from evergreens! Evergreens are trees that don’t lose their leaves during the winter and stay green all year round. Using bold and dark green shades in your mantel design is a great way to introduce color into the space while still making the mantel match the season. You can add small green trees to the top of the mantel and use a green monochrome wall print to hang on the wall above your mantel. Instead of incorporating a metallic into this design idea, consider using black and white to neutralize and complement the shades of green.
On top of so many design ideas for winter, the season also has a couple of holidays you can decorate your mantel for. These holidays offer versatility in the style you decorate your mantel because you can do so much with them! Check out some of our favorite ideas for the following winter holidays:
- Christmas: A quintessential mantel decorating holiday, Christmas brings with it much joy and warmth! It’s definitely needed for the cold winter months. There are so many ways you can decorate your mantel for Christmas. If you’re a fan of the traditional, definitely keep it simple with golds, greens and reds. Large bows, tinsel and warm string lights hung across the front make for a cozy, traditional feel. If you’d like to try something different this Christmas, why not go for a farmhouse chic look? Using rustic metal tubs, combine woodsy accents such as pine cones with chalkboard art and a snowflake burlap banner to go with some chic Christmas stockings! Farmhouse decor is all the rage, especially for the Christmas holiday. No matter what mantel decor you choose for Christmas, make sure it matches the decor style of your Christmas tree!
- New Year’s: Ring in the New Year with a unique New Year’s mantel design! Decorating with blacks, golds, silvers and whites, incorporate sparkle and shine for your New Year’s mantel. For a unique touch, place a large antique clock on the ledge of your mantel. Set it for the alarm to ring at the stroke of midnight! Add metallic stars, or go crisp and clean with a simple Happy New Year’s banner and cone-shaped party hats lining the top of your mantel. Regardless of your decor style, your New Year’s mantel will be the perfect photo backdrop for your party!
Your mantel has a lot of design potential! Each season has its own possible styles and colors. Get designing your mantel today!
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