Cozy Fall Decor & Upcycling Ideas

I am enjoying these last weeks of summer, but I'm also looking forward to the crisp days of fall. The dusty bins of fall decor were pulled off the garage shelves just the other day. As I opened the bins, the smell of fall poured into the room. It was wonderful. The candles, the cinnamon pine cones, the "Give Thanks" banner, and the decorative pumpkins and leaves brought back some of the best memories of fall - not because decor makes fall what it is, but because of the association.

After sorting through the two bins of decor, I ran upstairs, put on some music, and decorated my whole room. Everything feels so cozy now.

Two of the fall signs in the decor above were a part of my upcycling. My brother built a garden shed and patio cover for us a while ago, so we had some old boards leftover from the projects. I was so excited to find them behind the garden shed a couple weeks ago. Even though most of them had odd holes and stains and were a little on the grungy side, they were perfect for some fall signs. 

I just used a couple coats of various acrylic paints on the best sides of the boards, and also used acrylic paint to stencil words and details on the signs. 

For a couple of the signs, I added strips of burlap or felt details to give some variety. 

To make them even more interesting, I wrapped a couple boards in burlap before painting them. I did this by using hot glue to hold the burlap down. 

Of course you can stencil words directly on the burlap, but I decided that the words would stand out more if there was a coat of paint behind them. It's important to either thin the paint or make sure you have a ton of it (because the burlap soaks up the paint easily) - I ran out of the color I was using and had to mix two colors to match the previous one.

I did the base coat messily and left some edges of burlap showing. The paint on burlap takes quite a while to dry, but I started using stencils on it before it was dry and didn't have any problems. These signs were the most fun to make.

Another part of my upcycling was this small fall wreath. I was inspired by the "Autumn Wreath with Felt Leaves" on Craftionary, but I used a circle cut from a pizza box for a wreath form instead of buying one. Instead of wrapping the wreath in yarn, I used some old burlap (attached using hot glue). I cut out the leaves and stitched them with embroidery floss, then added them to the wreath with hot glue. It was a lot of fun to make use of a pizza box for this.

The last part of my upcycling was putting new labels on dry soda bottles and using them for apple cider. I had been collecting these dry soda bottles for a long time, hoping I could find a use for them since they seem so perfect for projects. It would probably be a good idea to take off all the old labels before making new ones since they do show through the inside, but I knew these wouldn't be for anything formal and decided not to peel off the old labels. 

I hope you enjoyed these upcycled items and fall decor. Have a great Tuesday!