With the leaves falling in gorgeous shades, Halloween and Bonfire Night just around the corner and the hour already changed, we are well and truly in Autumn!
I love the fun of trick or treating, decorating for Halloween and carving pumpkins – but I always think it’s a bit of a shame you can’t leave your spooky decorations up too long. This year we decided to put up some ‘Autumnal’ decorations that in my mind can pretty much stay up until we swap over to the Christmas decorations! The children loved helping to make the Autumn decorations and put them up, and I am loving the warm colours and fun they bring to the house.
Autumn wreath
I’d seen loads of autumn and Halloween wreaths on social media this year, and decided to have a go at making our own with the kids. I was thrilled with the result – it entertained us all for a morning, I didn’t need to buy any special supplies and it looks really beautiful on the door.
We started off with a bit of an Autumn scavenger hunt, going out on a woodland walk collecting pine cones, conkers, acorns and twigs. We already had some fabric autumn leaves from a previous craft project, but you could just as easily use real ones once they have dried or even tissue paper. We cleaned everything up a bit so we wouldn’t have a load of mud on our wreath, and then we were ready to go!
After a root around in our Christmas decorations, I found a plain wreath that we could use as a base. You can buy wicker or metal bases pretty cheaply, but otherwise you could just cut out some thick cardboard for a base (I’d maybe use a couple of layers if you do this so it gets really sturdy – when all the conkers etc are attached the wreath is pretty heavy!).
My little helper assisted with wrapping some hessian (which I’d cut into long strips) around the wreath to use as a base. This isn’t a necessary step unless you’re trying to make a rather Christmassy wreath (like the one I had) look more Autumnal! I also figured that way I could take it all off at the end of the season and repurpose the original wreath in another way.
Once the wreath was wrapped, it was time to get sticking! I used a glue gun to stick it all together, and just worked around the wreath building it all up. This stage probably took about half an hour, so was the most time consuming bit, but it was quite relaxing and the kids enjoyed helping to decide where everything should go.
The wreath has now taken pride of place on the outside of our front door, and I just love it!
Autumnal window stickers
I completed the overall ‘autumn’ look by sticking up some ‘autumn leaves’ window stickers, which tie in perfectly. As the sun shines through the windows, they even cast beautiful leaf-shaped shadows onto the floor!
I completed the overall ‘autumn’ look by sticking up some ‘autumn leaves’ window stickers, which tie in perfectly. As the sun shines through the windows, they even cast beautiful leaf-shaped shadows onto the floor!
Whether it’s Autumn or perhaps Thanksgiving that you’re celebrating, we have a selection of Autumnal window stickers here at Stickerscape that make it so quick and easy to decorate. They are completely repositionable and can be applied to the inside or outside of your windows (either way you’ll be able to see the design from both sides). We recommend sticking them onto the inside to keep them in the best condition if you want to reuse them year after year.
Autumn crafts
Weekends for our family at the moment tend to be spent enjoying long walks, cooking and baking together, snuggling under blankets watching films and doing some crafty activities. There are some crafts that both my children love returning to, but we all enjoy finding new ones. A couple of hits this autumn have been making modelling clay owls (we used an oven-bake clay, and added little hooks into the top to make them into keyrings), and turning pinecones into hedgehogs (just using felt and some googly eyes). All really quick and easy, and even as an adult I love the fun and satisfaction of making something cute! My mum knitted us these gorgeous pumpkins too, which are now on display in our hallway.
We hope these ideas might have helped with some inspiration for your Autumn decorating! Happy Autumn from the Stickerscape team x