Modern Christmas Mantel Ideas

Sharing my modern Christmas mantel for the year! It’s got black, white, flocked greenery, fairy lights and tons of texture.

Decorating a holiday mantel without garland has been a challenge since we moved to this house and have this funny stub wall to the one side of the fireplace. In our last place, my seasonal mantel always began with layering greenery (faux or real), then adding in decor. When we moved in last yer, I threw my garland up on the mantel and was so disappointed to see that it just didn’t work. It made the whole thing feel so off balance and not in an intentional or good way.

Adding the flowing flocked faux greenery on the walled side and the large flocked greenery in the large vase on the other side balanced it out and helps that wall to feel like less of a decorating challenge. Now that it’s our second year with no garland, I’m loving how clear and modern it looks. It’s clean, not cluttered, and sticking to a neutral palette like this lets me add in lots of texture without it feeling over the top.

This year, I am excited to partner with Kitchen Stuff Plus and all the ladies from our Modern Handmade Home series to share my 2019 modern Christmas mantel ideas! I’m so excited to be adding a few new things this year that complete the look and I’ll honestly have a hard time doing anything different next year!

I’ve had some gold reindeer figures for probably 10 years and since kids? Well, they’ve broken and been glued back together and this year was the end of the last one. I’m excited to be able to replace them with these geometric reindeers and switched to silver. I love gold but there’s something about mixing silver and gold that I’m loving these days. I have a lot of gold decor already so these geometric silver reindeer are the perfect way to mix metals.

The other thing that I went overboard with in the best way is those little ‘frosted’ trees. Aren’t they adorable?! I had planned on doing a forest on the mantel, but when we decided to leave the painting over the mantel for the holidays (Shane’s only request this year for decor), it felt really crowded up there, so I spread them around instead- two with my foil print, then a cluster around one of our nutcrackers on the hearth. These trees are the perfect size for scattering around as decor on the kitchen or bathroom counters, on the end tables, and even as a centrepiece.

I really wanted to add height to the side opposite the vase of flocked greenery so turned one of my glasses upside down to add more height to the taller ‘frosted’ tree. I love how this makes it a bit taller than my picture frame and fills the space. Finally, I added in a few of those beaded pinecone ornaments to balance the silver geometric standing reindeer and they reflect the light so beautifully.

Last but not least on the mantel? Those little fairy lights. I love how lights make everything more magical at Christmas. These little ones run on battery packs so you don’t need to worry about running a cord and they’re so lightweight they can go on the faux greenery without weighing it down!

As for the stockings, I used these lovely faux fur stockings from Kitchen Stuff Plus and dressed them up with these simple white metal snowflake ornaments. The snowflakes totally pop against the dark fur and I love how playful the pom poms on the stockings are!

I’m so happy with how it turned out! I had picked out few more ornaments that I wanted to feature on the mantel but when that forest idea didn’t work out, I put those on my tree. I wanted to show you them anyways though! These cute little houses light up and those leaves? SUCH beautiful metallic colours.

More Modern Christmas Decor Ideas

Make sure to hop around and check out the rest of the Modern Handmade Home posts in partnership with Kitchen Stuff Plus– these ladies picked some of the same pieces I did but they look totally different in their spaces! I love the gold version of the reindeers that Andrea and Lindi use too!

Left to Right / Top to Bottom:

• Mine!
• Andrea’s faux mantel decor ideas (There’s more than one! the other one is DREAMY!)
• Lindi’s modern holiday kitchen
• And Thalita’s festive open shelving