Hey, everyone! It’s Lauren from Mom Home Guide and I am still so excited about being a contributor here at Ask Anna! My kids go back to school today — it’s their first day of middle school! So, I’d thought it would be fun to dress up our family room’s living room mantel for back to school. This is actually the first year I’ve attempted to create a back-to-school mantel, so I’m ahead of the game this year! (Surprisingly!)
I’ve been scrambling to shop for my kids’ back to school stuff and organize their backpacks and back-to-school gear, so I thought I’d make it easier on myself and put less of a dent on my wallet by repurposing items and decor I already have on hand to create my back-to-school fall mantel.
I made my back-to-school banner out of chalkboard scrapbook paper that I already had. I cut out a triangular shaped pennant for each letter (and number) in my “back 2 school” banner. I free-handed the lettering of my banner with a Sharpie pen.
I then folded over the tops of each pennant lengthwise about a half inch so I could slip the top of each pennant over the length of string that I used for my banner. I secured each pennant with a piece of tape on the back of each pennant. BTW — I should have wiped my table off before making the pennant. I folded our beach blanket on that table after it came out of the dryer, and it’s obvious that not all of the sand washed out of the blanket after our weekend beach trip! LOL.
Some of the items I used for my family’s back to school mantel are composition books (those will soon go in my daughters’ backpacks for school), a spring green mason jar filled with pencils, a yardstick, a sunflower candle (it reminds me of the sunflowers blooming outside my living room window), a ceramic owl, a corkboard I decorated with ribbon and washi tape last year and a banana nutbread scented candle (my favorite candle scent).
I also stacked a few good books at the edge of my mantel, among them Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project,” “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, and “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout. I am actually reading Strout’s book at the moment. That means this back to school mantel will be short lived — much like summer was! It looks like I’ll be creating a new fall mantel soon!
Lauren
Here’s another creative project Lauren has been up to! Check out these DIY pillows, you’d never guess they were made out of placemats!
