The holiday mantel...

Okay, so the appearance of this post is a couple days late as Valentine's Day would have been a more appropriate day to show these!
In my last house, I used a console table as a "holiday table" and tried to get in the spirit of each holiday (with a few exceptions...I don't do St. Patrick's Day, for example!). Well, that console table is being used for a different purpose in our new house, so my mantel has become a "holiday mantel." It featured my "New England Village" houses and people for Christmas, but when I took that down, I wasn't ready to decorate for spring and Easter in January (unlike every retail store on the planet), so I thought, Valentine's Day! However, I really didn't want to decorate with paper hearts and pink candies...I wanted an elegant, sophisticated display that oozed classic romance instead of Hallmark Gold Crown. So, with the help of my dearest Kate, I came up with this display (small caveat: I am NOT a great photographer, so any picture I tried to capture the candlelight in is a bit blurry):














Kate had this wonderful idea to print off antique valentines and frame them, but upon further consideration, I was inspired to find translations of the words "I love you" in a couple of different languages (since I'm a pretty big fan of words, I thought it rather fitting). So, I printed these off and found some black satin frames at Jo-Ann Fabrics for $1.50 apiece!!!

Here is "I love you" in Spanish:















And in French and Hebrew:















The candles are Pier 1's newest scent, called "Mad Love."

To top it all off, I found this cherub candle-holder at TJ Maxx, which is my second favorite store (SteinMart is my MOST favorite store; I call it "Steiny" because I'm just that fond of it) for only $19. All in all, I think I spent between $40 and $50 on all the decorations (cherub, frames, greenery, candles), which was a splurge, but I can re-use everything next year but the candles!

Here's my little cherub: