This simple vintage patriotic mantel is a beautiful way to decorate for the 4th of July! The look is classic and understated while still giving off festive merriment.

I did a little decorating around here recently and added a fun vintage patriotic mantel for the 4th of July. Even though I don’t always decorate for the 4th, I was ready to change up the mantel décor as it was still my spring farmhouse bird mantel. I recreated this mantel when we moved here, and it was the one I used all last spring and summer too. While I don’t change my furniture around a lot, my mantel and other decorations get changed all the time, so I was itching to do something different!

Can you even believe we are quickly approaching the 4th of July!? I kinda have a love-hate relationship with the 4th of July. While I love the holiday itself and celebrating it, I hate that it represents that the summer is half over! I am hoping now that we live in Florida, I won’t have to worry about that anymore. 😉

We had an old vintage flag given to us and I really wanted to create a mantel using it. It is definitely the focal piece of this mantel and it set the theme for it as well. I just draped it across the our DIY shiplap backdrop. I love how the flag looks like it is blowing gently in the wind. Speaking of that backdrop, I will be finally sharing a tutorial for that soon! Better late than never, right?

I wanted the flag to be the center of attention so I kept the rest of the décor fairly simple. In fact, it was so simple that I didn’t even change out the candle holders or crock from my spring mantel.

Both items worked perfectly already for the vintage theming. In addition, they also gave the needed height to each side of the flag so why change a good thing? 🙂

If you are a regular around here, you will also notice something different around the mantel. For a long time, we used to have our boy’s silhouettes flanking the mantel. I decided to change things up and found these farmhouse cathedral windows at Home Goods. Love how they perfectly blend with this mantel!!

For the center of the mantel, I had this idea to put some big numbers, 1776 to be specific, in the foreground of the flag. Remember my post a couple of weeks ago about how to easily upcycle signs? I used the same premise for these signs, then printed and cut out some large numbers. I just taped the numbers on making sure they were flat to the card stock in the frames. Super easy and cute, huh?

I layered the signs to give some depth and variation to the mantel. I love how they are all different sizes too. Usually I am all about symmetry, but this just works! So after I got the mantel done, or so I thought, Mr. Wonderful and I both agreed that it was missing something…

I tried out several different garlands but nothing seemed to work. Either they were too burgundy in color so they didn’t match the flag or they looked too nautical or country for the theme. Then I remembered my fabric stash. 😉 I keep a lot of scraps and so I literally went through my scrap bag to find some pieces that would work for this garland. Don’t throw out your scraps! You never know what you will be able to use them for!

I made a simpler version of this fabric garland, but it uses the same idea. After going through my fabric scraps, I picked out some colors that would coordinate with the flag and either cut or ripped the fabric into strips. I tied the strips onto my wood bead garland and spaced them out somewhat evenly.

I didn’t bother to iron the strips of fabric or cut off all the strings as I wanted them to have a ragged vintage look anyway. To hold the garland in place, I used small command hooks on each side of the mantel.

I love how the fabric strip garland finished off the look of the mantel. It was like the cherry on top, or bottom in this case 🙂 I also added a cute little vignette on the coffee table.

All of the patriotic pillows you see are some that we made several years ago. I love switching out my pillow covers to use for holidays. You only use them for a short while so it is almost like getting something new each year when you get them out again. 

Minus the cathedral windows which I bought when we put the mantel up after moving, this was a zero cost mantel! I can’t really even count the windows as those will remain up on the wall for a while anyway. I am big on reusing what you have and not having to go out to buy something new to show you guys every time I decorate. Hopefully this shows you how to reuse what you already have in different ways.

I hope you enjoyed my simple vintage patriotic mantel. I am hoping to post a yummy 4th of July dessert next week so I will get to work on that. Have a great rest of your week!