Happy Fall Everyone! Fall is my favorite season of the year! I just love the colors and the fall air. Since we have only been in this house for two years and just recently finished the front porch, (and a million other projects) I have not purchased any fall decorations. Our family has a lot going on right now and I found myself having little to no budget for fall decor. So, whenever I am faced with this type of dilemma, I improvise. First I look around at what I have for free. This is what I saw.
Yes, this is a fallen branch from a summer storm. Hummm, wonder what I can make with this? Even though my neighbor offered to cut this up and take it to the street, I decided to hang on to it.
Next I cut all the little branches from the limb and gather the long wispy stems from my Cosmos flowers when I cleaned out the beds. I bundled them together. I know my neighbors wonder what in the world I am doing! The next step was to visit all the over stock and craft stores for deals.
I forgot to take a picture of this unfinished, so this is shown with a coat of bright yellow paint. Anyway, I scored these adorable wooden and tin flowers for .89 a piece at Michaels. This was a summer clearance item, but I saw fall flower in the making.
After the coat of yellow paint dried, I added a coat of bright orange. The next step was to paint the tin part bright yellow, with the center painted dark brown. (Sorry my pictures for the next few steps are on my lab top with a crashed hard drive. Ching, Ching!) After all paint is good and dry, I took a piece of sandpaper and sanded lightly, removing some of the paint here and there. On the tin part, I just ran the sandpaper across horizontally taking a little paint off to give it a worn look. Then I took them outside and coated them with a med to dark stain that I had on hand. Now, I have 13 (all they had) wooden fall flowers and bunches of sticks. What’s a girl to make? Oh, and I found some lovely plaid fall ribbon at Big Lots. Let’s take a look at my fall window swags…
I made a large bow out of the ribbon. Each spool had 18 ft. and I used 9 ft. per bow. The ribbon bow was attached to the back of the flower,then attached to a long rectangle piece of burlap that was simply folded together. The entire contraption was then attached to a bundle of sticks with a very long piece of floral wire that was doubled. (The stick bundles were first wrapped in duct tape and then wrapped in burlap strips.) Now to attach to the windows.
The long doubled piece of floral wire is securely wrapped around the swag, slid under the screen and attached to the jack o’ lantern light. I “formed” the wire up and around the lip of the window and shut and locked the window on top of the wire. This holds everything in place. The Halloween lanterns were purchased at the Dollar Tree years ago. We just love them especially on Halloween night. As long as your swags are stiff, this method will hold your decor in place through wind and rain. Take a look at the swags in our dining room on our front porch.
Finally, I needed something for the front door. I found the hanging cornucopia packed away and had four wooden flowers left. So I took some left over tomato stakes, glue the flowers to them, stuck them into Styrofoam and covered the Styrofoam with burlap. A lovely fall garland (1/2 price from Michael’s) surrounded the door with fallness. Here’s the price breakdown:
- Wooden Flowers: $13.00 with tax
- Stick Swags: Free!
- Ribbon: $21.00
- Burlap: Free!
- Fall Garland: $21.00
- Total: $55.00
For a little over the price of a nice fall wreath, 9 windows and the front door were decorated. All this can be stored for next year. We would love to hear about your creative and inexpensive fall decorating ideas.
