Steampunk Mantel Dismantled and Remantled

You may recall that after I had gathered my 'steampunk' goodness and put together my family room mantel, I did NOT love it.

But being Pollyanna, I knew not to be discouraged.  Looking at things the 'glad game' way, a failure is just an opportunity to try again.

You can see my cluttered and random mantel to the left.  I took out a lot of the smaller items, and you will see what I did with those items in future post.

This time I brought in my 'steampunked' wreath (clock face graphic compliments of Karen at Graphics Fairy.)  I also brought in some old books, larger clocks and the fabulous and unusual film reel that I found at flea.o.logy last week.

In looking for balance rather than clutter, I focused on gathering my favorite vintage green items, defined a theme 'eggs' and tried for an overall shape; high on sides to low in the center.  I also added a small banner to make sense of the theme.  I wanted a common phrase that involved 'time' and 'eggs' .... after deciding against 'good morning' as too common, I went with '3 minute eggs'.

Egg items include the green bird case filled with book page decoupaged eggs, an egg rack for boiling eggs with an 'hour glass' egg timer on it, also filled with said eggs.

This egg scale, brought home from the antique mall, (luckily old green) completes the trio of 'egg items'.

In the end I was very happy with my whimsical reinvented mantel.