Decorating for Fall

I realize that most of you are about to decorate for Christmas, but I am resisting until after Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd share a fun project the kids and I did.  It takes next to no time to prepare and keeps the kids occupied for a bit.

Do you decorate for Fall?  I never did before children.  I never decorated for any season except Christmas before children.  Now, though, I want the kids to be excited and anticipating the upcoming seasons and holidays.  So I'm slowly accumulating decorations for each season.

 

Overall, my rule is that decorations must be free {or nearly free} and the kids must be able to help if not do it themselves.  It makes for nice crafts - the kind that can be thrown away after the season without too much complaint. 

This Fall I spent about $20 for decorating supplies, a little high for me, but most of the cost was in craft items I can reuse or décor I can pull out again next year.  For instance, a bag of paper mache gourds spray painted with metallic colors I already had.

My favorite decoration was our tree canvasses.  I saw this post from Jones Design Company awhile back and it struck a definite chord with me.  It was fabulous!  Even if the paintings ended up looking nothing like trees the colors would be just right for Fall.  I went to Joann's and got some acryllic paints in Fall colors.  I used canvasses so I could easily display them.  I think the project totalled around $15, and we still have a canvas {they were in 2-packs} and all the leftover paint for a later project.  So not free, but not bad.

Jack's painting

The kids loved this project.  They had a lot of fun and, surprisingly, so did I.  At first I kept trying to keep them within my rules, but eventually I just let them do whatever they wanted to do.

 Ella's painting

I hung them on the bookcase with 3M command strips.

They were SO excited!

I really like having something on that middle column, and will utilize it again, maybe even at Christmas.  Wreaths, maybe?

I put mine on the mantle and borrowed a little owl friend from Ella's room to keep it company.

This was an awesome project to do with kids.  I am planning on doing it again with different colors for different seasons.  You don't even need to do trees.  Maybe I could adapt it to make a holly wreath with red and green paint for Christmas?  Or lightly sketch out a flower or a cloud or.... 

Check out the Jones Design company link above if you want to see how to do this.  Paper {or canvas}, paint, and Q-tips is all you need!

If I don't post again before Thanksgiving, have a wonderful and happy one.