Posted on October 18, 2009 - by Estate Manager

Fall Decorating on the Cheap

This week at Hearthstone House we have been very busy in preparations for fall. We made or reused items around the house and spent $5.00 total on supplies. I bought a wheat bundle and some small ornamental pumpkins from the grocery store.  I wanted to decorate for both Halloween and Thanksgiving with out breaking the bank. So I went through closets, cabinets and the basement looking for items and supplies that had a fall feel to them. One easy project that I came up with was making pumpkin lanterns out of strips orange construction paper, metal brads and green ribbon.  The Bird and I simply cut long strips of paper then punched a hole on each end of the strips and secured them with the metal brads or fasteners to create a sphere. Then we added the ribbon to create a stem, that also acts as a loop to hang the pumpkin from. We are hanging ours from a thin gauge floral wire, gently secured to our drapery rod in our family room windows.

Another project we worked on was decorating our mantel. I removed some white vases and candlesticks and made room for a fall vignette of a wheat bundle, small pumpkins, a decorative tray and Publix collectible salt and pepper shakers from my mother-in-law. The finishing touch is a K & Company glittered letter banner, I bought last year on clearance for 50 cents.

Before

After

Our front entry table was the next spot that we took on, usually I have two frames with family photos and a small candlestick lamp. I replaced the photos and found a large round woven tray from my kitchen and used it as the anchor for this this vignette. Then by The Bird’s suggestion I moved the candlesticks from the living room, added an orange art glass bowl from the upstairs bathroom and placed an animated Halloween stuffed animal from the girls room. The result is cute and not creepy.

Entry Table

Finally we spent some time in the kitchen creating charming monsters out of Rice Krispies Treats, Fruit Flavored Twizzlers, M&M’s, and Trail Mix. We added our food coloring before mixing the Rice Krispies and marshmallow mixture together, then made clumps with our hands, and finally created the faces with the candy.

Rice Krispies Monsters

Here are all the images of the fun we had, the step by step process and the results.