Yesterday, after finally clearing the creches off the mantel and piano, I decided I wanted a planned mantel. It’s always what I want, actually, but somehow never what I’ve had. I googled around and finally ended up reading at The DIY Playbook and got an idea what I’ve always done wrong.

I was sure I had a “before” photo, but if I do, I can’t find it. It’s not in iCloud or on Flickr. So… I played around with GIMP, cutting, pasting and drawing (generally spending too much time on it). This is a general idea of what the mantel used to look like.

It’s not a faithful reproduction (I forgot the bricks around the screen) and definitely not to scale. The point is that I just lined things up on the mantel. I tended to try and balance the lineup, but it was boring.

For Christmas it looked like this.

This isn’t a great photo, but it’s all I got. The Creches here and on the piano really gave a pleasantly warm feel to the room. I liked them better than the tree and our tree was gorgeous au natural.

Now it looks like this.

Finally a relatively decent photo. (I’m clearly not a photographer.) The photo is also lighter because it was a sunny day.

I’ve since added two small angels to the group of angels and fairies at the left. I also moved the tulips out more to the sides of the fireplace. I need to put the small picture into the frame properly and I’d like to add more greens to the tulips. Maybe more tulips and/or other spring flowers.

I also had a creche on the piano.

I’d show the whole piano, but it had “stuff” all along the keyboard cover. I’ve started to redo the decor there, too. I want to change the pictures on the wall. I love what’s there, but it’s been there too long and I have so many pictures that can be used. The piano used to have a lot of old family photos on it. It needs to be less crowded. Family will be relegated to a gallery wall (probably in the hallway). More on this when I actually do it.

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I think so much more than I write. Readers are probably just as well off for that, but I think it also edits me. Not the real, actual me, maybe, but the me I present to others. It’s not usually intentional, at least not consciously. It’s impossible to write fast enough. I can’t even speak fast enough. and if I slowed down my thinking, not that have any idea how to do that, the thoughts that get away wouldn’t exist.