Oh, My Stars!!!! Our Patriotic Christmas-in-July Mantel to Celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary!

Welcome to a Patriotic Christmas in July, dear friends! I am excited to be partnering with King of Christmas for this Christmas in July post. As our country celebrates its 250th birthday of American Independence, I came up with a patriotic themed Christmas in July idea to share with you! Let’s take a look…

King of Christmas kindly reached out to me this spring to see if I would like to collaborate with them again this year, and of course, I was happy to say YES! And because we are getting blistering hot already this summer, I thought we’d have a little Christmas fun here in July!

I have loved King of Christmas’ beautiful holiday products ever since purchasing my first flocked faux Christmas wreath the first year we moved into this house. You’ll see that wreath further down.

KIng of Christmas had my selection on backorder; however, they were able to ship me a box of goodies afterall and they arrived early!!! I found this box waiting for me after an afternoon out with a friend down in Dallas. 😀

Sorry about the mess in the background… We had a minor flood during rains the week before so sofas are moved around, the little cast iron table was moved to clean along the wall (spilled coffee, I think). My boots by my parents’ Japanese teak bar… Real life! Now back to decorating… 😉

Laying out the Goods

After taking a look at all of their product line again, I chose the Yorkshire Fir Collection 4-Piece Set with Warm White LED Lights (Battery Operated). I knew I wanted to create a Patriotic Americana-themed mantel using a garland as the starting point, so this collection was the perfect choice! This is a product sponsorship, but all opinions are my own, of course. 🙂

The Yorkshire Fir collection includes: (2) 3′ tall faux Christmas trees in sweet bronzed urns, a lovely 24″ round faux Christmas wreath, along with a matching 9′ x 12″ faux garland.

What I really like about King of Christmas’ products is that each piece is well crafted, the needles on each piece are quite realistic looking.

So, let’s get our decorating going, friends!

But first, we craft!

For our patriotic mantel, I first began with decorating our new Yorkshire wreath. I looked through my stash and found RWB ribbon perfect for wrapping this wreath in holiday charm…

To make our Patriotic Americana Wreath, I needed:

• Stars – Found these RWB woven cuties at our local craft store. I picked up (5) packages but only used four in total between decorating the wreath and the mantel garland.
• Glue gun & hot glue
• Wire twist ties – I pulled these from our kitchen drawer to wire things on (so the King of Christmas Yorkshire wreath can be reused!). A heavy duty one was twisted onto the back as a hanger, also.
• Pliers – to cut and twist wires as needed
• French wire ribbon – from the stash in my craft room, to add the finishing touch!

I began with hot glueing two or three stars together in spots, creating clusters of stars. Those were then wired on as a group.

I also found you could push a wreath branch through a hole in the star to make them “float.” The branch “disappears” into the background of the wreath so you don’t see it. I used this technique later with the garland.

Oh! Did I mention that these are all prelit? Each piece has small white LED lights.

This particular grouping takes (3) D-size batteries for each piece contained in waterproof cases. There could be a concern with the wreath as its battery pack is large, runs horizontally and is heavy when loaded. The holder and batteries are well hidden at the back of the wreath, a plus, in a very sturdy wire rack. Do make sure to really secure this wreath to your wall.

The battery packs for the other pieces are narrower, running vertically, and can be hidden behind the greenery on a mantel, and with the little potted trees, it can be tucked anywhere out of sight.

I have an older, flocked King of Christmas wreath ~ the Prince Jr. (no longer available) ~ which uses four AA batteries and it is very lightweight. You can see that wreath decorated with magnolia leaves, above, shown in a photograph of our front door from that first Christmas here (seven years ago).

Perhaps the lights were thought to be underpowered, which I have noticed a little on this older flocked wreath. (You can see that above, as compared to the other lights around the doorway.) I can see that as a reason to boost the battery type. 🙂

Stars & Stripes

To celebrate America’s semiquincentennial (250th) birthday, I had the idea to wrap a red, white & blue star garland around the King of Christmas wreath. I didn’t find any garlands like this, so… “Plan B” included using these woven stars plus ribbon found in my craft supplies, instead.

I thought of adding an Uncle Sam or a patriotic nutcracker for a bit of Americana. I love this Uncle Sam nutcracker tucked amongst the sparklers and stars and woodland greenery!

He sets the perfect tone for our festive look.

“Sam” is propped up on a narrow mercury glass vase “pedestal” filled with little styrofoam balls for the Uncle Sam to stand upon, and for the sparkly “fireworks” to set inside. The garland branches also help hold him up! 😉

I started to wrap the ribbon, but I found that tucking it in worked better! French wire ribbon is fun because you can mold it into shape, which worked perfectly here in this garland!

Creating groupings of stars in several spots continued our 4th of July patriotic theme. These groupings added just the right touch to mirror the look on our wreath!

Lastly, I added a few sparkly RWB picks to a vase and tucked that into the greenery opposite the nutcracker on our mantel.

The Big Reveal & Our Summer Living Room

Okay, here’s a tiny glimpse! This French ribbon is why I names this post “Oh, My Stars!!!!”

My husband, Mr. Ethereal, helped me hang the finished wreath over our living room mirror. Love how this turned out, friends!!!! Once fluffed, the wreath and garland take on a magical look of their own…

Here is a look at our living room towards the backyard’s west-facing windows. If you haven’t seen my post on what it took to make this buffet look this beautiful (and smell this good!), jump on over HERE next. 😉

Sometimes my photos look a little dark as the light changes so I photographed over a couple of evenings…

We love how we are able to style our Texas house! Creating this special patriotic mantel with King of Christmas’ beautiful Yorkshire greenery makes it all the better…

And there you have a Patriotic Americana Christmas in July look worthy of any magazine!

Thanks for coming along with me today as we created this patriotic mantel, dear friends! Please click on the link here if you’d like to order your own Yorkshire Fir Collection 4-piece set. It truly is a magical set!

Let me know what you think of this Patriotic Americana Christmas styling in the comments. I look forward to sharing the small trees in their urns with you as we decorate with the whole Yorkshire Fir set during the fall holiday season!

Just a little fun to help us “keep cool” this summer… 😉

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Happy Christmas in July, friends,