Here in the Pacific Northwest, it doesn’t feel like summer until August.  Nevertheless, it’s time to change my spring mantel arrangement into something a little more summery.

One of the things I love about summer is the return of the bees.  I love to watch them on my flowers and listen to them buzzing around my herb garden.  If I wasn’t deathly allergic to their stings, I’d be a beekeeper.  Even so, I’m considering it.  What’s a near-death experience when you can harvest fresh honey from your own backyard apiary?

When it came time to decorate my fireplace mantel for the summer, I thought a bee theme would be fun (not to mention less dangerous than building a hive in my backyard).   The only thing I own that works for a grouping like this is an antique honey jar I bought a few years ago from a little farm stand out in the country.

If you remember from my spring mantel makeover, my goal is to decorate my mantel without spending any money (okay, so maybe a little money).  Mostly, I look around for things I already own or can make myself.   Well, one little honey jar doesn’t make for a very interesting summer-themed mantel, so I had some work to do.

First, I created some bee art on a piece of 5×7 canvas I already had.  I printed a bumblebee line drawing from this website onto parchment-style paper, tore the edges, and modge-podged it onto the canvas using a homemade mixture of equal parts Elmer’s glue and water.

I painted the edges with black acrylic paint, let that dry, and then dabbled over it with gold.  I wouldn’t normally do this kind of finish, but the canvas sits back in the shadows and the gold helped soften the edges.  I finished it with a little raffia bow.

As you can see from the photo, I also found a couple of gold coffee mugs to use as vases for the bright blue flowers I picked from my yard.  The wire garland of amber-colored beads was a thrift-store find.  I love it.

I added some candles and a giant letter Z from the clearance section of my local craft store.  It’s supposed to represent “Bzzzz” but it would probably work better if I had a giant letter B.  Oh well.

Still, the mantle needed a little extra something, so I decided to make a honey sign, like something you might see at a farm stand.  I rummaged up a piece of scrap wood from the garage and painted it up.  I wanted it to look rustic and weathered, so I didn’t worry that the board was a little dirty and rough.  All the better!  Still, it needed something so I wrapped it in a bit of leftover chicken wire from the garage (instead of decorating mantels, I should probably clean my garage).  I love that chicken wire has a honeycomb pattern.  Perfect.

It turned out cute, although a little more “country” than I was going for.  I might put a glaze over it to tone it down a bit, but then again, maybe I won’t.  Maybe I’ll just stick more stuff in front of it…

Finally, I arranged everything this way:

But that was a little too balanced, so then I arranged it this way:

Then I moved it back the other way.  I can’t decide which way I like it better.  Furthermore, I think the entire thing turned out a little too “cute” for me, but it is kind of casual which I like for the summer.  I’ll probably tinker with it some more.  I will sit here in my chair and stare at it and think of ways to make it less cute and more artsy instead of cleaning my garage like I should.  That’s probably a really good use of my time.

So there you have it!  My summer mantel on a budget.  What do you think?  Is it too cutesy, or just right?