$ Dollar Store Decorating for Fall $

WARNING:  PICTURE HEAVY!

In years past, I have always been geared up to decorate for seasons and holidays.  Even in my singleton years decorating was always a fun past time for me.  From September through January my homes were always pretty festive.

Unfortunately the last two years I have been very preggers...sick preggers...green preggers...icky preggers.  You get the picture.  Pregnancy is a wonderfully beautiful thing, but we don't mix very well...at all!  I was so sick and icky that Delaney Bug was lucky to get a decent Halloween costume, much less Fall and Halloween decorations in the house.

This year, when I started thinking about decorating for Fall that tired, icky feeling crept up on me.  Almost like my body has seasonally acquired nausea and a pale green color from September to January each year.  Then the realization washed over me...I AM NOT PREGGERS this YEAR!  YIPPEE!  Now, it's the decorating bug that has bit.

Most of my decorations have been purged over the last couple of years while making room for two more humans in the house.  So, I had very little to begin with, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money.  My prediction is that Cracker Jack will want to hold, play and disintegrate each and every piece of decoration; therefore, I wanted to spend as little cash as possible.

When my goal is to spend next to nothing I head to the local dollar store.  The following pictures are all examples of how I took very inexpensive items to make our home festive for the kids.  Especially Delaney Bug since she has endured the last two bland holiday seasons.

I decorated our breakfast room table with glass candle holders filled with candy corn around the candles.  I had the candle holders and candles, and bought the candy corn on sale.  The tinsel spider came from the dollar store, as well as the pumpkin felt cut outs.  I bunched it all together and it looks pretty cute.  

I told Bug that the candy has glue on it.  If I wouldn't have told that small little fib, those lovely pieces of candy would all go missing one early Saturday morning while I was still asleep.

This is our dining room table. The large pumpkin survived the great purge, but the rest of this is part of my dollar store shopping spree.  The leaves, felt cuts outs and gourds are all part of that purchase.  The leaves are hung with brown ribbon from my stash.

Here are a couple of more views...

More of the same on top of the china cabinet...

This wreath is made of foam core board and dollar store leaves.  I got the idea from a wonderful blog: Thrifty Decor Chick.  I {heart} her!  Check it out how to make this wreath - here.

I was thrilled to come upon this when planning my dollar store decorating...it fit right into the budget...YAY!

Here are a few more places that I dropped the tinsel spiders.  The kids LOVE them, and play with them all the time.  Ha!  I don't care...cause they were CHEAP!  My heart will not break if they do.

Finally...I found these fun lanterns on my little shopping trip.  I really couldn't think of a place to use them, but I purchased them anyway...in fear that they might be gone when a creative vision came to mind.  I ended up using some black tulle and made them into garland for the staircase.  This is my favorite....L.O.V.E. it!

Oh...and in efforts to kept Cracker Jack from holding tearing up everything.  I made him his own little Pumpkin Patch.  He is now obsessed with "punkins"...there are currently three of these sleeping with him. Sweet boy!  The idea is actually working - for now that is.

This was really easy, fun and inexpensive to put together.  Seasonal decorating really doesn't have to break the bank...especially when you have six little hands out and about!  Check out what you already have and see how you can add to it with some dollar store finds.

Check out these other wonderful ideas for fall decorating...there are hundreds!

Fall Decor at Hooked on Houses and mantel ideas at Nesting Place...such great ideas!