Nifty Fireplace Decorations

When we bought our house, one of the selling points was that it had a fireplace in the living room. I am a sucker for a fireplace. I had visions of rocking my babies by a roaring fire on cold winter nights. It didn't take us long to realize that while that was a beautiful thought in theory, in actuality the fireplace was a heat sucker and very drafty. This fact, was a sad reality for a young couple who had just invested their life savings into their "house of dreams", and did not have spare money to spend on outrageous heating bills. So, Dear Hubby stuffed insulation into the chimney to keep the drafts at bay. Sad for me, because I couldn't built my homey fires. I did try placing candles in the grate and lighting those to simulate a fire burning. Also great in theory, but candles produce heat and have open flames, that may or may not, start the insulation on fire. My poor fireplace sat forlorn and empty, until I discovered the joys of flameless candles.I am thinking these are one of the greatest inventions since sliced bread!! Looks like a candle (they are made from real wax), smells like a candle (mine smell faintly like vanilla), tastes like a candle (just kidding, I really didn't "taste" it). All the pros to real candles without the flame or the mess. The little LED lights flicker just like a real flame, they are battery run, and mine even  has a timer. I can turn them on, and five hours later they turn themselves off (thus saving battery life).

If  I use my imagination they even kind of look like fire burning in the fireplace. I saw the candles at Costco. They were next to the Christmas decorations and were priced at $19.99. I thought they were a dandy invention the first time I saw them, and I knew they would be perfect for my fireplace redo. I even put them in, and took them out of my cart about three different times during the Holiday season. I just couldn't justify spending $20.00 on frivolity, so my sneaky husband bought them for me. He wrapped them up and put them under the Christmas tree. He looked like the cat that had eaten the canary when I opened them up on Christmas morning; bless his sneaky little heart!

Along with my spiffy new candles, I added in a few Aspen logs that hold smaller LED flameless votive candles. They originally held small candles, and I scored them for FREE from a friend's yard sale. I placed some cinnamon pine cones that I bought a few years ago in an after Christmas clearance bin in between the candles and votive holders. The pinecones have lost their cinnamon smell, but they look pretty festooned around the candles. Now whenever I am hankering for a fire, I can just flip the little switch on the bottom of my candles and viola..........an almost fire!