This Thanksgiving turn your front porch into the most inviting and appealing porch in your neighborhood as friends and relatives come to visit and celebrate the holiday with you and your family.
Your porch is the first part of your house any visitor would notice. So, decorating your porch is important. You have to think about the best thanksgiving decorations that not only look good but enhance the overall look of your porch and house.
Holy Trinity of Design Components
Your porch size does not really matter as long as you keep these three design concepts in mind – purpose, theme, and texture for your fall decorations.
Here, our purpose is to create the most curbs appealing fall front porch. And it is up to you what theme (e.g. modern, vintage, metallic, gold, Earth, tangerine), and what character or texture (e.g. sleek and simple, complex and sophisticated) you want to achieve.
Aside from your theme and texture, the color palette you would want to play with is another important consideration in decorating your porch.
The autumn color palette for your fall decor offers wonderful colors from which to choose. Purples, rusts, gold, yellows, oranges, deep greens, and browns can be used in your outdoor rugs, outdoor door mats, cushions, and decorating accessories.
Fall is a season of the year filled with warm vibrant colors (aside from spring), which makes fall decorations more fun. Incorporating natural and indigenous elements in your fall home décor installation should enhance the overall look of your porch.
You do not have to buy a lot of expensive materials from the store to come up with fabulous fall porch turkey decorations. There are plenty of materials in your kitchen or in your yard that we can recycle – such as old chalkboards, old rattan baskets (or any basket for that matter), wheat stalks, corn stalks, turkey feathers, ball jars (or any jar for that matter), carts, and leaves and twigs from trees! Garlands and wreaths are great, too!
All you need for your thanksgiving decor is to widen that imagination and make that creativity work wonders for you.
Nonetheless, if you want to buy the common items for a fall porch decoration that we cannot make ourselves or pick in our backyard – such as faux pumpkins and gourds and planters – it might cost you an average of $400 for a simple installation. This is only comprised of a few faux pumpkins, big and small, and a wreath.
To help you out, here are some interesting thanksgiving decorations ideas for your front porch:
1. Make them Sit.
Don’t spend much on fancy vintage carts, and enormous pots and vases for autumn decorations. If you have a couch or a bench you could spare, bring them out in your front porch and bring your desired autumn porch to reality.
You can do a lot of things with a bench in a porch. You can arrange various pumpkins on the bench, plus some lavender, mums, and evergreens. And to make the installation more like an installation instead of grocery items left on a porch bench, install pots of evergreens and mums around the bench too, to enclose the bench as part of a whole installation.
Tip:
Add texture with baskets, which give the appearance of “bounty”. Baskets can be overflowing with fruit, greenery, and twigs for a whimsical decoration anywhere you need some fall color. Large baskets can also be used for holding fall quilts or linens.
2. Use Mr. Pumpkin’s Sunday Mornings
You can choose to be more romantic (as in: Romantic versus Classic in Arts) about that chair or bench-in-the-autumn-porch idea by embracing the autumn palette.
Rusts, orange, ochre, and golden tones are part of the autumn palette. Embrace them. Use rusty tables (if you only intend to place decorations on them) instead of fancy wooden ones, and don’t sweep those autumn leaves. Add symbols of Thanksgiving and the fall – pumpkins, mums, corns, and gourds.
Tip:
Use vintage items for fall decors. Look for old wheelbarrows, benches, and barrels. An old window propped up with a fall wreath on it, is easy and charming. Wagons, and porches can be enhanced with fall mums and pumpkins. These add so much inviting interest to your home.
3. Wreath It Up
You can choose to be minimalist with your autumn front porch, and a captivating wreath is all you need – and a few topiaries.
Remember, you don’t have to buy wreaths from your local home furnishing store, you can make your own wreaths and have fun at the same time!
For this particular example, you’ll need wheat husks, mums, sunflowers, daisies, and leaves; also, for the hardware, wires, tweezers and pliers. If you can’t figure out how to make your wreath, you can learn how to make your own wreaths.
Tip:
Add elements of nature like fruits, vegetables, and gourds. Take a nature walk and collect twigs, pine cones, leaves, foliage and branches, and create an earthy wreath or swag for the front door. A wreath is always an easy way to add any season’s color
4. Keep it Simple and Cozy
Simple need not be boring; simplicity is beauty.
Here’s another bench-in-the-autumn-porch idea you can explore. It’s pretty simple and easy to install:
You need few elements, a wreath made of twigs, mini pumpkins, a turkey figurine, and a fall greetings pillow. Arrange them in one part of your house and you’re done!
It looks elegant and it looks inviting and cozy – makes you want to stay and sit for a while!
Tip:
Add textural fabrics. Burlap, nubby throw blankets, flannel and tweed fabrics are great for furniture coverings and accessory such as shown here. Adding different textures together are a landmark looks for fall decorating, and so easy to create.
5. Use Hay Bales and Topiaries
You can amaze your guests with an astonishing display of creativity. But you have to keep in mind that the more complex an installation becomes, the more difficult it is to make it look sophisticated, but at the same time appealing and not appalling.
To achieve finesse in complexity, you need to keep in mind some basic principles of art installation and design – balance, unity, harmony, and focus.
Focus is important, because you don’t want onlookers to get drowned staring at your Thanksgiving front porch decors.
6. Put a Centerpiece on the Porch
Aside from chairs and benches, you can use tables in your fall front porch to mount whatever installation you have in mind.
Tables on the porch are a good way in crafting table centerpieces and at the same time exhibiting something interesting on the porch. Centerpieces aren’t always flowers and vases, you know, so you can try some faux pumpkins or gourds, and even cornhusks and twigs. A lamp could really make that centerpiece more romantic.
Again, to avoid your table to look like just another table with stuff on it, add elements beneath it such us mums and gourds.
7. Line your Walk
Walk your guests to your front doors with pumpkins lined along your patio. It’s simple but it’s sweet.
If you think real pumpkins are not practical for this sort of installation, you can choose to buy fake ones instead. Using autumnal faux pumpkins may save you from unpleasant situations.
Well, who uses real pumpkins for outdoor fall decorations anyway?
8. Tangerine and Ochre
One of the beauties of autumn is the natural burst of colors from nature. Take advantage of that.
For homes with brighter or lighter paints, contrasting that light shade with warm autumn colors is perfect. Remember the keyword here folks: contrast.
Notice this example:
Four huge ceramic or concrete flowerpots for mums line the fence gate to the doorsteps. At the steps are faux pumpkins and hay bales, and more mums! Standing tall beside the hay bales are corn stalks – symmetry and balance achieved.
On top of the windows at both sides of the house, you can put pumpkins too–ingenious! Let nature do its job, don’t sweep up all those maple leaves; they add texture to everything around your home.
9. Let Nature Run its Course
Fall porch design could also work like an investment portfolio. You do something about it for a day, and let time do its work for you with minimal intervention.
If you’re too busy with your work and can’t spare time decorating your front porch, let nature do its magic for you! You can plant some bush and vines along the sides of your home and let the autumn vine crawl up your wall. Note that this kind of gimmick also needs maintenance because you have to trim those vines and bushes. Got it?
Let it grow. Water it. Trim it. Care for it. Then when fall comes… voila! You have your own captivating autumn porch. So when Thanksgiving comes, you won’t have to worry about it much anymore.
10. Pumpkins in a Cart
What’s cuter than a pull-cart with pumpkins, hay bales, and husks in it?
The best part:
No fancy installation required.
It looks simple. It seems all you have to do is dump all those pumpkins, hay bales, dried sunflower, twigs, spare metal wheels, and dried wheat husks on the cart, and then you’re good to go.
Well, it’s not really like that.
Make sure that your take a careful look at your installation of thanksgiving ideas. It should follow a pyramidal organization – see Organization in the principle of art installation and design.
When dumping stuff as a decoration, never forget to create an illusion of a solid base for stability (the hay bales and the one big gourd), and the balance of aesthetics by creating a pyramidal organization.
11. Pumpkin and Leaf Topiaries
Everybody loves maples and pumpkins in fall, so who would not love maple and pumpkin topiaries? This could be just one of your thanksgiving party ideas.
Topiary is the art or practice of clipping shrubs or trees into ornamental shapes. So yeah, no need for fancy items, you just need leaves, twigs, some acorn, mini pumpkins, and corn stalks – and of course wires, pliers, and tweezers… and a few pots, jars, solar lanterns, and planters.
More important principles of art installation and design, aside from balance, are pattern and rhythm (Yep! Not only music has rhythm!).
Notice how symmetrical the organization of the elements are in the best installations. But the rhythm of every element we include in the design spells a difference, such as the gradation of the color and size of pumpkins and the variation in texture of smaller pumpkins in your design.
12. Create Something Simple and Balanced
A very simple and charming installation is comprised on two basic components – the wreath, and the mum-gourd-hay installation. This actually makes for a very Martha Stewart Thanksgiving.
Put the mums, gourds, and the hay bales on the either side of the front door where a wreath of leaves and faux pumpkins hangs.
The point here is that no matter how few, or how simple your installation is, as long as it follows the basic principle of art installation and design, it will look good in your autumn front porch.
The thing about deciding about having fewer or more elements in a front porch Thanksgiving decoration is, aside from budget, the overall surrounding and characteristics of the surrounding – front the paint of the house to the details of your porch, and the dominant color palette around.
If the overall surrounding is light and simple, a simple burst of autumn color such as these mums, gourds, and a wreath would suffice. But when everything around your porch is bursting with colors, then you’ll have to decide whether to complement the environment or go with some contrasting themes.
Tip:
Try mixing fall colors with lighter spring colors. Blue is a perfect complement to the orange pumpkins, and makes for a fresh light look for the fall season. Adding lots of white will give a cottage look as well. This would be delightful for Thanksgiving Day.
13. Don’t Cut Corners
Decorate every small entrance and corner near your front door. Never miss the opportunity to bring life to a boring corner of your home using thanksgiving decoration dieas.
Here, a chair with simple leaf topiary, a few faux pumpkins, some corns, and one big gourd made a rather lonely corner alive.
Your home decorations are a gift to yourself and everyone else
An old adage goes: “Feeling thankful and not expressing it is like wrapping a gift but not giving it.”
So this holiday, treat your friends, family, and neighbors with an inviting and warm autumn front porch accented with thanksgiving decorating ideas. Make it warm and vivid so that random passers by would be thankful they walked by the front of your home.
It’s up to you whether to make your front porch classic or romantic, minimalist or sophisticated, daunting or subtle, or however you please. Just remember, keep everything balanced, and have fun.
Additional Research:
| http://www.shelterness.com/15-ideas-to-make-cool-thanksgiving-garlands/ |
| http://www.shelterness.com/15-ideas-to-make-cool-thanksgiving-wreaths/ |
| http://www.potterybarn.com/shop/outdoor/accessories-pillows-outdoor/?cm_type=lnav |
| http://teaching.ellenmueller.com/installation-utopias/resources/elements-principles-of-design/ |