On the Mantel

We're still waiting to pay off some bills before we buy big pieces of furniture, so I'm trying to appease my urge to decorate by looking for smaller things like pillows for the sofa, picture frames, that sort of thing. Whatever we put on the mantel will have to be a rotating collection because we have lots of things that have stayed packed away for a couple of years, and I'm ready for everything to be on display. But having it all out at once is too much, of course, and makes a space feel cluttered. So I'm thinking I'll change it up every couple of months. Here's what's on the mantel now:

three vintage Danish candle holders, a vintage Swedish Dala horse, the yarn-wrapped bottle vase I made, and a vase from Jonathan Adler.

Actually, Jonathan Adler is having a 20% sale right now! I bought that blue vase (and another one still packed away somewhere), many years ago. There was only one Jonathan Adler store (in NYC) at the time, and they didn't even have a website! If you wanted to order something, you had to call the store and have it shipped. They didn't even have a 1-800 number. Now Jonathan Adler is a ginormous brand all over the world, of course. It's amazing how much they've grown. And the opposite is also true for other shops. As I unpack things, I find treasures purchased from sellers and shops that have long since closed up. I suppose there's a lesson in there somewhere, why one brand succeeds and another one doesn't. I wonder: is it luck? Marketing? Or something much more complicated? What do you think?

I only intended to share a small snippet of my house, and now I'm getting all philosophical. Must be because I'm another year older now, and that's what old people
do. ;)