Fall Decorating

I've never really been that into decorating my house for holidays.  Christmas, absolutely, but everything else has normally fallen by the wayside.  When Skip and I were first married and living in our tiny condo, I didn't really have the space for housing decorations, nor the drive to put things out just for us.  When we moved into our current house four years ago, I originally had grand plans for decorating for all holidays, but I soon found myself miserably sick and pregnant, or caring for an infant pretty much the whole time we've lived here.

But as my baby shop is closed, the girls are a little older now and starting to appreciate the holidays, I figured it was time to start decorating!  I really didn't have much to start with, and with expensive decorations not really in the budget, I really had to squeeze my creative juices.

First I started off with some fall-like place mats I scored at the supermarket for 93 cents a piece.  They're vinyl place mats, which I normally don't like, but these don't look it at all!  I then brought up my vase of fake sunflowers {I only display them like once a year so people don't remember they're fake} and think our table looks pretty nice.

The next time I was at the supermarket, I snagged these dish towels to brighten the kitchen up a bit.  They were on sale too, I think around $3 or so?

Next I started working on a wreath for our front door.  I had done some Christmas wreaths last year to give to family, but wanted a fall-like one of my own.  I found the wooden wreath form and two kinds of fall-like yarn at the dollar store.  I splurged on a pre-made bow from Michaels for about $3.  I just wrapped the two different colors of yarn around the form and added the bow.  It's not my favorite craft, but it brightens up the door a bit.

Finally I was ready to tackle my fireplace mantle.  I was inspired by this pin I saw on Pinterest.

I already had some vases I wanted to use, so I headed back over to the dollar store today to see what I could come up with.


After just a little effort, here's my finished product.

The tray, pumpkins, candy corn, and candles all came from the dollar store.  I had had all the vases already from parties this past summer, but I had also purchased them at the dollar store.

My version is not exactly like the pin, but I like the way it came out.

I needed some height to the whole thing, so I took some of the taller vases, added some Whoppers candy I had leftover, and grabbed some sticks from our backyard!

I'm so happy with the way this came out, and love that I can pretty much keep it up until after Thanksgiving when it's time to break out the Christmas stuff!

So what about you, do you decorate for the fall?  Where do you get your decorations from?