Tag Archives: fall

Encapsulating Autumn with Decor

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Seasonal decorating is a tradition many families will integrate into their homes.  When winter comes, the Christmas tree and lights go up, and when spring comes, flowers are planted around your house.  Autumn is a great season filled with holidays, festivities, and seasonal amenities which are fantastic to include in your home design.   

It’s also a great time to spice up your space with new floors and countertops. In fact, flooring and countertops can set the stage for your design. From hand-scraped to wire-brushed trends to marble looks, the design possibilities are endless in 2020. Plus, with innovations in the industry, you do not have to settle for only one type of flooring in your home.

We put together a list of five Autumn décor ideas you will want to include in your home to express your festive-side:

Plaid

Fall has a sense of being cozy when you are indoors and a sense of adventure when out and about.  Adding plaid blankets or a new area rug to your floors will give your house a nice warm and cozy feel.  You can try adding plaid designs outside through welcome mats, outdoor pillows, and blankets. 

Fall Plantation

Including fall harvest inside your home is another excellent way to make a statement.  Outside your home, you can add straw, autumn flowers, or corn stalks. Inside your home you can take these same elements and create an arrangement for your countertop to set the mood for fall.  Add pumpkins as a centerpiece on your table or you can even have a basket filled with fall foods like corn, squash, and baby pumpkins.  Including faux wheat is another excellent decor piece to add to vases or pitchers around your home.  Go a step further and add fall scents. You can incorporate things like cinnamon soaps or cider scented candles to help capture the fall feel.

However, if you notice that your countertops are not as pristine as they once were, you can have your countertops replaced. Currently homeowners love the natural, one-of-a-kind beauty of marble and quartz countertops. Marble countertops feature an authentic, beautiful veining that is unmatched by any other countertop. However, if you are looking for a more durable & low maintenance countertop, quartz is a great option, you can opt for beautiful quartz countertops. Quartz is composed of natural crystals, which makes it an insanely gorgeous countertop option. Plus, quartz countertops are perfect for homeowners who love to cook because they are scratch-, stain-, and heat-resistant.

Wood

Adding pictures with wood or incorporating wood into your home design can add to the overall warmth of a room.  You can start using your fireplace more and decorate your mantle with festive fall décor.  Put fallen leaves into picture frames and display the beautiful countryside colors of fall for an added touch.

Think Rustic

Rustic colors will make a substantial impact on your home’s decor and what you are trying to convey.  Adding rustic display items and antiques will help fully encapsulate the fall spirit.  Woven baskets are great to use in your home and can hold your plaid blankets.  Adding warm reds to your home through curtains, throw rugs, area rugs and floral arrangements can give a rural influenced aesthetic in the fall season. Try adding rustic display items as a centerpiece to your kitchen island!

Pillows and Pictures

A simple, cost-effective task you can add is swapping out your current pictures and pillows.  This is an easy tradition you can do for every season.  Plaids and stripes with autumn hues can help bring your room full circle, but you do not have to commit to the look year-round fully.

Autumn can have so many fun decorations to add to your home.  Try including some of these tricks and tips this fall season to your home.

How to Make Your Home Smell Like Fall

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Fall is here, and there are many wonderful smells that the season has to offer. In fact, we love fall! It can be a great season where we get to spend time inside with our loved ones. From cozying on up by the fire to the colorful, warm colors on the trees, fall is a beautiful time year. Plus, it is always fun decorating for the season and having some of these natural fall fragrances around the house. In fact, fall has so many great scents; it can be hard to know how to capture them all in your home. To help, we put together a list of five ways that you can have your home smelling like autumn this season. Let’s take a look!

Apple Spice Air Spray

For bathrooms, consider getting an air spray can. Apple Spice is a beloved fragrance that is always adored by fall enthusiasts. Just be sure to keep it in a spot where guests can easily see it to use it if they desire.

Pumpkin Spice Air Diffuser

Pumpkin Spice is another highly-respected fall scent. Purchase an air diffuser and look for Pumpkin Spice. This fun fragrance will make your whole room feel like an autumn wonderland.

Cinnamon-Scented Pinecones

Are you looking for a centerpiece for your table? Consider a basket of cinnamon-scented pinecones. Not only do they look fantastic, but they smell great as well! Use them on your coffee table, end tables, fire mantle, or dining room table to incorporate fall décor throughout your space.

Maple-Scented Candles

Candles are an excellent way to add warmth and fragrance to the home. Maple-scented candles are a classic sweet-tooth lover’s dream. Add these around your house to infuse your space with the dreamy, sweet scent of sugar.

Fall Simmer Pot

Lastly, consider making a fall simmer pot. Add apples, orange peels, almond extract, cinnamon sticks, vanilla, and more. Add water and let the pot simmer to make your home smell delicious all day long. Continue to add water throughout the day, and do not let the ingredients burn.

Making fall scents can be fun. What are some of your favorite fall scent additions you use in your own home? Let us know below in the comment section.

Getting Ready for Halloween – Food

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22691265_SAs with every holiday – foods add personality and spice to Halloween. Apples are a treat made for fall, but you can turn them into holiday specials by coating them in caramel and then adding Halloween sprinkles instead of – or in addition to – nuts. Place on a bed of candy corn and pumpkins and you have captured the spirit of the season.

15322265_STo get in the Halloween mood while staying away from sweets, how about this open-face mummy snack? Cover the bread with either strips of roasted pepper or a marinara sauce and then position strips of mozzarella cheese to look like mummy wrappings. Two olive slices add eyes to finish the effect. Toast until the treat is warm and the cheese starts to melt. Your little goblin will love this!

Halloween cookies can be fun for the whole family. Cookie cutters are available in a variety of scary shapes and regular sugar cookie or gingerbread cookie dough will make cut-outs easy. You can even buy cookie dough mixes to make it simpler.

White, orange and black frostings provide everything you need to make a bevy of Halloween cookies. If you want, look for special Halloween decorations such as sugar bones and pumpkins. You can even get small candy bloodshot eyes!

22534191_SFor cut-outs such as the Jack-o-lantern in the photo, place the pumpkin shape on a piece of parchment paper before making the cuts. Afterwards, the cookie can be moved still on the paper to a baking sheet, to avoid the distortion of trying to lift it with a spatula.

Have fun and experiment, with no fear. The failures will taste just as good as the successes. Make your Halloween even more exciting with a few food items that may start a new tradition with your family.

Getting Ready for Halloween – Crafts

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21467637_SPumpkin carving provides great Halloween memories for children and parents alike. Today’s pumpkin carving tools – available in most grocery and dollar stores – make the process even easier and more fun.

Here are a few pumpkin-carving tips when working with children.

Stay age-appropriate. For very little ones, have them draw the face on the pumpkin for an adult to carve. Or you may not even carve the pumpkin at all – instead use a set of colored sharpies to let children draw jack-o-lantern faces. This is particularly fun for them with the little desk-sized pumpkins.

Share the fun. If possible, let every child have his or her own pumpkin. If that gets too expensive, have one child decide on the eyes, another the nose or mouth, etc. so that everyone has a part in the final product.

Stay safe. Keep sharp knives away from children. Instead of lighting a candle for inside the pumpkin, pick up an LED votive candle for flameless light.

10996366_SThe photo on the right shows another fun craft for Halloween. Cut heavy paper into strips – with decorative scissors if you have them although plain strips will also work. Create a pumpkin shape and staple or glue in place. Top with green paper leaves and some curly ribbon.

Black construction paper can be cut into bat and cat shapes for walls and windows. Bend the bats so they look like they might fly away before tacking to a wall or door.

16209145_SOne other simple craft approach – using leaves – is easy to create but can provide intriguing and dramatic results as you can see in the photo to the left. Cut out scary faces with scissors when leaves are fresh and then let dry in a book to keep them flat. You can tape the final results to your windows to make your home look extra spooky and interesting this Halloween.

Halloween is a great time to get the family together to make decorations for your home during the season. Explore Pinterest and the Internet for other fun ideas for crafts that will help you make Halloween extra special.

Fall Tablescapes

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7843574_SAre you ready to bring your dinner table into autumn? If you’ve started making stews and homemade baked beans again because you just can’t wait any longer, how about making the table itself feel like fall?

Start with a walk through your neighborhood. Even desert landscaping may have some dried branches around that have fallen off a nearby tree. If you don’t find anything, visit your local hobby store or florist to pick up some dried branches, pinecones or any other dried plants or branches.

Next, wander through your kitchen for pottery vases or bowls that mirror the fall colors. Any natural-color basket or wood container would also work well.

Fall flowers can be found in every grocery and warehouse market. Consider sunflowers in traditional yellow or bright dark orange coupled with Japanese lanterns and fall berries in dark reds and greens. Fill in with mums, which come in every color of fall. Add a few of those dried branches and you have a floral masterpiece to echo the season.

Because fall is harvest time, you can add almost any combination of fruit or vegetables and have the mix work. Look for pomegranates, bosc or other yellow or brown pears, apples, and dark red or purple grapes.

Do you have a fall table runner? That’s a good place to start. Now, set all of your discoveries on the table and move things around until it looks right. Those branches may work well in a tall vase or pitcher, or maybe just lay them along the center of the table. Pile fruit in a bowl – a couple of apples, a pear, an eggplant and a few fall leaves and you have created the vision of a harvest feast.

Above all, enjoy the process. Celebrate the changing of the seasons with complementary changes in your home, and you can welcome autumn‘s bounty along with the cooling temperatures. For more ideas, we invite you to visit Fulton Home’s Pinterest board: Seasonal décor.