Fall decorating

I do love decorating. And shopping. And Americanos. And ice cream. And chocolate. And plaid. And flannel. And wine. And drinking wine while eating chocolate ice-cream in my plaid, flannel shirt after a day of shopping and Americanos. Back to fall decorating though…I have several annual Fall decorations that I routinely pull out this time of year. They all have one thing in common: Simplicity. They were simple to make and/or are simple to put into action.  Here is a metal container of faux red apples and cinnamon sticks. Year to year, I do change out the container the apples and cinnamon sticks sit in. This choice depends on where it will be displayed, access to little hands and what container is freed up. This rustic metal container won out. And the apples are available to the little hands of the house, but I’m going with it. A game of hide-the-apples, anyone?

This “Harvest” sign was created in less than an hour. I took a scrap piece of barn wood and lightly sanded it with a rough utility brush. By the way, several years ago I purchased 10-15 pieces of scrap barn wood, and I not only used every piece for different projects, but I loved creating all of them. Hobby Lobby has an entire aisle dedicated to letters. I chose the roughly five inch high letters and painted them with Annie Sloan Old White chalk paint. If you get a little sloppy with your paint, this chalk paint is a dream, and you can lightly sand it with a 220 grit paper…you could even go to town sanding and give it a vintage look. Lucky for me, my barn wood slab was fairly level, so wood glue was totally sufficient to glue the letters down.

Flannel, plaid blankets are the newest addition to the Fall decor. I have spent a few too many hours online looking for the perfect plaid runner for the formal dining room table. No luck. My next choice was to find plaid fabric (preferring flannel for a bit of texture and weight) and make my own runner. Unfortunately, the two fabrics I fell in love with were unavailable online. After four failed attempts at calling fabric stores to beg inquire if they had any of this fabric left, I went to Plan C: finding flannel, plaid throw blankets! and Home Goods came through with two that I adore. I layered the two under a woven circular basket filled with miniature white pumpkins and white squash (mental note: cook these sometime soon).

Happy Fall. Happy Autumn. Happy It’s-Not-Winter-Yet-Thank-Goodness.