Simple Farmhouse St. Patrick’s Day Mantel

I feel like I have been a little MIA around here lately, we have been busy with some projects around the house and it seems like the winter months are a little harder to get motivated for decorating. Has this winter seemed extra long for anyone else? I am REALLY craving some spring. I did manage to get some decor up though so today I am going to be sharing a simple farmhouse St. Patrick’s Day mantel with you all. Besides the fact that it is a fun holiday, another nice thing about St. Patty’s Day is that spring weather is soon to follow. 🙂

I wanted to decorate a simple farmhouse mantel using more neutral tones with a few pops of green. After all, it is for St. Patrick’s Day so we have to include green! Decorating in neutral tones also makes it really easy to transition into an everyday mantel after the holiday. I just have to remove the book page shamrock from the wreath and the shamrock garland.

The book page shamrock was a fun project that I recently shared with you. Check out the tutorial if you want to make one yourself. I was inspired to make something after I went out to the stores looking for St. Patrick’s Day decor and was left wanting. Does anyone else think they need to step up their game on decor for this holiday?

I suppose it is because not many people decorate for it, so the majority of the decor is kinda cheesy. 🙁 Oh well, it gives me a reason to get creative and make something new. This book page shamrock turned out really cute and is something that you could use in many ways. I think it looks fantastic hanging here on the boxwood wreath.

I already had the shiplap background up on the mantel from my Valentine’s Day mantel decor but thought it looked a little plain with only the boxwood wreath hanging up. So I layered our DIY tobacco basket on the shiplap, then the wreath on top. I love the look of layering and this was perfect solution. The basket also brought in some variation in the neutral color palette I wanted.

This tobacco basket remains one of my favorite DIY’s we have done. I still have to put together a tutorial for the shiplap background. I will get to that, I promise! Remember that lack of motivation thing I was talking about earlier… yeah, that!

This farmhouse shamrock garland was one that I made last year. I still love it and I really wanted to use it on my mantel this year. The ticking stripe fabric screams farmhouse and I knew it would fit in perfectly with my theme. I have really liked the layered garland look lately too, so I just left up our wooden bead garland.

Something was needed along the bottom of the mantel and I thought some books would coordinate perfectly with the book page shamrock. I have admired other mantels where they have used vintage books in their displays. I had some books in a box that we haven’t used for years, so instead of donating them, I decided to transform them. Some of these books were older but some were not so I needed to make them all look vintage.

Also, some were paperbacks and some were hardcover and since I wanted them neutral colors, I decided the easiest way to make them look vintage and fit into my theme was to just tear off the covers! Since these were not books we used and were probably headed to the thrift store anyway, I did not feel bad about it. If you want to try this and don’t have any books, check out your thrift stores! You can find cheap books there!

I grouped them together by size and turned some backwards for more interest. Then I tied some twine around them to make bundles. I love the look! It was really easy to do and I know I will be using these books in my decor in the future too. 🙂

Lastly, I felt like the mantel needed a little more green. You can never go wrong with plants, right? I had received some flowers recently and these were filler plants in them. I am not even sure what kind of plants they are. The flowers died off but the plants were still good so I cut them down to fit into these votive candle holders. They are still going strong but they sure suck up the water fast!

I think they were the best addition to the mantel. The plants fit in with the farmhouse look and provide the needed pop of green. What do you think of the mantel?

I started a St. Patrick’s Day pillow project to share as well but it is taking a little longer than I thought it would and the green colors in it do not play well with the greens on the mantel. So I will save that project back for next year. Maybe it will be a spin off for a future St. Patrick’s Day mantel. 😉 Next up…spring! Yay!!