Spooky Black and White Halloween Mantel

Though it's been months since moving to our new house many boxes still sit unopened in the garage so I was happy to open the one with my fall decorations knowing that they had a place to be unpacked.

Because it's still a few weeks until Halloween, and it's 86 degrees outside, and feels nothing like fall, I used black and white decorations for the mantel.  My Thanksgiving/Autumn decorations are mainly oranges and browns, and in an effort to avoid looking at those colors until Christmas, the black and white spooky mantel was born.

I love the way all of the black and white looks with the silver metallics of the decorations and the gold mirror I rescued and had restored a few years ago.

The antlers that I painted white look like bony fingers holding up the black cat.

I've used my same white painted branch for an Easter egg tree, a Christmas snowflake ornament holder, and here, as a bat tree that throws the best spooky shadow on the wall behind it at night.

After Halloween, I'll switch out some of the black and white for more of my brown, orange, and green autumn decor for Thanksgiving. I hope that by then, Georgia weather will have changed enough to make me feel just a hint of what fall in NY feels like. But for now, it's the perfect time of year to have a black and white mantel.