I love-making and using items in nature for decorating. In this post, I will show you how I use items in nature to decorate, and how to make your own ornaments. I have grown some of these items, some were given to me and others I found on the ground that inspired me. The pinecones and gourds I prefer the natural look not painted. I did wipe a light-colored stain on the gourds to bring out the designs on them. The ornaments are made from seed pods, nuts and shells for different textural accents in my arrangements.

Here are some of my Fall decorations this year. I hope it inspires you!

This is my Fall Harvest table this year. I used a long mirror to arrange assorted shapes and sizes of gourds I grew a few years ago, a beaded garland, fall leaves, eucalyptus stems, small antlers, cotton balls, lotus seed pods, a variety of pinecones, and seed pods, nuts and shell balls I’ve created.

These are different views for you to see some of the details in my arrangements.

I carried my decorations over to the buffet, baby grand piano and other areas in our home to keep it cohesive. The large gourd on the piano is one I grew. I gave a friend a bunch  of my homegrown gourds to use in her gourd crafts. She in turn gifted me one of my gourds that she wood burned leaf designs on, knowing that I like them natural looking,  and made me a large vase.

The couch table in our den is where I used a variety of poppy pod balls, gourds, pinecones, leaves and fall mums.

I put a little color under my husband’s big screen TV and a tray arrangement on our back door foyer table. It has a gourd I cut and turned upside down. The beautiful golden interior shined after I sprayed it with clear acrylic gloss spray. I put a votive inside it and candlelight made the inside of the gourd have more of a golden glow. I added a tiny gourd I grew and painted my Joyful Pumpkin design on. Check out my Joyful Pumpkin Pins for my inspiration. http://donnasdd.org/inspirations/joyful-pumpkin-pins/

Now that I’ve shared some of my Fall decorating ideas with you I want to show you how you can make some of these seed pods & shell creations yourself.

It’s starts out with Styrofoam balls, I sponged paint with brown acrylic paint. This keeps the white of the Styrofoam ball from showing through the cracks. I do this with the poppy pods, acorn tops, pistachio shells & magnolia pods. I use Aleene’s Tacky Glue (hot glue will melt the Styrofoam) to glue them in place.Then put in front of a small counter fan to dry. The poppy pods & acorn caps have stems you can puncture the Styrofoam to set with the glue. The acorns, as well as the magnolia pods you have to glue in stages. I use toothpicks to hold them in place and fan dry in stages till the ball is covered. Here are a few of my Poppy Pods, Acorns & Acorn Caps, Magnolia Pods and Pistachio Shell Balls. I hope you get inspired to do some of your own.

Now I’d like to show you how I use these items from nature in my Christmas Decorating over the last five years. I hope this inspires you to do the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope I’ve inspired you in some small way to create your own arrangements with items from nature. Until my next post….God’s Blessings!