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Autumn is my favorite season. The changing colors outdoors bring a bounty of inspiration, and it is the perfect time to update your home decor to invite in a new gorgeous color palette. From festive wall art to fanciful table decorations, here are some fantastic fall decorating ideas that take no time to create.
All for Fall Entryway
Your entryway is the welcome you receive every time you open your door. Use the fall's harvest to showcase the fruits of the season. My favorites are Indian corn, acorns, gourds and unshelled nuts. Create a fun tabletop display by grouping like items together in large glass hurricanes, or reuse your glass lemonade pitchers and fill them with any kind of unshelled nuts and long stems of curly willow. Hot glue cinnamon sticks to a long shallow tray and use it as an elegant and fragrant key holder. Update a summer floral arrangement by adding a few drops of red food coloring to the water in a sunflower-filled vase. Experiment: Add more or less depending on the shade of orange you desire.
Walls That Wow
Update your decor for the fall months by sprucing up your walls with artwork that can change with the seasons and home fashion trends. I love to press flowers and leaves; this simple art project incorporates that idea. Purchase an 8 x 10-inch frame that fastens with bendable metal clasps inserted into the wood of the frame and not the back. (This is important because you won't be using the back.) Purchase another less expensive frame and use it only for the glass insert. Place the frame face down and place one piece of glass in the frame. Collect leaves from your yard, or find unique faux fall foliage at your local craft store. Sandwich the leaves between the pieces of glass and secure them together by pressing down the metal supports on the frame. You can simply hang these on the wall as is or attach a decorative ribbon to the frame and loop it over a decorative curtain rod finial. If you choose, you can secure the finial to the wall using an anchor, then you can switch the finial out seasonally as well as the art. Acorn inspired finials are a delightful seasonal touch complemented by burlap or rust-colored velvet ribbon. Cut 2 1/2 feet of ribbon and tie one end to an eyehook on the right side and then tie the other side of the ribbon to an eyehook on the left side. Now you're ready to hang your pressed foliage on the finial.
Art with an Autumnal Flair
Wallpaper is a chic way to incorporate rich autumn colors and patterns into your home. There are beautiful patterns out now that can transform the look of your room, giving it a cozy warm feeling. Wallpaper can be really expensive, but for this project you will only need one roll. Cover a plywood board cut to the dimensions you choose. I like the grand impression of a length of 8' and the width of about 2'. Cover the entire surface of the board with wallpaper using traditional wallpapering techniques or temporarily adhere the wallpaper to the board with industrial Velcro, staples or tape. Prop the board up against a wall behind your sofa or spice up a blank wall. Now, you have a piece of art without the permanence and expense of covering an entire wall.
Festive Fall Tabletop Tips
Centerpieces are the most noticeable way to show off your love for fall with all of nature's seasonal offerings. Fall conjures thoughts of with Thanksgiving, and in preparation, create a table runner that will remind all who dine in your home of what you are thankful for. Write phrases of gratitude on individual pieces of paper in pretty script, scan the offerings of thanks into your computer and print them on iron-on fabric transfer paper. Then, simply iron them onto a store-bought runner. If you host Thanksgiving this year, ask your guests to write down what they are thankful for and you can make a new one next year with last year's entries. It's a great way to create a home decor tradition. Or create a clean and contemporary centerpiece by filling a long shallow tray with unshelled nuts or acorns, then, set scented pillar candles in the tray. You can also decorate glass votives with tin leaves you create from used soda cans. Gather up some safety goggles, gloves and snips. Create a pattern of a simple leaf shape on a brown paper bag. Trace the pattern onto soda cans that you have cut open into sheets. Cut out the leaves with snips and punch a hole on one end with a small nail and hammer. For a vintage feel, leave the soda logos visible on the leaves or for a more polished look, spray paint them with copper spray paint. This is one of my absolute favorite looks. Using steal gauge wire you can wrap the leaves around votives to create whimsical fall candle holders, or gather together a whole bunch and layer them across your table.
Add a touch of fall to your floral arrangements by adding apples halved or sliced long ways and cinnamon sticks to the water of a clear vase. I love to use this centerpiece when I am having guests over for dinner. Black-eyed Susan's in a simple vase with apples and cinnamon sticks are a conversation starter, and a lovely reminder of the beauty autumn has to offer.
