Natural holiday mantle

Last year I went with a modern and fun mantle, so this year I wanted something a little more traditional. My mother-in-law made us a gorgeous boxwood wreath for our door, which inspired me to use boxwood on our mantle. She was nice enough to clip all this boxwood (and more) from the bushes in her yard for me to use (I know, I have the best mother-in-law ever). I pinned this rustic holiday centerpiece a couple weeks ago while looking for table setting ideas, and decided to use it as my mantle inspiration instead.

I rummaged around the house to find a bunch of white candles of varying heights and widths, and I found a bag of natural pine cones in my Christmas stuff (I wanted to use my DIY glitter pine cones, but I couldn't find them!). In fact, the only thing I spent money on was a strand of faux berries from Wicker Emporium (which I got for $2.88, including tax).

I just cut the strand into pieces of different sizes and stuck them in amongst the boxwood. I love the little pops of red in all that green and white!

So far I've been loving sitting on our couch and taking in the mantle. I'd love to DIY some tartan stockings to hang (that Adam, Hannah and I will use when we start doing Christmas mornings at home), but who knows if I'll get around to it this year. We're getting our tree this weekend - I can't wait!