Simple and Cheap Fall Decor

One thing most people know about me is that I'm pretty frugal.  My mom taught me from an early age how to spot a bargain, and always check the clearance rack!  I remember going through the drive-thru when we were little and thinking that there was a sale because the sign above the drive-thru said "clearance".  I didn't realize back then that sign was telling me the height of the drive-thru canopy instead!  Now that I'm the mom, it's even more important for me to save where I can.

I like to have a centerpiece on the table, but with toddlers having candles or anything breakable just isn't an option yet.  I'm super surprised they've been so good with our new fall centerpiece, but since they have their Halloween themed sensory bin (which is way more fun to play with), I get why they don't want to 'play' with this centerpiece.

The bowl is a large black bowl we've had for a while.  I normally keep fruit in it or use it for mixing up something to bake.  The 'straw' is a natural colored raffia I picked up on a clearance shelf at Walmart for $1.  It comes in long ribbon like pieces, and I used scissors to cut it down into shorter straw-like pieces.  It was a rather large bag and after using some in our Halloween themed sensory bin and in this centerpiece, I still have  about half the bag leftover!

The colorful gourds I picked up in a mixed bag at our local farmer's market.  I absolutely love going to the farmer's market for their produce and goodies like this.  The produce is always bigger, better, and cheaper than the grocery store!  If you have a farmer's market near you, go!!  This bag was $3 and had nine gourds in various colors, shapes, and sizes.    I saw similar bags for sale at the grocery store for about $5 but they weren't as colorful and didn't have as many gourds in them.

We added the two mini pumpkins we picked from our own flower bed into the bowl to top off the centerpiece.  It's a lovely addition to the table and really adds to the fall feel in our home (especially when I'm burning my pumpkin scented candle!)

We also decided to put up a few Halloween decorations outside this year.  I saw this Frankenstein door decoration on Pinterest, and since we have a green front door I figured we just had to do this one!  I think he turned out pretty cute, despite having to work around all the windows on our door.  We've already received a few compliments from neighbor kids.  We used black and white construction paper, tape, and a trash bag. All things we already had in the house.  The other decorations were from the Dollar Store.  So our front porch decorations cost a total of $3.  Can't beat that!

We're going to the pumpkin patch this weekend to get our big pumpkins.  I'm looking forward to that!  This is the first year we'll be carving a pumpkin with the kids.  I can't wait to see how it turns out!