A Little Autumn Outdoor Decorating

Today, a break from recounting my adventures in harvesting. You all know that I like to decorate my home for various holidays. It brings me a lot of joy to change up the looks of our house for each new season.

Will you be decorating for Halloween or fall? A recent survey polled Seattleites on what they might be doing this year to celebrate Halloween, as trick-or-treating and parties are likely to be "out" this year. The majority replied that they'd be decorating their houses for Halloween/fall. And you know what? If I were a betting person, I'd say they were polling my neighborhood, as so many neighbors have put up lights in their front yards and on their homes.

I talked it over with one of my daughters and we agreed that putting up decorations just for Halloween seemed like a lot of extra work, but that doing some decor that would be appropriate for all of autumn, through Thanksgiving, would be appealing. Besides, I really don't go in for the ghoulish Halloween decorations, but prefer understated, general-purpose autumn decor.

Since it is getting dark so early now, and lighting can be seen from the street as our neighbors drive passed, I put some extra effort into a little fall lighting project this year.

I had been eyeing some beautiful, lighted garlands in a catalog in August. Of course, these were pricier than I was comfortable with. So, I set out to make my own. I used two strands of mini LED lights (1 orange and 1 yellow, both ordered online) and several lengths of Dollar Tree faux leaf garland which I'd bought several years ago and have used in different applications each fall. I offset the light strands by about 2 inches, so the individual lights would appear closer together. Then I wrapped the faux leaf garlands around the light strands and secured the lighted garland to the surrounds of the kitchen window with cup hooks screwed in at the corners and center top of the wood window trim. 

The whole project took me about 30 minutes from finding the cup hooks and wrapping the garland and lights, to securing to the house's exterior. My cost would've been much less if I didn't have it in my mind that I wanted colored lights and instead had used some strings of regular (white) Christmas twinkle lights. In fact, this lighted garland would've been free had I taken that route. But you know, sometimes the heart chooses instead of the mind.

I also changed out the lights to all orange in the bush to the left of the kitchen window. If you'll recall, last fall I put an old C-9 string of lights on a conical shrub and filled the light sockets with green and orange lights only. This year, I bought some additional orange C-9 lights, so I could have all orange lights on this bush. Yep. the heart was in the driver's seat the day I made these purchases. Like I said, it brings me a lot of joy to decorate for the seasons and holidays. Money well-spent.

Lighted evergreen garlands for the winter holidays can be very pricy. This same sort of idea can be used with inexpensive Dollar Tree evergreen garlands or homemade garlands made from evergreen branches wired to a rope and wrapped with strings of mini-lights. I plan on making a couple of those for our house later this fall. Anyways -- just thought I'd share my latest home decorating.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!