I have been a crafter and a do it yourself-er since I was very young. I grew up in a house that usually had a reno of some sort going on, and like a lot of large families, there was always a craft or two strewn across the dining room table. My parents were always improving our house and I really think it must be hereditary. My husband and I have renovated just about every house we have lived in. The house we bought last year was built in the early 90’s, and needs updating. It was empty for about 5 years before we bought it, but it has great bones, and just needs to be brought into this decade.
We started updating a little bit this past summer, and somewhat during the winter, so I thought I would periodically share some of our do it yourself and decorating adventures. So far we have refurbished the wooden deck, redone the back outdoor porch, pulled out so many over grown shrubs and trees that I can’t count them all, and quite a bit more which I will be posting about.
 This Winter Mantel is something I wanted to do as soon as I saw how blank it looked after the Christmas decorations were taken down. I was worried it might be too early for Valentines Day at the time. I wanted the mantel to represent the North Carolina winter as I see it.
