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If you are anything like me, you love this time of year, and absolutely love to decorate your home for fall! Those rich oranges, reds, and yellows around my house (even the Halloween decorations) are truly like magic to me. The heat is finally starting to die down, the leaves start to change colors, everything from apple picking to making a new batch of homemade soup every week, I just love it.
Unfortunately, standard decorations can be outrageously expensive. Go to Michael’s Arts and Crafts, TJ Max, or Target, and sure, you’ll find the cutest stuff, but buying only a handful of items will leave you with no funds. I’m not someone who will let that stop me from decorating though, especially when it makes for such fun activities with the kiddos.
While making your home cozy for the upcoming winter weather, here are some ways to also make it look cute!
Inside frugal fall decorations
This section by far has the most ideas. There are just so many ideas you can do. Growing up, we had 2 or 3 big boxes dedicated solely to indoor fall decorations. Here are a few things that we did, and some that I fully intend to try this year.
- Homemade Cinnamon Stick Candles – or, for a cheaper version, use some pretty twigs in their place.
- Collect Pine Cones – This can be a fun activity to do with the kids – collect pinecones, and just put them in a cute decorative bowl, and you’ve got a cute centerpiece, much better than spending $50 to buy them.
- Try some of these super cute no-sew burlap pumpkins.
- You can also make cute pumpkins out of mason jar lids too. You can even give it a more rustic look, save a little time and money, and leave them the original color.
- Here’s an even cuter version of the mason jar lid pumpkins – use cut toilet paper or paper towel rolls. You can decorate them with any kind of paper or paint too. My personal favorite is the one that looks like pages from books.
- Here are steps for some cute twig letters – to make it a little more frugal, try hot-gluing a couple of layers of cardboard together and using that as your letter base.
- Try making your own fall candle holders with old jars and things like acorns, popcorn kernels, and more.
Let the kids help decorate your home for fall
Decorating is so much more fun when you get the kids involved. Not only does it help, but it creates some amazing lasting memories. Some of my fondest childhood memories were going crazy with decorations all over the house with my mom and little sister. It truly made the holidays special for us.
- Here is a great and easy one for the kids to help with. These painted signs are great for any age.
- Try one of these potentially free acorn trees with acorns found around the neighborhood.
- Try making some homemade bowls from modge podge and leaves to put some of those pinecones in.
- Get the kids together and make some scarecrows out of old clothes.
Wreath and garland DIYs
Wreaths are some of the first things people see when they come over. It can be insanely expensive to buy a brand new wreath (this one alone costs almost $100 – and is made almost completely out of ribbons and burlap.)
- Here is a DIY burlap sack style fall wreath
- This is probably one of my favorites – this adorable wreath is made almost exclusively of twigs and twine, but is super cute. Would also be a great one to get the kids involved in, going around and collecting twigs.
- I really like this one made of paper leaves. I can imagine how fun it would be with a bunch of different scrapbook papers.
- If you really want to get crafty, here are the steps to make an origami pumpkin which can then be turned into a garland.
- Try making some pinecone garland from those pinecones you found outside.
Outside fall decorations
Outdoor decorations are some of my favorites! There are so many directions you can take it, and, there tends to be room for lots of big pieces made out of pallets or hay, big pumpkins. The opportunities are truly endless.
- I’m in love with these scrap wood pumpkins.
- Here are some cool dryer vent DIY pumpkins.
- Have some old fence posts lying around? Turn them into pumpkins
- This cute scarecrow made from a pallet is reversible and turns into a snowman for winter. Definitely cost-efficient.
- Hobby Lobby has a pdf FULL of craft ideas with terracotta pots. My favorite is page 3, this cute little scarecrow is so adorable.
What are your favorites?
Do you love to decorate your home for fall as much as I do? I definitely plan to implement some of these ideas around the house this year. What was your favorite idea? What do you use to decorate your home for fall on a budget?
3 thoughts on “21 Frugal Ideas to Decorate Your Home For Fall”
I just saw a neat idea I wanted to share – after pressing pretty leaves in a book till they are dry and perfectly flat, you can put them in cheap dollar store frames and hang a bunch of them together in a grouping.
Also, when I was a kid we used to take fall walks to find pretty leaves and tape them together to make a “leaf man” to hang on the door.
Happy fall!
I don’t necessarily decorate for fall. But I do have one plain grapevine wreath that I decorate ‘seasonally’. Dollar Tree is where I usually go if I need something ‘new’ to spiffy it up (but mostly reuse/save each seasons decorations).
I used to make and sell seasonal wheathes. Dollar stores, Michael’s, Joanns and Walmart stores were all sources of items. Some were flowers in seasonal colors, some were fall scarecrows, chickens, orange pumpkins, ect that created seasonal themes. On the front steps were mums in rich fall colors. Wax dipped fall leaves in shallow baskets and a cornucopia on the dinning table with fall garden harvest items or fall flowers. I don’t redecorate so much anymore in my little home but I do love live flowers on the front steps. This years its big pots of geraniums picked up once they were marked down b to half price. Clean up the spent flowers. Water well and they are filled again with myriads of new flower heads and buds. I’ll save cutting from all of them to root and start new plants for next spring. Some years I fill the shelves at the kitchen windows with the pots of flowers to keep them through the winters. I’ll keeps some but most of those shelves are going to be for sprouting and micro greens for winter eating this year.