Halloween Mantle

It’s fall!  Well, at least my calendar tells me it is.  It’s sunny and beautiful outside, but it is over 90 degrees as I write this.  So not really feeling super fall-like here in Southern California.  All the same, Halloween is a few short weeks away and it was time to bust out the decorations.  I finally retired the rainbow wreath from the front door.  It’ll make a resurrection in the spring.  I’m hoping to make a new fall wreath for the front door, but for now there’s a thrift store “Happy Halloween” wreath.  

Here’s what our family room fireplace looks like right now:

(a little more close up)

I made the sign last year when I hosted a Stella & Dot trunk show in the weeks before Halloween.  Since Halloween is such an over-the-top holiday, I like to keep it pretty simple… the only additions are a ribbon on the vase stand, orange flowers (Trader Joe’s), fake pumpkins (thrift store), real pumpkins (Trader Joe's and the kids' Harvest Festival at their school and the sign.

The copper pot which holds the pumpkins resides permanently on this weird  totally unfunctional bench-thing next to our fireplace.  It's not a lid there that you can lift to store stuff and you can't sit on it without hitting your head.  It mostly serves as a hard place in which to bump your shin if you round the corner too tightly.  So when my friend gave me this antique copper washing basin and laundry stir-er I knew the perfect spot for it!  It is not entirely filled with pumpkins.  I cheated and loaded pillows in the bottom and filled the top with pumpkins.  I think it looks beautiful filled with pumpkins!

Sorry I don’t have pictures of me making the sign, but it was so simple.  First, I decided how big I wanted each piece of burlap to be.  To do this, I first had to measure my mantle and decide approximately how much of a dip I wanted the twine to make.  Our mantle is quite long, so our twine is cut to about 6 ½ feet long.  (Full disclosure, I’m a math tutor, but I don’t trust myself, so I actually cut the twine longer just in case.)  Then I had to divide the length of twine the amount of letters.  (78 inches divided by 14 equals 5.6.)  I decided on about 5 inches across to leave room for spaces and at either end for hanging.

Then, to cut burlap in a straight line, (wish I had a picture for this), find the line where you want to cut, then pull the string at that line.  Pull, pull, pull until you have pulled that string out all the way across your length of burlap.  Then cut along that line.  This will give you a nice, even length for your letters.  These are a little more than 5 ½ inches long.  Then I measured them and cut the widths.  These are approximately five inches wide, though they vary.  (See below.)

Next, I typed on the computer what I wanted the sign to say.  Then I chose the font.  For this, I chose “American Typewriter”.  To write each letter, I enlarged the letters so that each letter was quite large.  Then I just used a black Sharpie to copy the letters.

Some of the letters weren’t quite centered in the square, so I trimmed the width on some of the letters.  Then I took my hole punch and punched two holes in each piece of burlap.  These are approximately an inch and a half in from each side and about an inch down from the top.

To thread the twine through, I folded the twine and pulled it through, starting with the middle letters on either side and ending with each end.  (In other words, I started with B and worked backward to Y and then O and worked forward until the L.)  Then I hung it with the very sophisticated Scotch tape on my mantle and covered the ends with my fake pumpkins.  Then I straightened out the letters and voila!  Happy Halloween!