Kit Davey, Interior Designer
18 Years in business - Over 2,600 homes transformed!
Tips From Kit - September 2006
Want to see more? Click here to see more Tips.
Fall Decorating Ideas
By Kit Davey
Here are a few quick and easy-to-make decorations to bring the beauty of Autumn indoors.
- To make a mini-pond: fill an earth-toned bowl with river pebbles. Add water and float a few brightly colored leaves on its surface.
- For an unusual centerpiece, pick up a five to eight foot length of extra-wide ribbon in a fall color from your local craft store. Purchase fall produce from your grocery store. (The centerpiece will look best if you use one kind of fruit). Lay the ribbon down the center of your dining room table and place the fruit at regular intervals on the ribbon, gently lifting the ribbon between the fruit to create an undulating look.
- For an inexpensive, leafy vase, start by removing the label from an empty wine bottle. Gather a hand full of interestingly-shaped leaves (you may need to press them between the pages of a book for a few days before going on to the next step). Mix one part water with five parts white glue. Smear glue onto the bottle and begin randomly adhering leaves. Use a paint brush or a sponge to decoupage the leaves and the bottle. The bottle will have a frosted look when it dries. You can spray it with Krylon's "Crystal Clear" acrylic coating if you want to make it waterproof, but you'll lose the frosted look if you do. For a variation of this vase: you'll need fall-colored acrylic paints, a sponge and a several maple leaves. Use double-sided tape and apply your leaves to the outside of your wine bottle. Lightly dab paint with a sponge on top of the leaves and the bottle, making sure that the glass is not completely covered in paint. Let dry and remove the leaves---leaf shadows will now decorate your bottle.
- To create a color burst, place a mound of persimmons in an aqua bowl on your entry table. Or, line the persimmons up along your windowsill. Another possibility is to scrounge up a terra cotta pot from your garden, spray paint it gold and tie a harvest-colored ribbon around its neck. Fill the pot with pears, apples, persimmons or squash. Add a few leaves peeking out between the fruit.
- To make an unusual centerpiece arrange a lichen-covered oak branch, a eucalyptus frond or twigs from your citrus tree with the fruit still attached, in the center of your table. Nestle fat, white candles of varying heights amongst its branches.
- For natural napkin rings, pick a special, brightly colored leaf for each guest. Tie the leaf with a length of raffia around each napkin.
- To make Fall potions, gather a variety of clear glass bottles, fill them with water and add food coloring in an array of harvest colors. Place them on your window sill or vanity top.
- For colorful Autumn streamers, gather twenty to thirty leaves and press them between the pages of your dictionary for a week or so. Remove and spray paint both sides of your leaves in gold. Tie a thin ribbon around the stem of each and hang from every imaginable spot---your chandelier, doorknobs, dresser pulls, etc. Save them and use to decorate your Christmas tree.
- For leaf rubbing place mats, save four to six large grocery bags. Cut the bags into place-mat-sized rectangles and iron to remove wrinkles. Raid your kid's crayon box for fall colors. Place a leaf under the wrong side of the mat . Remove the crayon's wrapper and with its long flat side, rub back and forth over the leaf. An image of your leaf should appear. Repeat with various leaves in variety of colors.
- For a leaf-bordered table cloth rejuvenate an old sheet or a plain white table cloth. Make a stencil by tracing around a leaf on cardboard and cutting out the leaf shape. Using gold fabric paint and your leaf stencil, sponge the leaf pattern around the border, or randomly stencil the leaf image onto your table cloth.
(C) Kit Davey 2006
Kit Davey, Allied Member, A.S.I.D., is an interior designer specializing in room re-design, design consulting, staging and professional organizing. Call her at (650)367-7370 or write her KitDavey@aol.com You can visit her website at www.AFreshLook.net.
Want to see more? Click here to see more Tips.