Fireplace Makeover

I've mentioned before that I've been doing some major tweaking. One of the areas I've been working on is my fireplace. I've had it decorated this same way for about two years! Can you believe it? I really liked the look of the window frame and I loved the wreath, but the wreath was hard to keep clean. It had some pip berries in it, so I had to watch getting it wet or the berries would split open and lightly batting it with a dust rag caused some of the other berry thingys to break off. So I decided it was time to take it down. And you know how it goes - one little change snowballs into a major makeover!

This is the before picture:


And this is the after:

There's the tavern sign I gave a tutorial on in a previous post. I also made a new game board. The red one with the star was made couple of years ago. The mantle clock was made with a clock I bought at WalMart for $3.97. It was so easy!! I'll share the tutorial in my next post. I still need to find something to put on the left of the clock. I'm thinking something round to soften the hard edges of the boards and mantle clock. I was thinking a couple of the tall canister-shaped stacking boxes but not sure if it would be too many because of the ones on my t.v. (I know, I know.. look at that ancient t.v.! For 20 years old, it still has a great picture, so I can't convince hubby to replace it with a flat screen.)

The chair on the left side of the hearth was Golden Brown and I painted it Territorial Beige. On the right side of the hearth I replaced the small bench with a larger one and placed the crock with twigs that was on the mantle on the bench. I also added a bowl with rag balls. You can see a close up in my header picture. The rag balls were made from suit jackets that I bought at Goodwill. Regular price was $6.00 each, but I went on customer appreciation day and got them for $3.90. I made 3 balls out of two sleeves. I saw some rag balls at one of my favorite prim shops selling for $5.00 a piece!!

I also changed the fireplace screen with the one we had in our family room. I liked the style of the other one, but it didn't fit right, which drove me nuts! I still don't know what I'm going to do with the actual fireplace. We don't build fires in it anymore since we got new carpet a couple of years ago and I didn't want to take the chance of making a mess from hauling in wood and cleaning out the ashes. So, for now, I guess I'll just leave it empty.

Well, that's it for now. I'm still tweaking other areas and will post pics when I get them done.