Day 4 ~ Create a Fabulous Fall Front Porch For Under $10

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Yesterday I shared my desire to create a warm and welcoming front porch.

I offered a glimpse of my sad, uninspired front porch.

While I have plans to paint the front door, the temperatures continue to hover in the low 100’s here in Phoenix so that project is still a few months away. The $7 springtime wreath was now faded way past its prime.

I wanted to transform the space to feel like fall AND I had a $10 budget.

It was time to get creative.

Rummaging through my tired fall décor I found some grapevine. (You can purchase this very inexpensively at most craft stores or thrift stores.) I cut the long vine into two equal pieces.

I then picked out a long fall leaf garland  from my stash that always seemed rather “thin” when I had previously tried to use it. I wrapped it around the vine and hot glued it in place. (Right now is the perfect time to find similar skimpy fall leaf garlands at thrifts stores for pennies.)

The vine still looked pretty bare and I was going for a bountiful look. So I dug through my faux flowers stash and came up with a few blooms in fall colors.

I should mention that I was working outside as creating this garland was pretty messy work. It was so hot I almost didn’t need to plug in the glue gun. :) I glued the flowers on randomly, filling in bare spots.

I then headed to Hobby Lobby to get a grapevine wreath ($4.99 but I used a 40% off coupon). While I was there I moseyed down the fall aisles for some inspiration. I came away shocked. Really full and lovely fall garlands carried $99 price tags. Gulp! But I did take notice that many of the garlands had a bit of pine (AH HA moment!) so I dug through my Christmas supplies and draped the front door. The heavy duty garland would serve as the base of the fall vine garland. Bonus ~ it lights up at night.

Even after adding on the blooms and attaching it to the pine base it still appeared not quite BOUNTIFUL enough. I spied the tired, faded wreath on the door and thought “If I take that apart I could cut out small pieces and use the non faded side of the the burlap to create “burlap picks”.

So I pinched short pieces of burlap together, held it together with thin florist wire and then tucked the wire into the grapevine.

A million picks later the garland finally felt finished.

Then I worked on the grapevine wreath. For a cohesive look I used the same burlap, flowers, bittersweet and leaves.

Finally, it felt as if fall had arrived at my front door.

Warm, welcoming and cozy.

I then addressed the small corner by the door. The antique bentwood chair, planter, burlap and baskets I had on hand. The pinecones came from the park right around the corner from our house. 

I bought the yellow mums at a nursery for $2.99 and wrapped them in burlap and tucked the bouquet into the planter.

The remaining pumpkins and carnival squash were bought at the supermarket for $4.00 (on sale) .

Once again, the tired and uninspired….

Transformed into a welcoming front porch for fall.

Reality disclaimer: the garland and wreath took about four messy and sweaty hours to create, but it was so worth it for the cost saved.

Is your front entryway decked out for fall?

Laure

 

Linking to:

The Charm of Home, Common Ground, StoneGable, Between Naps On The Porch, Today’s Creative Blog, Someday Crafts, SSS, Shabby Nest, Tatertots and Jello, Positively Splendid, The 36th Avenue,

© 2012 Decor To Adore Laura Ingalls Gunn All Rights Reserved