Ah, Autumn is in the air. I love the crisp feel of the air and the smell of the fallen leaves crunching underfoot during a sun dappled walk through our neighborhood. I also love houses and looking to see what everyone else is doing to get festive for the Fall season. Here at our house, we usually go all out for Halloween. Graveyard, skeletons crawling up out of a freshly dug grave, fog laying low across the yard...but this year things are a little different. I was just having a little trouble getting in the mood for it, plus Noah and I will be spending Halloween in Tennessee for our tenth wedding anniversary, so we won't event be here for our traditional Halloween night. I took some Pin-spiration (and some from one of my favorite
blogs,) and this is what I came up with for our own porch this year.
I saw this idea on Pinterest and since I already had the porch rail basket up, I decided this was a must. I just transplanted my succulents out, left the sweet potato vine in and added two sugar pie pumpkins that weren't too heavy, a baby white one, and some real and faux greenery and flowers. I love it. Simple and quick, but a huge impact. The pumpkins were only $1 each. And it will stay all through Thanksgiving.
I really liked the idea of white and green gourds, but these orange ones stack up pretty well, too...
This is a scarecrow on a stick I bought at the Witches Night out last year in Lebanon. Finally found the perfect place for him. I will bring it in if it rains, though. It is handmade.
Ok, I took this lantern from inside the house and tied on a bit of orange glittery ribbon I picked up for 50% off at Michael's on my shopping trip Saturday, I layed down a bit more burlap to tie in the summery rattan side table, and used the vintage wooden toolbox I bought last year at the Belle Clair craft show. I just took one of my linen look napkins and layed it inside, filled it with some Spanish moss, and took some $1 faux gourds I picked up at wally world stuck on wooden skewers and placed them inside. A bit more glittery ribbon and a bit of leaf garland and I have a great seasonal vignette.
Now, I just wanted to cover my existing outdoor pillows, so I just used everything that I already had. Some fall colored striped fabric, osnaburg fabric, burlap, muslin, and some sponge stamps and paint. I just threw them together. Really. I layed the pillow down on the fabric, estimated how big to cut. Estimated how big I wanted my burlap and osnaburg for the front decoration, mixed my paint with a little fabric medium to turn it into fabric paint, stamped my words, let it dry, sewed the pieces together and just used ties on the bottom to take them off and on easily.
This is how they turned out.
Here I wanted to put something up across the lattice, but just a string of leaf garland was not enough, so I had the idea to gather some burlap and hang that to add some bulk to it. I just cut two strips and did a simple running stitch and tied it up with twine. It turned out to be just the perfect length.
I tucked these two little guys under the table. They were only $1 and $2.
I wanted to do the same type of gathered burlap on the hand rail, but it was going to take too long, so I settled for just wrapping a strip of it under the leaves.
I tied some leftover glittery ribbon to the shepherds hook holding the outdoor lantern. It has a timer and runs for 5 hours. It's a warm addition to the yard.
I noticed this just as I was finishing up. It's our first official fallen leaf!
This is our home. We have many more ideas to complete and share. We can only do everything on a budget, so we'll keep ya posted on how we get it all done and hopefully inspire you to get outside and create a little curb appeal of your own!
