Happy Mardi Gras! Decorate with easy to make crafts

In Louisiana, it isn’t uncommon to find your friends and family taking down the red and green of Christmas decorations only to replace it with the celebrated colors of Mardi Gras- purple, green and gold.

While I haven’t lived in Louisiana for nearly 8 years, I find myself missing the joyous times of family style parades found in the smaller southern towns and the general spirit of the season. And of course let’s not forget the King Cake!

I don’t decorate for it every year, but this year we decided to host a little Mardi Gras party and I wanted to try and create some simple themed vignettes around the house.

Thankfully, I have been hoarding a big box of beads, some Mardi Gras ribbon and various masks because there wasn’t much to choose from in craft stores here in Alabama. This forced me to think creatively.

And y’all by now,  that I like to put my creative thinking cap on regularly. For a low centerpiece on the dinning room table I picked up some purple and yellow violas and placed them in a pewter tray adorned with fleur de lis.

To decorate a Mardi Gras tree, I kept out a few of my green and gold ornaments from Christmas and added touches of purple to my tacky tinsel tree. These wooden, laser-cut crowns are from Michael’s. By spraying them with a hit of gold spray paint and adding a few stick-on jewels from my scrapbook stash, they were the perfect touch for this little tree.

On the mantle, I gathered a few glass hurricanes and gold vessels, filling and draping them with beads. I also recycled my gold and glimmer garland from Christmas too!  The tutorial for making your own garland can be found here.   The oil painting was a lucky thrifty find at my local Salvation Army last year. For the party the trio of gold votives were lit for a bit of evening ambiance.

Working with ordinary grocery store flowers, I combined yellow daffodils and a lovely deep purple and white Alstroemeria to create a subtle Mardi Gras arrangement.

Oh, and I don’t want to forget to mention the front door wreath.  I used a simple straw wreath wrapped in a deep purple satin ribbon, hot gluing the ribbon in a few key spots on the backside to keep it all in place. I finished it off with an oversized metallic green, gold and purple bow. I also treated the ribbon with water-proof fabric spray. (Affiliate Link provided for your convenience.)

I considered adding beads, but decided that the more simple look was fitting for my home in Alabama.  Don’t want my homeowner’s association coming after me with my over-the-top decor. Ha!

While I realize most of you won’t be rushing to your calendars to set a date for your own Mardi Gras bash next year, I found very few unique ideas for Mardi Gras decorations on Pinterest. So, I’ll be pinning this graphic below as my own home grown Mardi Gras Public Service Announcement.

Happy Mardi Gras and “Laissez les bons temps rouler!”