DIY Scroll & Christmas Mantle Decor

I love my wood burning fireplace this time of year! It was at the very TOP of my list of “wants” when we were house hunting before buying our current home. The realtor said he figured it must be a “nonnegotiable because I had a wood burning fireplace written as number one with several exclamation points.” Yep, not square footage, not number of bathrooms, but a wood burning fireplace. 

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Fireplace Mantle: My Favorite Place to Decorate

What did my lovely fireplace, (that I have all the heart eyes for) come with? A MANTLE! If I had to resign myself to only decorating one place in my house each season, it would most likely be the mantle. It’s so fun to get it looking spiffy for each season, but having decor for multiple times of the year could get expensive-fast! (I want to show you my newest sign I made for this year’s Merry and Bright Christmas Home Tour. It’s a scroll! Best part? All you need is a marker, some paint, and some inexpensive brown craft paper!)

If you want to see my “cheater method” for making this garland-that’s-not-a-garland, stay tuned ’till the end! (I’ll let you in on my little secret!) 

Easy Scroll DIY

I have seen beautiful brown paper scrolls all over Instagram! I immediately thought it would be such a great DIY to try because if I messed it up, I would only be out the cost of the paper. (You can get the paper at Dollar Tree! Shazam! Maybe I should add that to my list of things to buy there?) 

Easy, Frugal Decor with BIG Impact

This is a SUPER cheap way to make a BIG impact on a shoestring budget. (Y’all know that is how I roll!) 

I used some beautiful new ribbon I picked up at Michaels on 60% off clearance as the inspiration for my sign. (It’s a little odd to me that, in some stores, Christmas things are on clearance mid-November now. Although I’m not complaining! I love a good sale as much as the next frugal gal!)

Now when I say “inspiration,” what I really mean is I sat on the carpet right next to my little Christmas tree, tilted my head to one side (because the ribbon was running vertical on the tree), and drew the words on my paper (trying as best I could to copy the font).

Once I had a marker outline, I made it a tad thicker. 

Paint Your DIY Paper Scroll

Then it was time for the paint. (My red paint pen wasn’t showing up as vibrant as I wanted, so I switched to red acrylic craft paint. If I was doing a different color I might have been able to stick with the paint pen, making this DIY even quicker.) 

About an hour later I was done! 

To make the scroll stay rolled. I added some hot glue on the inside (so it wouldn’t be seen) of each rolled end to secure. 

Hang Your DIY Scroll Up & Enjoy

String some twine or ribbon through the top roll and you are ready to hang your scroll! (These are so lightweight that I just used a 3M Command Hook. I should have bought stock in these little babies when they first came out- I swear by them! I use them all over the house! 3M do you need a spokesperson? I am your girl! Ha!) 

I Have a FREE DIY Scroll Printable

If you are nervous about free handing your sign, don’t fret! I have two 8×10 printables for you! Once you download the printable you can use the step-by-step tutorial here to whip up your own sign in no time! It will look JUST like the signs you see in all the decor stores, but basically FREE! BOOM! (If you want to go “rockin’ around the Christmas tree,” for a “victory lap,” go for it, sister!) 

Once you get that marvelous sign hung up, your mantle will look a little bare. Not to worry, we can get it spruced up quicker than it takes Santa to come down the chimney! 

Mantle Decor Hack

The greenery on my mantle is not a garland. Nope. Have you SEEN the PRICE of those suckers lately? Even at Michaels and Hobby Lobby they are wildly expensive (at least for my budget).

Mantle Decorating Tip: Use Tape

Enter: the easiest way to fake a dramatic, cascading garland.

I use a few floral stems and some…..

masking tape. (Yeppers! Can you believe it?) 

Here’s the photographic evidence to prove it. The base layer that I have trailing down each end of my mantle? I just bent it (gotta love the wire sometimes in those floral stems) to get the right shape and then taped that sucker down until it was secured. Don’t skimp with the tape on this layer or it might end up falling off and taking everything you have on your mantle with it. Not that I would know this from experience or anything….

I put a tiny piece of tape on the front in the center of the mantle to use as a reference point so I could make sure I layered each side evenly. 

Once you have your base-layer taped, you just add more stems (with ends pointing toward the center) until you get the fullness you want! I added some berries from my yard to pull together the red from the scroll and also some real eucalyptus I had too.

Faux Garland Mantle Decor

This cost me a fraction of the price of one of those pretty Christmas garlands. And guess what? I like it even more (and not JUST because I saved a huge amount of money, although that definitely gives me all the feels too). I love using things I already have and finding new ways to make them feel new! 

So there you have it, the secret to getting your faux greenery to look just the way you want it to? Tape. Yep, cheap masking tape.

And all the mamas said: “Hallelujah!” and “Joy to the world!” [wink]

Do you have a decor tip or trick you use “behind the scenes” that you would want to share? Tell us in the comments!