4th of July Mantel

With Year Round Trick for Propping Those Stars — or Globes, or Whatever — To Stand Tall & Proud!

The 4th is the time to stand tall and proud. Sadly my stars refused, laying over limp no matter what … until I came up with the simplest trick! Now I’m ready for so many holidays.

Our brick wall and elevated huge fireplace dominates our family room. I love it, but it also means space limitations for mantel decor — short and wide. And this wall is dark, so I’m always looking for ways to brighten it.

A recent Home Goods find is perfect there. The long galvanized planter filled with boxwood fits the shape and brightens it. Check. Check. Bonus: it’s season-less.

And that same Home Goods treasure hunt yielded the white cut-out light.

Love it with my blue & white pieces and at night it gives us some much needed light on that wall. It tends to overpower the stars, so for now we let the stars shine and it just stands by waiting for its turn again.

So Let’s Decorate my Mantel

So to go all patriotic, I added:

2 strands of whicker stars mini lights (from Target Dollar Spot)
6 small flags (acquired over the years)
2 globes (I stole from a light strand I had)
4 red berry picks (from JoAnn’s this season) note I pulled three of them apart to spread the red out more
wooden skewers
my favorite Fat Max snippers

Our Starting Point:

Lay out my two star mini light strings. Tried really hard to make them stand up — UGH!

But now they look great! Check out the trick at the end!! And you can use this for many more decor vignettes, year round!

Add the red berries.

To keep the eye moving and extend the display, add a full red berry pic to the blue & white on the left side.

We’re talking patriotic, right? So of course we need flags.

And a few more flags on the left.

Needed something more on the right and a change in shape. I found a string of these flag globes in my stash and absconded with two of them.

My mantel is done!

Now, That Trick I Promised:

With your snippers, break those wooden skewers in half. Don’t bother measuring. Just eyeball it.

Now stick that skewer into the foam and then force the top of the star onto the exposed end of the skewer. It virtually disappears. If your stars are a color, you can go the extra mile and paint your skewers to match. Or a short length of sturdy wire works too.

Can you see it? Look close.

This same trick works for virtually any accent pieces as long as they are some sort of woven piece that has space for a skewer, or sturdy florist wire to support it.