How to Make a Faux Holiday Mantle

Not everyone has a mantle in their home to hang their holiday stockings from, and this poses a slight decorating dilemma during the holiday season.

Our founder, Marian Parsons (aka Miss Mustard Seed) was asked by HGTV.com to create a DIY solution to this common problem.

Marian’s solution?

A "faux” mantle!

Building a Faux Mantle

Marian has a full tutorial on how she built her mantle, which we’ll share at the end of our post. She includes all of the pieces you’ll need to cut, how to router them to make a decorative edge and how to fasten them together.

MMS MilkPaint™ on Raw Wood

Marian built her faux mantle out of raw pine wood, so she decided to paint it with MilkPaint™. Our paint is THE BEST on raw wood! Learn why by checking out this post:

Painting the Faux Mantle in Tricycle MilkPaint™

As her color of choice, Marian used our vibrant red, Tricycle.

Because she was painting such a rich color over raw wood, she didn’t need to worry about bleed-through. No priming was necessary! Now if you want your mantle to be a light shade (like our Farmhouse White), we recommend you prime pine wood.

You can read more about that in these blog posts:

Finishing the Faux Mantle in Hemp Oil

Our saturated colors (like Tricycle, Boxwood and Ink Blue) look superb when finished with our Hemp Oil. It’s such an easy finish to apply. Simply pour a bit into a small cup and brush on with a chip brush, foam brush or wipe on with a lint-free rag. You can let the Hemp Oil soak in for a few minutes if you wish. Then, wipe away the excess oil from the surface using a lint-free rag. We like to use shop towels or rags in a box. (Maybe skip the old t-shirts, as they may leave fuzzies on your project.)

Adding Stocking Hangers

Finally, Marian needed a way to add stockings to hang by the chimney with care, in the hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be there. She drilled holes in the bottom part of her faux mantle, and screwed in a set of glass knobs from behind. As a tip, Marian recommends using flat headed screws as opposed to button headed screws. This will help your faux mantle hang flush against your wall.

Marian’s Faux Mantle Tutorial

You can see the full tutorial on how to build Marian’s faux mantle on HGTV.com HERE.