My Summer Mantel

Yay! The 4th of July mantel I've thought about doing for years has finally been birthed! I have Twitter and Pinterest to thank.

Layla, over at The Lettered Cottage, tweeted about an upcoming summer themed link party she was hosting on June 18. I mustered my best intentions and told myself I was gonna join it. I'd been thinking about it quite a bit, but had done nothing to make it happen except pin a couple of pins onto my Fourth of July board, with the intention, of course, to make what I had pinned - someday.

Then Jon Acuff, who I also follow on Twitter, tweeted "Four words from the book I'm writing:"

Ok, that's a good smack on the forehead.

And last night, with a little lot of help from my girls, we put something together that makes us all smile. The only thing I had to buy was some patriotic scrapbook paper for our garland. The couple of websites that I looked at to make it are I Heart Nap Time and Hoosier Homemade.

With all that said, here's what we did.

Nothing too fancy, but enough red, white, and blue to get us in the mood for fireworks in a couple of weeks!

My good friend, Sue Roweton, made the pillow on the hearth for me years ago

I like using things that mean something to me in my decorating. A couple more items here fit that bill.

In front of my dad's clinic, I sold tons of lemonade out of this igloo when I was a little girl.

My fourth grade history book

1776 was the first time I was introduced to David McCullough. Love him. And I read to our kids from Bennett's book.

I picked this little gem up in Williamsburg, VA, after reading about it in McCullough's 1776. At the age of 14, Washington wrote down these rules from an English translation of a French book of maxims about polite behavior. Here's the 1st:

Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present. 

And the 90th:

Being set at meat, scratch not; neither spit, cough, or blow your nose, except if there is a necessity for it.

Yes, please! Or better yet, say "excuse me" and sashay to the restroom.

Our finishing touch was the paper fireworks. These now have meaning for me because the girls and I had a good time making them together.

Like I said earlier, our little fireplace festivity going on makes me smile.

So does my intention turned into action.

Yay! Happy Summer!



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