Fall Mantel Decor Ideas

Create a beautiful fall mantel or vignette with these cozy fall mantel decor ideas. Easy tips that can be adapted to your own color preference and decor style.

Fall Seasonal Simplicity Series

Welcome back to another week of the fall seasonal simplicity series! So far, we’ve shared some delicious fall recipes as well as some fun fall crafts and DIY projects. This week we’ve got fall mantels and vignettes lined up for you. There are over 20 beautiful fall mantel ideas to help inspire you to create a cozy fall mantel {or even just a fall vignette!} of your own. You can find all of the projects at the end of the post, so be sure to check them out!

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Fall Mantel Decor Ideas

I always find our mantel a little challenging to decorate since it’s SO long! It’s hard to find that balance between keeping it interesting and not making it appear to cluttered.As a result, it usually takes a little playing around with it before I get a look that I like. Today I thought I’d share my step by step process that I use when it comes to switching up our mantel decor…

Start with a focal point.

When decorating a mantel, I always find it easiest to start at the center and work my way outwards. Choose a focal piece for the center of the mantel that you love. It could be some artwork, a mirror, or other interesting wall decor. You could even use a grouping of a few items together if you don’t have one large piece that you would like to use. Whatever you choose, this will serve as the anchor for the whole mantel display and should be the biggest and tallest object in the design. The visual “weight” of the focal point should also balance out the visual weight of the wall space above the mantel and the fireplace below.

Since I wanted to switch up our focal point for fall and didn’t have anything to use, I made my own DIY canvas sign. Creating your own focal piece is a great idea if you can’t find anything that you like in the correct size for your space. Since the canvas is fairly light, I was able to easily hang it using a Command Canvas Hanger. It always makes me happy when I don’t have to add nail holes!

Add width and visual weight.

It’s time to add on the next layer! Think of what you would like to add on either end of the mantel. This tends to be easiest when the items are the same on each side, but, if you like to be more creative, you can definitely use different objects. The most important aspect is keeping the visual weight similar between the two sides. You also want the height of the objects to be a little smaller in size than the focal point {but not too small!}. As a very rough estimate, I like to make the height of the objects on either side about 2/3rds the height of the focal piece.

Because our mantel is so long, I generally go for more of a symmetrical look on either side of the mantel. For this fall mantel, I used some amber glass vases on either end with some faux fall stems in my favorite fall colors. I wish the amber bottles were slightly bigger, but those were the biggest I could find.

Layer on texture and interest.

Once you have the focal point and end pieces set, you just need to fill in any areas that are looking empty. Think of adding light layers to your mantel until you get the look you want. I started with an oak garland with acorns and pinecones. I then added some staggered pumpkins of various textures to draw the eye along the mantel. Ideally I would have liked to add a little more height somewhere along the garland but everything I tried just made it look too busy. I’m keeping my eyes open for some thin black pillar candle holders to try, but this will do for now.

Create cozy.

I always think of fall and winter as the cozy seasons, and love to use lights or candles to help create the warm, cozy feeling. I found these copper ball string lights at Michaels last week and I love them! Even when they’re not turned on during the day, they still give off a little glow when the light reflects off of them. They also come with a timer function so you can just set the start time and they’ll come on every night for four hours.

They look so pretty at night and it’s always a treat when they go on without me having to do anything!

And it feels even cozier with the warmth of the fireplace. We’ve actually only had one day that was cool enough to use it so far, but I know there will be many more ahead!