As soon as September arrived, I felt an itch to put up festive mantle decorations, but I wasn’t quite ready to deck it out for Halloween… so I went with a football theme!
For this project, I started with the framed artwork on the mantle- normally, it’s a painting of bicycles – but since I enlarge a photo at Christmas to change it up, it made sense to try the same trick here too. Mom scanned in my dad’s sophmore football photo and I had it printed at FedEx Office, then mounted it on foam core. (cost approximately $15)
I try to utilize items that I already have, but it’s fun to toss in a few new pieces too. Since I couldn’t find a loving cup, I improvised with my champagne bucket and a vintage football that I found at the antique store last weekend. The clipboard came from at an estate sale awhile back, and I just printed out the Texas Tech football schedule to put on it. (The books I already had, of course, because I have book addiction – more evidence of that here and here.)
For the other side, I found a few treasures on ebay: a youth football helmet ($11), a personal chalk board ($4) and a Texas Tech pennant (from concessions stand sales in the 70’s, brand new condition, $12).
UPDATE: I had to correct the chalkboard play, as my football coach father was embarrassed that it wasn’t even “a real one”. For the record, I asked him to send me a play to use, and he DID… they just weren’t very pretty. My brother drew out a new play, and I think we’ve got a good compromise now:
A fresh coat of red paint on an old megaphone (who knows how long I’ve had that thing, maybe junior high?) add a nice pop of color to the left side of the fireplace.
For the right side, a folding stadium chair (from an estate sale for $5) and my bucket of fireplace tools (yes, it’s almost time for fires in the fireplace!) make themselves at home quite nicely.
So here I am, all ready for fall, and especially ready for football season!
How do you deck out your mantle for fall? I’d love to hear!
