Fall Decorating. Or, How to Decorate for Fall with Dollar Store Items.

I love Fall. Like, really LOVE Fall. Changing leaves, pumpkin flavored EVERYTHING, warm spices, the return of comfort food, pumpkin patches....all of it is just so comforting and welcoming to me. Also, when Fall arrives, I know I'm that much closer to my favorite season: Christmas! More on that later. :) Anyways, I did some decorating for Fall today and thought I'd share. Most of my stuff came from the Dollar Tree or the dollar section at Target. While I got almost all of my stuff last year, I did check and the Dollar Tree is carrying all of the same items this year (which is awesome, because I need to pick up a few more since I have more space to decorate this year). So I started with this....

The rubbermaid container stored all sorts of Fall decorating magic....

Like these styrofoam gourds and pumpkins. They sell them in packs of 5 at the Dollar Tree. They are fairly small, but when you put them in jars and such they are super cute. I'm going to pick up some more of them this year!

And these silk leaves came from the Dollar Tree as well. These are also fairly small, but are beautiful when arranged.

 I have three different strands of leaf garland from the Dollar Tree. They are kind of sparse, but perfect for my purposes. I layer them together on my piano, which I'll show you later. I am thinking of picking up some more full Fall garlands at the end of the season when Walmart and Target has them on clearance....a full garland on my mantle would be perfect!

The Dollar Tree also has a variety of glass pumpkins that are super charming. I have three from last year and am planning to pick up a few more. LOVE them!!

 My Mom gave me this one last year. Not sure where she got it, but she's the one who taught me to bargain shop so I'm sure she didn't spend much on it. I love it and it's a great reminder for this season!

This is a gigantic bag of Fall table scatter that I got last year at Target in the dollar section. I picked it up towards the end of the season, so I think I only spent maybe $1.50 on each box. There are yellow acorns,  orange pumpkins, and red leaves...each box had like 150 pieces in it! I was so excited to find them since table scatter is expensive and I refuse to pay $5+ on a box of 20 pieces!

 I also have six of these beauties from the Dollar Tree from last year. I wanted some leaf tea light holders, but they were at least $5 a pop elsewhere, so I was ecstatic when I found them at the dollar store....I bought the last 6 that they had!

 I got this guy on clearance from JoAnn's last year. So cute!!

I made this little arrangement last year using Dollar Tree Fall flowers and a faux pumpkin. I'm glad it held up in storage! 

Ok....so time to decorate! I first filled one of the apothecary jars by layering the silk leaves and the gourds and pumpkins until I was happy with it.

Isn't it cute?? Bursts of Fall in a jar!!

I put the glass pumpkins on top of a few  green and yellow silk leaves in another one of the jars. I'm going to pick up a few more of the pumpkins to fill out the jar.

I did a few things with the table scatter. I have some plain pillar candles sitting on plates from the Dollar Tree that needed sprucing up, so I filled in the plate around the candle with the scatter. I also put some in a mason jar and put a small pumpkin spice candle on top of it (the candle also came from the Dollar Tree last year).

For the cute "Happy Harvest" piece, I decided to fill the barrel with a small flower arrangement that mirrors the pumpkin one. I got out leftover flowers from last year....

 Cut some floral foam (it comes in a two-pack at the Dollar Tree, just fyi) and put it in the barrel.

When arranging flowers, you start with the biggest pieces first. This ensures they stay the center of the arrangement as you work around them.

Next, you fill it in with smaller flowers (the little dahlias) , and then finish with filler (the foam berries). Tweak until you are happy with it! And then stand back and admire how cute it is! :)

I just needed to pull my piano together now, so I wrapped the leaf garlands around the music stand. I wrapped the ends around the pillar candles (with the table scatter), then punctuated the garland level with two of the leaf tea light holders and the little "give thanks" pumpkin. The top part of the piano also got two leaf candles, and the first apothecary jar I filled is up there. I also had previously filled my glass candle holders with leftover flowers from the dish towel cake post, and they fit in perfectly with fall. The bow was leftover from last year (made it with Dollar Tree wired ribbon). Here's the end result of the piano....

The Happy Harvest piece went on my built-in in the hall. I'm not going to mess with the smaller jars for Fall....I have major plans for Christmas though! I have recently added three vintage insulators though, and am starting an antique/vintage hardware collection to go in my glass milk jug.

The third large apothecary jar will be filled with the gourds, pumpkins, and silk leaves too, once I pick up more of them. I thought about filling it with candy corn, but I'm pretty sure Brandon will eat all of it, and I can't have my decorations disappearing!  The mason jar, pumpkin arrangement, and apothecary jar with the glass pumpkins are on the mantle. I have some pumpkin spice wax in my scentsy warmer, and my house is warm and welcoming like Fall! I'm excited about this not just because I love Fall, but because up next in seasonal decorating is CHRISTMAS!!! And I go all out for that. Not. Even. Kidding.


Sola Deo Gloria!