Decorating For Fall

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a fabulous hump day! I wanted to finally post some pictures of the fall decorations in and around my house. It’s not really complete yet because I hold off on a lot of the Halloween related stuff since in Canada we have Thanksgiving first then Halloween a couple weeks after so everything is a work in progress. This first picture is of my fall wreath that took forever to find. There were soooo many options for fall wreathes but I wanted to be picky and not buy one until I found something that didn’t look super fake or over the top, I was holding out for “Mr. Right Wreath.” After looking at wreathes in all price ranges and zillions of stores I finally settled on this guy which I found at Wal-Mart for $15 smacka-roos. I thought it was subtle and brought out the red of my door really well. Man, was I happy to get something on that door too, I am not a patient lady when it comes to decorating for the season.

This is what it looks like as you walk up the steps to my house. The brown will all eventually turn black when my fella finds the time to make that happen. No idea when that will be....

I got this lantern at Ikea for $7 marked down from $15, which was a total score might I add. I find a use for it every season. This Christmas I intend on loading it up with holiday themed decor the same as how it’s packed with pumpkins and pinecones right now.

  These are my pathetic plants. The apple basket on the stand isn’t doing too terribly but I’m such a terrible gardener I can’t seem to keep my pots of mums alive. If any of you have any advice on where I’m derailing here please leave it in the comments. Side note, they looked gorgeous the first day I brought them home (pre-plant massacre) when they were in full orange bloom.

Well that’s the outside of my house at the moment, now let’s take a look-see inside shall we?

This is my little display area to feed my decorating vice. I don’t have a fireplace mantle to guccy up so I (my fella did all the work) put up these floating shelves which I found at Canadian Tire.

The candle sticks are from Ikea, they come in packs of three at all different sizes but if you end up smashing one like moi, then you only get two… but on the bright side, three sticks wouldn’t have worked on the shelf so all is well.

I got the “FALL” pumpkin candle holders from Michael's a few years back on major sale. I’m guessing it was on major sale because all they had left was “FAL” but I bought them anyways hoping they might bring them back the next year. What I silly fool I was to think that ever happens. So now I just disperse them around the house separately so it isn’t quite as obvious. (One year I tried displaying them as “ALF” as if it were intentional but that just made people confused and raised many questions which I had no sensible answers for.) The little mason jar was just something I had sitting around so I filled it with some delicious candy corn and tied an orange ribbon around it. I also had some cute Autumn stickers so I attached one as a “label” for the jar.

This is one of the few Halloween themed decorations I have up right now but I thought they were too cute to wait. I got them at HomeSense for $10 but I bet they would be easy enough to make if you had the will power.

 

  I haven’t gotten around to doing much crafty stuff of any sort so I was super excited to make this picture for my Fall display. It was pretty straight forward stuff. I used Fall themed scrapbook paper and some more of the stickers I had. I cut out the letters myself which took forever and then decided that they should have been bigger but I was not about to re-do it so here we are. Toss it all in a frame with a little glue here and there and this is what you get! The frame is from Ikea by the way, I believe it was about $15.

One thing I struggled with was the height of the second floating shelf because I knew I wanted there to be enough space to put candlesticks and picture frames on the shelf below but obviously the shelf needed to be at a height that made sense too.  I ended up going about three feet above my bottom shelf and giving the little pumpkins a booster seat to sit on so they could be seen way up there. (It’s an empty couscous box. Shhh!)

Lastly, I added some beaded branch looking wire along the shelves and that’s how my faux mantle came to be. I’d say overall it turned out pretty decent for my premiere attempt at Fall decorating in our first home.

  

I have a lot more of that wirey beaded stuff you put around candles and what-not so I strung some of it up from my light fixture for a little extra Autumn flavor. So far not a single person has noticed it without me pointing it out…. but I know it’s there.

   This is how the dining room is looking overall now. I plan on hanging some pictures or something on either side of the shelves but that’s a project for another day. I already have a few plans brewing so stay tuned!

      Moving into the living room I have decked out the space available to me as best I could. Candy corn has made another famous appearance in a much larger form here. I got this cute pumpkin dish from Target for $5 and loaded it up with treats. (If you want in on a dirty secret: the back of the dish looks nothing like the front because I may have been periodically dipping into it.. but there’s no evidence to prove that!)

In the center of the unit I kept it pretty simple on top with a line of tea lights which makes the leaves glow all pretty and possibly puts me at a higher risk of burning down my first home. But hey, it’s all worth it in the name of decor and design.

At the end of the unit is my other sole Halloween decoration. It’s a big white pumpkin I also got from HomeSense for $10. Once Thanksgiving comes and goes this weekend I’ll finish with the Halloween decorations and put up some new stuff. Underneath the giant pumpkin is some baby glass pumpkins I’ve had for a few years now. I got them from Safeway for about $2 each on sale so I snagged the last four they had. They were labelled as “dip bowls” but I thought they were cute all on their own and this way I don’t have to scrub dried up onion dip out of them.

There’s a few other little touches here and there in the entertainment unit like these orange Ikea candles and the little flower pots. I tried not to overwhelm the house and I was also on a tight budget so I needed to stretch what I had as best I could.   

  This is the overall view of my Thanksgiving themed entertainment unit. Like I said, I plan on making it a little more spooky after this weekend of as I call it, ‘grateful gluttony’ is completed.

Lastly is my bookcase area in the corner of the living room. These bookcases have become a catch-all for the random books and magazines and what-not that fill everyday life so try to ignore the lack of organization in these next few pictures and focus on the decorating if you would be so kind. Also take note of the lonely glowing “A” that was forced to be separated from it’s lettered siblings. *Warning Immature Joke Alert* It’s A-hole is glowing tee-hee.

 

These are my cheapo fake fall flowers that for some reason my cats cannot stop eating. It’s like crack for them so I had to make sure they were in an unreachable place. I suppose felines love the taste of inferior painted styrofoam and plastic petals. I layered a few fake leaves inside the vase to help it look fuller as well.

 

  Speaking of cheapo fake flowers, here’s some more for your viewing displeasure. I don’t mind using them for decorating because I’m not rich enough (or care enough for that matter) to buy fresh blooms every few days so I give myself an A for effort even if they aren’t the most realistic. The cats aren’t interested in these ones so I think it must be the mini styrofoam balls on the other flowers that have them hooked. Who knows what goes on in their complicated tiny melons.

   A side view of my bookcases gives you a better overall idea of the setup. Gotta love those fake leaf garlands.

I typically drape the garlands over whatever surface I see but one day I plan to invest in some good quality ones with pinecones and other fixins’ to make it look a little more full and purdy. That little brown pumpkin shaped trooper is my one and only “L” from the “FAL” fiasco. Every year I decide I’m going to just toss them in the garbage but I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

   I love these leafy little guys. I scored them on a post-season sale at Carlton Cards for something like $5. I think it’s landing the sales that make me like the things so much more. Like little trophies scattered throughout to remind me of good finds at super duper prices.

  

Well that about does it for my house at the moment. Stay tuned for some more decorating and other fun posts here. And please feel free to share with me some of your favorite decorations or those trusty tips for keeping pots of mums alive and well. Until next time my beauties!

 

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