Fall Decorating - what to do

You love fall, who doesn't? You want to add a little fall color to the house, so what should you do? To start with there are many holidays coming in the next few months, take those into consideration when pulling out your decorations. I decorate for Back to School (well I should say I did decorate for that, I no longer have little ones in the house), Columbus Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. I've found that the fall orange color works for all of these, so I pull out all my orange fall items to start with. I then add in the specific items for that holiday, for example, Back to School is only one week, then I put the specific items away and add in some fall colored flowers, a little raffia and call it a day. I toss in two birthdays for my kids in that time period too. Next is Columbus Day, I don't do a lot, but add my some of the Indians (that I use again for Thanksgiving), a small boat that my kids made and that's that. Next is Halloween... I get all into some years and other years barely do anything, just depends on my mood. Some years it's all ghosts and spiders, other years it's candy corn, and pumpkins. I decorate for Thanksgiving around the 10th of the month... don't like it out for a really long time, lol. I have a collection of turkey's that I set out along with a very cool hand painted set of pilgrims and about 5 different cornucopias that I fill with realistic fake fruits and fresh squash. I have plates and all the "stuff" that we use for the time period.

But the main thing that makes this much easier is that I have that underlying color theme that works for all of it! That and the fact that all my decorations are stored in very clearly marked bins. Each bin is labelled not just generically, but lists all the specific items in that bin. I have only one for Thanksgiving, one for Halloween and one that is all the small holidays (Columbus Day, St. Pat's Day, etc.). I also clean an area really well when I get ready to decorate that way if moving everything is not going to happen (which is the case most often, lol). I then just clean it again after removing all the items. When you have to move items to set out decorations, I found putting them in the bin is perfect. It stores the item for you and that way you don't have extra clutter to deal with.

So, get out there and decorate!