Spring & Easter Mantel

If you follow me on Facebook, you'll know that I have been having a small case of 'bloggers block.' I've been working on a post, but just can't seem to find the right words to explain, so until then...you get some crafts. Cause it requires a little less words and a lot of pretty pics :)

So to begin, last week I posted some Easter inspired decor pics that included using black...which is how my Easter Mantel came to be!

The backdrop for my Easter Mantel was some fabric covered embroidery hoops, which have been in my closet forever-awaiting another project, but I scooped them up for this in the meantime. 

For the one, I used a plain cotton in a natural tone and stamped the word SPRING on it. The final touch was some pretty flower pins{that you can get with some of my scarfs in my shop. See?! you really can clip them onto anything!}

 I needed something else to balance out the black and white fabric so I used some scrapbooking in frames...

With the leftover paper I shredded it up to make some filler in the bottom of the glass vases, which provided the perfect contrast to the brightly colored eggs!

The final touch was the paper flowers, I knew immediately that I wanted black and white ones, which is kinda the total opposite of what spring stands for, but hey, it's fun and quirky, so I like it :) 

Overall I love how it turned out!!! It was a complete contrast to my Spring Mantel last year which was all pastels, however I still had to include the turquoise! 

So the trick to using black in such a colorful season dedicated to bunnies and eggs?  Use it sparingly. Make sure you balance it with white to brighten it up, and toss in your favorite color too :) I wish I had taken a pic of it from a distance, where you would see that on either side of my fireplace I have very dramatic black and white nature prints, which also help to pull it all together!

Have you decorated for Easter yet?

linking up with Homework, Fluster Buster, Gingersnap Crafts, From Dream to Reality, Adorned from Above, Mercy Ink Blog, The Artsy Girl Connection, 52 Mantels, Live Laugh Rowe, I Gotta Create, Little Inspiration, Tatertots & Jello, Sugar & Dots, Lolly Jane, The Gunny Sack