Christmas mantle

I know Christmas has passed, but I wanted to share photos of my mantle this year.  It’s evolving and changing. This year, I created a chalkboard greeting.

This is probably the hardest place for me to photograph in this house. The light from the windows above create havoc for me.  This photo uses the flash, gasp, but it’s about the only way I can get the colors and reduce most of the glare from the windows.

Closer…

 Just the mantle…

I’m pretty happy with the results.   I think this is a look I could definitely repeat, but I’m going to have to draw a new greeting. 🙂

Wondering how I did it?  It’s much easier for me to to hand letter if I have a guide. So,  I started by laying out the verse in Adobe Illustrator.  Here’s what my guide looked like on my computer.

Then I free handed it with chalk markers, which I don’t love for a couple reasons.  They are not at all forgiving and they don’t erase all the way.  But they do have a clean finish, which is nice. I hope to get some chalk pencils soon. They are chalk in a pencil form. Awesome.

Overall, I was so happy with the way the chalkboard looked, I used as the front side of my Christmas card design. 🙂

I’m working on my winter mantle now.  I’m picking up the print to go over the mantle tomorrow.  I’ll share that soon!

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