Happy fall everyone!
Don’t ya just love the colors and smells of fall?
Fall is such a fun decorating season too and you don’t have to spend a lot of cash either.
I am amazed at how little I have spent over the years on fall decor. Take these window swags and door basket, these are two good examples of Fall Decor on a Budget.
I always start my fall decor on a budget by looking around my yard. Yep, fallen branches is a good place to start unless you don’t have trees. Then just do what Lesley does and go for a walk after neighbors trim their trees and rummage through curbside piles. 
Every summer I have Cosmos and Day Lily. Both provide some stalky materials. This year I used Day Lily stalks on the front porch steps.
Have you noticed how quickly fall and holiday decor appear in the stores? Well, this means some awesome deals on summer clearance! 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.
I forgot to take a picture of this unfinished, so this is shown with a coat of bright yellow paint.
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.
After all paint is good and dry, take a piece of sand paper and lightly sand removing some 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.
Them I coated them with a med to dark stain. FYI Minwax Dark Walnut makes everything look awesome!
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…
A long doubled piece of very thin 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 that are barely visible 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 Fall Decor on A Budget!
