Fall for $10

A dear friend of ours and I were chatting a few days ago on Facebook. We were discussing decorating for the fall. Now let me make myself clear, this woman is a decorating queen. Like seriously! Lets just say walking into her house at Christmas time would be the equivalent to walking into Santa's workshop. Its gorgeous. Also, I have to mentioned that she does have an unprecendented number of boxes marked "Christmas," although she apparently has toned down her collection slightly. The movers said it was a new record. Ha, love it!

Anyway, she put me to a bit of a challenge when it came to decorating for Fall. Not so much, lets see who wins, but lets share some fabulous ideas and get to work. So I did. I know she did too, and I can't wait to see what she came up with.

I have a good amount of Christmas decorations (I'm at about 5 boxes currently. Not sure I will ever top her number. I think Rob would oust me before I ever could!), but not a lot stuff for Fall. So Miss A and I set out to none other than Dollarama in hunt of some Fall fabulousness. I swear by the local Dollar store. Its unbelievable the things you can find, but I do find the key is that you need some time to look. We were there for about 1 hour, but I think we did pretty good.

So with no further ado, my version of Fall for $10...

First, I found these great garlands for $1 each. I bought two of them, although I have to admit I do plan on going back to get a few more. They seem more realistic to me than a lot of garlands I've seen. And they have great colors...

Love the orange...

The garland along the ledge (between the entrance and the kitchen)

I picked up this little dish at Zellers for $2.50 and it holds all of my cute little dishwasher tabs. I think I got the idea from Rhoda. Isn't it sweet?

This is the view on top of our dishwasher (yes, we have a portable dishwasher). I picked up 3 packages of Fall themed napkins ($1 each), and voila! I put a napkin we got as a wedding gift over some card board and cut it to fit in over the previously eneven base of this tray, and now I have a gorgeous serving tray. This little number was $2 at a garage sale.

I also must point out my beloved Stoke's Milk Lace cream and sugar set. I patiently waited until it went 50% off, and then drove all over the city to every different Stokes store completing my set (dessert plates, serving platters, mugs, etc). It was so worth the wait. I love it!

Next, the TV stand. This has to the the funnest place to decorate in the entire house.

Its my version of a hearth. So again, there's another gorgeous $1 garland.

My trusty three red candles that I've had for over 6 months, and you can barely tell. These suckers refuse to burn down!

I picked up 3 of these orange berry branches, again $1 each. I think they look fab in my 10 cent thrift store vase.

I also tried to have a little fun with a monogram. I picked up this orange scrapbook paper at Dollarama (50 cents per page. A little pricey I know, but I love the pattern), and used this small chunk in a frame. (I hope to reveal what I did with the rest of it in the coming days). Then I printed off our initial, colored it black with a jiffy marker because our computer refuses to print in anything but color, slapped it back in the frame, and stuck it on top of a few books (with the cover removed). I'm thinking this frame needs to be black, so it might get some spray paint lovin' in the next couple days.

Next is the funner part. The kids and I took off on a pine cone hunt yesterday morning. I was specifically thinking pine cones when we left, but then we started finding all sort of fun things in the park two minutes away from our house. And the even better part? It was all free. Mother Nature was good to me! So we created this little display to the right of our front door. I just raked our yard, and dumped all the leave here. Took the three pails I got at a garage sale this summer for $2, and filled them with leaves, then plunked our treasures on top...

I think this is baby's breath, or something very similar. I think its sweet.

We were able find three different types of pinecones very close to home. Miss A was an excellent pine cone picker upper...

Then I tied all of these twigs together, and set some stones around them for support. Plunked more leaves on top to cover the rocks, and then twist tied these red berries to the twigs for a little color. I looove the berries. I would love a little bush right here year round.

So that's about as far as I gotten in 2 days (which is quite a bit with two little ones). I still hope to share our door wreath, my scrapbook paper project, and my 33 cent "pumpkins" in the coming days. The pumpkins are super simple, and I promise that you have all the materials in your house and yard to make them...right now!