It’s time to say goodbye to summer and welcome in fall with its crisp air, warm colors, and festive holidays. You can get into the spirit of the season by making some simple fall décor changes to spice up the look and feel of your home. Here are six ways to bring that autumnal vibe to the inside and outside of your home.

Add Warmth

When cooler nights come, you’ll want to stay toasty and warm. Drape a plaid-patterned or earth-toned throw blanket on your couches, chairs, or on outside seating so you can snuggle up under nature’s fall hues. Pair it with a decorative pillow or throw rug to add an additional cozy feel to other living areas in the home.

Pop in Color

Potted fall flowers like mums, a new, seasonal, color-complementing doormat or a display of pumpkins, can add some splashes of color to your porch. Inside, change your tablecloth to a festive fall pattern, or add a solid, rust-colored runner under your place settings. For an easy DIY decoration, put some gold decorative acorns at the bottom of a vase, fill it with fall flowers, and wrap a complementary colored ribbon around it. You can also display foliage decorations around a fireplace. (Be sure to keep them well away from open flames!)

Light It Up

Lights aren’t only for Christmastime. With sunset moving to earlier, add some decorative lighting to bring a warm glow around your home. Make a garland with leaves and lights, and hang them on the mantle of your fireplace or around your front door. Fill up a woven basket with leaves, gourds, and pinecones, then wrap lights around the base and handle. Take some apples and use them as candleholders for your table by coring some and putting a taper candle inside.

Get Crafty

With just a stroll into your local craft shop, you can pick up some DIY supplies that can enhance the fall feel of your home. Here are some ideas:

• Make a leaf bowl. Collect leaves—they could be one or several colors. Blow up a balloon, then brush glue on both sides of leaves to be placed on top of the balloon. Layer them and continue to glue until you make the size of bowl you would like. Once the glue has dried, deflate your balloon by cutting a small hole. The balloon should come right off the bowl. At this point, your bowl is ready for display—you could even put some yummy Halloween candy in it!
• Decorate a pumpkin. There are so many ways to decorate a pumpkin: carving, stencils, painting, or lights. A different way is to use craft nails and string to make a design on the pumpkin with a spider’s web effect.
• Make a cork craft. Instead of throwing away your wine corks, start saving them. There are so many crafts to make using cork. For fall, you can simply glue them together into a pumpkin shape, add a cork stem on top, paint the ends orange, and put some real or felt leaves and a bow around the stem. If you’re hosting family for the holidays, you can make cork place cards by painting the corks with themed colors and placing them on their sides. Then, cut a slit to display the name card. You could also stand the corks up, wrap them in colored ribbon, push a paper clip into the center, then place the name card in the clip.

Leave a Scent

Some of our favorite smells are during the fall season, like the ever-popular pumpkin spice! You can bring those scents into your home in a variety of ways. Make cinnamon-scented pinecones by baking them in the oven to get them clean, spraying them with a mix of cinnamon oil and water, then displaying them in a bowl or vase. You can also make your own fall potpourri by boiling apples, cinnamon sticks, cloves, vanilla, and nutmeg in a pot with water. Simmer and let the smells waft through the house. You can make no-cook potpourri, as well, with a blend of dried fruits, nuts, and spices in a mason jar.

Bring in Nature

The beautiful scenery of fall doesn’t have to be viewed only outside the window. You can easily bring pieces of nature inside, like dried corn stalks or gourds for your table or a bouquet of warm hues in your vases. Pumpkins don’t have to sit on the porch—you can put decorated or light-up pumpkins in your window and let the glow warm the inside of the house. You could even create some fall projects with nature’s supplies. Gather leaves to decorate around a picture frame, create floating candles with leaves in the bowl, or add glitter to some leaves and hang them up as decorations. For a low-effort option, simply swap out your existing wall art with new fall-themed prints or paintings. The possibilities are endless when it comes to fall decorations! You can simply buy ready-made items or use your creative skills to craft a unique seasonal display.