Re-purposing for the Mantel

The other day, I decided to do away with the remaining Christmas decorations.  Really, Katie?  Still?  Yeah, yeah.  The stockings were still up.  After I pulled everything down, I went to put up the old decorations on the mantel.  But I couldn't find them.  What?  I hate to sound incredibly old, but I am becoming more forgetful.  I couldn't find them anywhere.  They were these little boxes of fake grass, which sounds silly, but they worked well to hide where our tv plugged in.

With the mantel looking plenty messy with cords showing, I was a little frantic.  I searched everywhere I could think of, even weird places.  Nothing.  And I didn't want to go buy new ones.  Instead, I decided to "re-purpose" a few things from around the house.  Here is what I came up with.

This is what our mantel used to look like.  Clean.  Simple.  Green.

And here it is now.  In the photo, it looks like a little less simple and "clean," but certainly more interesting and a nice change.

On the left side, I have a terrecata pot (that will eventually hold a mint plant), a jar of corks topped with a bird, an old envelope with a Christmas letter from Christopher's great-grandfather, three Faulkner novels tied together with twine and a little rosemary, and a teacup.

On the right side, I have a teacup, two books (The City of God and Wuthering Heights) topped with an incense burner and a necklace (that will certainly be moved), and an old camera.

Today I did something a little bit daring for me.  Just a little bit.  My friend Stephanie (who is expecting her first babe at the end of June) invited me to go along with her to this mom's cafe thing.  It sounded cool enough and I had been hoping to find some playdate groups for Eliot.  He is such a sweet and social boy.  When he sees babies or kids, he stares and stares.  Poor baby needs some friends!  So, I went along and it was really great to meet new people (all of them moms) and hopefully get connected for a play group.  I knew there were a lot of like-minded, young moms in Lynchburg.  It was just a matter of finding them.