I was excited to decorate our home for the fall season this year because we recently bought a new house and I knew it was going to look gorgeous in fall colors.
As we all know, however, decorating can add up in costs quickly and since that wasn’t in the budget this year, I knew I had to take what I had and make it work. Today I’m going to share some of my tips for sprucing up your decorations that already exist and giving them a fresh feel.
I gave myself $25 to add a few small, new times to my pre-existing fall decor collection and headed to Hobby Lobby. Just in case you weren’t aware, Hobby Lobby marks all of their fall décor 40% off in late summer and you can always find something to add to your home. I love grouping random pieces together and buying a little something every year; this gives my decorations a less matchy-matchy feel and I can build up my decorations slowly, without breaking the bank. This year I added an adorable wooden fox and some small pumpkins to fill my lanterns.
Since that was all I bought, I felt the need to change up my older items a bit.
I have these cast iron candle holders that I really didn’t want to put candles in this year. They weren’t striking me the way they usually do, so I decided to get a little creative. I used burlap scrap pieces (you can buy a huge roll of wide burlap ribbon at Hobby Lobby for a very low price) and placed them in the holders and put a couple of small pumpkins in them.
I used the same burlap in orange and filled my cast iron pumpkin. I usually leave this empty but because of where it was sitting, it seemed to disappear in the background. When I filled it with burlap, it suddenly stood out and looked awesome! I added green straw ribbon to the pumpkin and the cast iron gourd to pull them together.
The lanterns on my mantle are used every season and I just change out the décor inside. This is where those pumpkins I bought this year came into play: I filled them with pumpkins and burlap leaves. I decided to do one lantern with white pumpkins and one with orange to make them go compliment each other but not match. This added a nice layering effect. I used that swag that I snagged the small pumpkins for the candle holders as a ring around the lanterns and no one would even know the pumpkins are gone!
My favorite decorations were made by my boys, each on their first fall season. I love the autumn tree made by one child’s arm and hand and the candy corn made by the other’s feet. It’s a nice to touch to add in framed artwork and keeps the season sentimental!
I used the remaining burlap ribbon I had as a runner on my cabinet and window frame instead of buying a runner, which was a huge money saver! Plus, since I was using ribbon I could measure it to exact fit.
Finally, my fall wreath was homemade from last year so it was nice to not have to purchase one this year. This isn’t very expensive either, again, shop the fall sales at Hobby Lobby or other craft stores and you can add your touches and color preference!
Have fun decorating this year and before you toss something you think is old and unusable, keep it and try to change it up a bit!