Fall Decorating on the Cheap

I am a little concerned.

During nap time yesterday I kept flying down to the burn pit. My legs couldn't seem to carry me quickly enough as I tried to haul as much rubbish out of this house before any of the children could see me throwing out precious scraps of paper, pine cones, or any other tiny piece of garbage they may have collected. I've started referring to their reaction as "the wrath."  Up in Sister's room there are tiny piles of semi precious items. We put up apples this week and the big lids that came off the apple boxes seemed to catch her fancy and sure enough they are upstairs hiding in the corner of her room. There are approximately one zillion tiny plastic bags with tiny precious things in them and each and every night I sneak in there and haul them out.  The problem is, she notices everything that I throw out. She will go to the bathroom and I'll quickly toss stuff, all the while formulating my answer to her questions and now I spend most of my time simply evading her inquiries.

 "Momma, where is that special piece of pretty pink ribbon I found yesterday on the floor in Wal-Mart? Remember that other time two years ago when I found the shiny purple ribbon on the floor *insert any nasty, dirty and disgusting place you can think of."

"Taylin! Look at the hawk out the window!" 

Am I a bad mom?

The only benefit in having real life mini hoarders living in my house is they can easily spend hours outside with a pail in hand 'collecting' things for 'decorating'. For my lazy bones, non shopping frugal ways this has definitely helped in my fall feathering.

Folks, we like to just bring the outdoors in! Forget the Pottery Barn fancy tablecloth and Pier One doo dads, a simple bowl full of pine cones and some ratty ol' leave will do us just fine. We don't even Pinterest those ol' pine cones up with glitter and white spray paint, no m'am, they are just fine as the good Lord intended them to look. The best part is, it can all be collected by tiny hands and can save oodles of moolah. It's true, simply put, my shopping skills are, shall we say, lacking? I don't really love perusing the aisles and don't overly want to part with twenty bucks on a plastic pumpkin, so we keep things simple. I'm not the girl who knows what the heck you are talking about when you mention pumpkin spice lattes, I'm more the apple crisp with coffee - fall kind of girl. So, yes, let's gather outside junk to bring bugs and dust inside. 

I think I know where Scout got her hoarding tendencies from and why Tuffy likes to stop and proclaim the beauty in every. single. rock, stick, and leaf out there. Two hours to walk to the truck? Sure! Why not! Who cares if Old Man Winter is brushing our face with his windy fingers and we can feel his presence in the early morning frost - 'cause we found that glorious pine cone and whipped out the cutters to pull down branches. We are loving fall.

Wheat kernels with candles, in a mason jar, and some scrappy fabric & twine. This takes four seconds to put together and no brain power. My kind of style.


 

Forgive the horrible picture. It's how I roll. Trust me, these mirrors are not that dirty! This picture is going to drive me crazy. I want to get my little cloth for cleaning my glasses and just scrub the computer screen. Right now.

 The main point of the photo is to show Grandma Myrna what I did with the window sills from the old chicken coop. A similar one went down to my sis, only in a distressed white that a four year old helped paint.