The Neutral Winter Palette

Hello! Thank you for stopping by my blog. I am eeking out a winter decor post before all things are moss and tulips! Today is March 1st - yippee! I have been busy gathering all my items for the Marche Maison spring window display at the bottom of Allentown's historical Americus Hotel. The window theme will be spring indeed but in a neutral palette kind of way. Speaking of neutral palettes - this is a picture of my winter "mantle display." I call this my mantle because I have no fireplace - sniff sniff. We had one in our old home and I thoroughly enjoyed changing it out every season. So this will do until we have a fireplace again! I had so much fun putting this vignette together this winter. It evolved over time....

I started with two different stick type arrangements and I just wasn't feeling it. I decided to move the sticks with the cute tags to the right and bring the little shadow box over to the left to see if that felt balanced....

I like it much better. You will see that I later changed the burlap out from behind the iron burnt out candelabra art! I felt it was drawing too much attention to the brown squares of burlap and I wanted it to feel more airy, more white - all white! Tell me what you think - better with or without the burlap. I tweaked it one more time when I purchased an amazing old antique door with a rusty latch. It is on its side on the right...

Here are some closer pics of the door. Rusty, worn, cracked and perfect. When I change my "mantle" for spring, I will enjoy finding a new home for this door, maybe I will even be able to display it upright next time.

I also kept adding little things as I stumbled upon them to that shadow box!

I added the little iron miniature chairs, a heart cookie cutter for Valentines Day and my seasonal decor partner in crime gave me the adorable galvanized house/barn - it fits perfect! Here are some other pictures closer up of the vase of sticks with the wooden tags

I don't know if you can read each of these tags? I am squinting to see them on my desk top - time for glasses! They read Cherish, Adore, Wish, and Love. You want to hear something funny? I just thought to myself "I wonder what those words say below Love?" So I went downstairs to look at it and thought, I love these definitions and there is a faint script print in the background that is hard to see in the picture. So I took them off the branches and took them to my dining room for the best lighting because it is night time. Here they are!