No Fireplace? No Problem!

Do you like our new "fireplace"? Okay, so it doesn't give out much warmth (or any) but I wanted to have a mantel where we can hang our stockings When it isn't The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, this is three bookcases placed side by side. The bricks are two pieces of decorated foamboard (I used Sharpie to draw the brick pattern). I didn't have black posterboard so painted a piece of cardboard and cut out the flame shape with an exacto knife. It is backed with a piece of translucent paper ( vellum that was painted orange and red, in this case, but tissue paper could work). The red and yellow flames and the logs on the front were cut out of cardstock and taped on. The finishing touch is the light of the "fire" shining through - a string of battery-operated lights place on the empty shelf behind the cut out.