Fall Porch Decor & A Little Tutorial

Halloween is over and most of the stores are jam-packed full of Christmas decor now, but I'm not quite ready to roll out the garland and ornaments quite yet. Fall decor feels more appropriate for the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Yesterday I showed off our fun Halloween set-up; I'm still patting myself on the back for coming up with the pirate ship idea :)

After Halloween, I ditched the skeleton and brought our front doorstep back to regular fall status. We had a couple smaller pumpkins leftover so I left them for now. With just a few simple and inexpensive items, we now have a lovely and welcoming front stoop.

The wreath was $3 from Walmart about three years ago and has been used over and over. I bought the strands of orange and red berries last year and just attached them with some brown thread. Super crafty huh? I found the upright bunch of reedy stuff at Homegoods and used a couple pillows stuffed in the planter to support it. I covered the pillows with some bunched up burlap, which actually adds some nice texture and color to the whole planter.

The white planter is something I found in the Ballard Designs catalog for $129 I think. I loved it but there was no way I was paying that much for a square wood planter. So I took the kiddos on a little adventure to Home Depot and found an unfinished wood planter for $20.

First I sanded the entire outside and inner edge with medium grit sandpaper.

At the recommendation of the dude at Home Depot, I bought a Zinser oil-based primer and gave the planter a good all-over coat. I lightly sanded the whole thing again after priming to get a nice smooth surface. Then I used white paint leftover from redoing the trim on the exterior of our house. My thinking was that since the planter will most likely be outside most of the time, using the exterior paint would be a little more durable. I'm not sure if this is true, but it was free and seemed to work just fine.

Again here's my little Ballard knock-off planter in action...

How do you decorate between Halloween and Thanksgiving??


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