Note Card Party: Faux, Faux, Faux!

I am a big fan of faux...in home decor, that is.  Faux lasts longer.  Faux does not demand special care. Faux substitutes when the real cannot be had.  So I unashamedly take advantage of faux elements when decorating for Christmas, sometimes combining them with the authentic.  

Can you identify the faux in these four photos, my choices for Vee's December note card party?

Dining Room Mantel ~ Della Robbia Garland

Did you guess?  The pineapple is faux, as are the pomegranates, pine cones, and the garland of greenery.  The oranges and the brown pods are real.  

Pomanders

Are you getting tired of seeing these pomanders?  ;)  I told you how to make them ~here~, and then they appeared ~here~, and again ~here~, so you may already know that these are made with faux fruit.  

Rosemary Wreath

The wreath, too, is faux.  I once made a wreath of fresh herbs, and I loved it!  I even loved it after it dried, and I hung it in this same window over my kitchen sink.  But the kitchen sink is a busy place and over the weeks (months?) that it hung there, it was bumped and it crumbled a little at a time.  When I saw this faux rosemary wreath in Target, I grabbed it too quick to talk about, and here it hangs years later.  However, the little sprigs of rosemary peeking up from a windowsill vase in the bottom corner of the photo?  They're real, snipped from my own herb garden.  

Mantel Top Display

Today, Kati taught me a new word: fantel.  Have you ever heard this word?  I had not.  

Apparently, fantel means "faux mantel."  And that is the "faux" part of my final photo.  It is not a mantel at all, but is a surface that I have treated as a mantel.  

I was inspired by a photo in an old Country Home magazine. Stylist Matthew Mead had lined up candles across a cabinet top "as a welcoming alternative to a roaring fire," and I thought "why not?" I added the pops of red berries as Matthew did, and went so far as to hang our stockings on the cabinet's knobs.  We have been calling it our "faux mantel"...until today.  From now on, it will be known as my "fantel," at least at Christmastime.  

Why don't you consider joining
this month's note card party
over at Vee's Haven?

(Click the button for details.)