Fall Decorating From the Garden

Use elements from your garden to create beautiful fall decor.

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October 16, 2015

By: Ruth Meharg

Related To:

Shop This Look

Sentimental Leaf Decor

Turn your summer memories into fall decor by creating leaves with your favorite photographs.

Leaf Photo How-To

To make your fall photo leaves, print the photos you want to use in black and white or sepia to give your photos a vintage feel. Shape wire into a few simple leaf veins, place the wire on the back of your photograph, and secure by gluing a blank piece of paper to the back. Make sure to cover all of the wire with paper.Once the glue is dry you can cut your photo into the shape of a leaf. Seal the leaf with decoupage paste to finish. When it's completely dry you can gently bend the wire to make your leaves look like they are twisting in the breeze.

Dramatic Leaf Tapestry

Decorate your mantle or your favorite wall this autumn with an all natural leaf tapestry. Gather up your favorite fall leaves and press them until they are fully dry. Use removable adhesive to attach your dried, pressed leaves to the wall in overlapping rows. You can create a solid geometric shape, or space your leaves out at the top or bottom to give the illusion that they are falling.

Custom Cornucopia

This fall, try decorating with a play on the traditional cornucopia. Instead of the usual horn shape, pull out a woven basket and fill it with white pumpkins and gourds. Gild your favorite fall elements, like pine cones and leaves, with gold acrylic paint and add them to the arrangement. You can make them solid gold by dipping them, or give them more depth by brushing the gold around the edges. Your basket of plenty will be overflowing with beauty.

DIY Felt Succulents

Creating handmade succulents in your favorite fall colors is simple with just a bit of time and patience. Cut concentric circles out of felt and form the edges into petal shapes. You can create pointy or smooth succulents, whichever you prefer. If you know how to felt you can use your felting needle to attach the layers, but if you’re not sure how to start or just want to save time, hot glue the layers of felt together. Create mini succulent flowers by cutting out circles and felting or gluing them into spiral shapes.

Pot Up Your Succulents

When your succulents are complete fill a few empty planters with crumpled paper. Cover the paper with loose roving and arrange your succulents on top. You can hot glue them into place if you want them to be permanent, or just let them sit and rearrange them whenever you like.

A Charming Succulent Wreath

If potted succulents aren't your cup of tea, or if you just need to display those beautiful succulents in a few more places, create a wreath from your felt creations. Tightly wrap a wreath frame with roving or yarn and hot glue your succulents into place around it.

Super-Sized Acorn

Create your own giant acorns for extra large fall decorations this season. To create the body of your acorn you will need to find some wooden eggs shapes, or create your own with balloons and paper mache. Once you have the body you can decorate it by painting it, wrapping it with twine, or gilding it with gold leaf or glitter. Create your acorn cap by hot gluing natural elements around the top half of your acorn shape. We used acorn caps and layers of pine cone scales to create ours.

Lovely Leaf Mobile

Bring a bit of fall into your nursery, or any room that needs a touch of autumn hanging from the ceiling. Use your favorite fall colors to paint thick pieces of paper with washes of watercolor. Use lots of water and let the colors mix together. Once dry, cut leaf shapes out of the paper and poke a hole at one end. Find a beautiful branch and hang the leaves from it with varying lengths of thread. Hang your branch and let the leaves turn in the breeze.

Sweet Snails

As winter approaches and your potted plants start to migrate indoors, consider adorning them with these adorable pine cone snails. To create the body you will need to cut the snail shape out of the fabric of your choice. Think of the shape as an "s" with a short top curve and an extra long bottom curve to create your snail's head and tail. Cut two pieces, sew them together and stuff them. Stitch a pine cone to your snail's back to create the shell and thread a bit of string through the head to create antennae.

Bowled Over

To create a decorative leaf bowl you’ll first need to preserve your leaves. To do this keep the leaves completely submerged in one part glycerin to two parts water for a week. Remove the leaves and let them dry. Once dry you can use paper mache paste and a large balloon to create your bowl. Blow up the balloon and cover with paper mache paste. Layer leaves around the balloon in a bowl shape, covering completely with paste as you go. Let dry completely, then remove the balloon for a beautiful, decorative bowl.

An Upcycled Pumpkin

Create a beautiful piece of indoor or outdoor decor with a piece of plywood, a pile of sticks and some wood glue. Cut the plywood into a roughly pumpkin shape. Use wood glue to completely cover the plywood with rows of sticks. It's ok if the sticks hang over the edge of the wood a bit. Place weights on the sticks and let the glue dry for at least 24 hours. Trim the edges of the sticks and sand if necessary to create your refined pumpkin shape. Add a fabric leaf and display your pumpkin in your garden, beside your front door, or hang it on the living room wall.

Seasonal Stationary

Use a leaf shaped paper punch to quickly and easily create homemade fall greeting cards. Choose your favorite fall colors and punch out a small pile of leaves. Use them to create a border, or stack them up at the bottom of the card. Cut out two mitten shapes and add them to the pile for a fun touch.

Fall Decorating From the Garden

Related To:

Shop This Look

Sentimental Leaf Decor

Leaf Photo How-To

Dramatic Leaf Tapestry

Custom Cornucopia

DIY Felt Succulents

Pot Up Your Succulents

A Charming Succulent Wreath

Super-Sized Acorn

Lovely Leaf Mobile

Sweet Snails

Bowled Over

An Upcycled Pumpkin

Seasonal Stationary

Growing Sweet Autumn Clematis

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55 New Ways to Upcycle Your Old Stuff 55 Photos

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Forage a Wreath for Fall 13 Photos

Make a Fall Leaf Wreath 15 Photos

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