2. Take a nature walk. Gather organic elements that can be used in your fall makeover. Acorns, pinecones, seed pods, bark, even stones can be used as display in bowls around the home. Press pretty leaves and strew them on tables and around centerpieces.

3. Bring out the candles! If you put away your candles for winter, now is the time to bring them to center stage. Gather groups of inexpensive votives and tie together with scraps of raffia.

4. Add scent to the home. Simmer apple peels and cinnamon sticks on the stove, or invest in a couple of vials of potpourri oil. They are relatively inexpensive at just a couple bucks apiece, and they last forever as you only need a few drops.

5. Celebrate the tastes of the harvest season. Keep apples and pomegranates out in bowls, store squashes on countertops, pick up a pumpkin or two at your produce stand (even though it’s not Halloween yet!) and use as a centerpiece, or pile a couple next to the kitchen door.

Most of all, take the time to celebrate this special season and appreciate the comfort we can offer our families in our own homes.

Kathleen Wilson is an author, national columnist, and editor of The Budget Decorator. You can find more free ideas and projects, and info on her online workshop based on her book at http://www.TheBudgetDecorator.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathleen_Wilson

If you are like most people, you take care of all the bigger bases when it comes to holiday decorating, but have you thought about trying to take on some of the smaller bases and do accent decorating.

Although most people don’t think of their cabinet hardware until they need to open a shelf or a drawer, there is a lot that can be done with knobs and pulls to make it a part of your seasonal decorations.

There is a whole market out there of companies that do nothing but create cabinet hardware to fit every style, whim and theme that they can think of. This means you can easily find a set of knobs and pulls that is perfect for the fall holiday season.

Halloween – For Halloween you can go as cute and whimsical or even scary as you would like when it comes to the knobs and pulls for your cabinetry. If you like the fun and cute side of the holiday you could use pumpkin, smiling jack-o-lantern or candy corn hardware pieces. If you want to focus on the trick-or-treating ideal, you can choose ghosts, goblins and masks.

Thanksgiving – From turkeys to pilgrims and cornucopias, there are plenty of options to choose from when you decide it’s time to select thanksgiving hardware pieces for your kitchen cabinetry.

Fall – Fall is a colorful time of year and you can replace your normal cabinet hardware with pieces that show off all the brilliance of the season. Some of the options for drawer pulls and knobs in your kitchen include leaves, acorns, various nuts and berries and much more.

Mix it Up

Once you have selected which fall theme you want to go with, you need to decide if you want all your cabinets to look the same or if you want to mix it up. There is nothing wrong with combining a number of the different designs from one category to add more fun to your kitchen.

While you may think you don’t really want to be changing your knobs and pulls back and forth, consider this. Your cabinet hardware is only going to last for so long. Wear and tear is going to make it where you are going to have to eventually replace all of those pieces. You can either do this just once, and have to come up with a new design at that time, or choose pieces that you change our more periodically. By changing out your cabinet hardware to go with the season, you will, in truth, be saving your regular hardware a few months of wear and tear. Add that up over a few years and you may tack a year or more on before you have to buy a new set.

Author Jennifer Akre is an owner of a wide variety of online specialty shops including that offer both items and information on how you can easily furnish and decorate your space. Whether it’s your living, bedroom, or even your deck or patio, there are many tips you can use to make those spots both functional and beautiful. Today, she offers advice on how to create a fabulous living area by using stylish cabinet hardware and elegant dining room furniture for the heart of your home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Akre

While most of the great foods from this time of year are born in the kitchen of a home, it seems many people don’t appreciate their kitchens as much as they should and don’t decorate them for fall festivities. You should at least make an effort to decorate the table.

Maybe you’re not sure what type of theme to go with in this room? Well, here are a few ideas

Halloween

If you really love Halloween, you should dress up your kitchen for this holiday as well. Start with the tables. Most people think of treats and great things to eat on Halloween. That means they are going to look at the kitchen tables immediately upon walking into the kitchen. They may hope there are a few treats sitting around waiting to be munched on. Don’t disappoint. From popcorn balls to wrapped candied apples or freshly made Halloween cupcakes, make sure there is always something pleasing to the eye and stomach.

Thanksgiving

When you think of your kitchen tables and Thanksgiving you may be thinking of all the work that is going to be done in this place to make sure the dining room fare is perfect on Thanksgiving Day. Feel free to keep the theme going while decorating your tables. A perfect way to do this is to set up a cornucopia on the table and have all sorts of fall colored foods coming out of the opening. Every grocery store is stocked with beautiful ears of corn and colorful squashes and gourds that will complete the look.

Apple or Pumpkin Pie

Nothing says holidays in the kitchen like the scent of pie. It could be apple pie or pumpkin pie, but either one lets everyone in the house know that someone is in that kitchen creating a holiday favorite. If you want to turn this theme into your kitchen décor, there are a few things to do:

The Scent – You need the scent of pie in the kitchen. You could cook pies regularly. But if you would rather not, consider putting scented candles on your kitchen tables or try any of the other various room fragrances that you can purchase at the store.

The Look – Thankfully, pie is a very popular theme in kitchens. You won’t have a problem finding all sorts of placemats, centerpiece items and accents with pie themes to decorate your kitchen tables with country warmth.

Festive Fall

One final theme to consider is just to appreciate the season. Fall in itself is a beautiful time of year with all the colors changing in the trees. You can bring this to your kitchen tables with a fall theme that includes leaf decorated china, leaf shaped placemats and a centerpiece made out of foliage that brags the best of the colors of autumn.

Author Jennifer Akre is an owner of a wide variety of online specialty shops including that offer both items and information on how you can easily furnish and decorate your space. Whether it’s your living, bedroom, or even your deck or patio, there are many tips you can use to make those spots both functional and beautiful. Today, she offers advice on how to create a fabulous indoor area by using charming kitchen furniture and elegant dining tables for the hub of your home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Akre

How To Decorate Your Coffee Table For Halloween

The first thing you need to do is find a cover for your table. Now you can go to the mall or a store like Target and see if they have any table cloths that are Halloween themed and you can use that as a cover or you can make your own.

If you make your own then you should go to the fabric store and pick out a nice orange or brown colored (dark colors) piece of cloth to use as the cover. Then you can pick some more cloth of whichever color that you didn’t choose to make shapes out of that you can emboss onto the cover. This is where it gets fun. You can cut the cloth you bought for embossing into any Halloween inspired designs like pumpkins, cats, ghosts, or witches on broom sticks. Then once you have all of the embossing done finish off the covers ends with a sewing machine.

Next you need a centerpiece. This is my favorite part. You can make a distinctive centerpiece by using either candles or something else. You can go to the store and buy statues that you can arrange of ghosts, gouls, and monsters or you can build your own out of different materials. Since it’s fall during Halloween you can use a foam ring and fake leaves with a brown or orange candle as a centerpiece.

Learn more about choosing, purchasing, and finding the best coffee table for your living spaces at Perfect Coffee Tables.com which talks specifically about cheap coffee table.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=W._P._Allen

Making The Cover

You have several options when it comes to the cover for your Halloween themed coffee table. You can make it yourself or you can run to the shopping mall and buy a Halloween themed table cloth. It really depends on your time, your budget, and your ability to emboss.

To create your cover you should buy some dark brown fabric for the cover and some brighter orange for the embossing. You want to create Halloween inspired designs to be embossed on the brown cover. You can use designs like jack-o-lanters, ghosts, gouls, witches, pumpkins, cats, etc. Then once you have everything embossed you can finish off the cover’s ends with a sewing machine.

Making The Centerpiece

Now you want to create the centerpiece. The centerpiece can be many different things. I like to change it up from time to time. Sometimes I’ll use a pumpkin scented candle and sometimes I’ll use Halloween inspired figurines and statues that I purchased online. It’s really up to you as to what you want to make your centerpiece out of. If you want to use the candle you should put something around it like fake cobwebs with little, fake, plastic spiders to finish off the look.

To make it look really coordinated you can also add similar designs to your end tables, your mantle, and the top of your television.

Learn more about choosing, purchasing, and finding the best coffee table for your living spaces at Perfect Coffee Tables.com which talks specifically about cherry coffee table.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=W._P._Allen

But what about the trick-or-treaters? Have you come up with a really fun way to get them to be a part of your home display? If you have hutches in your home, we’re going to help you make their Halloween trick-or-treating a scream.

First, consider the look of your hutches. Most hutches have a counter that sticks out a little bit below the shelving portion of the furniture piece. While in a regularly lighted room this looks like a nice piece of furniture, if it’s dark and there are cobwebs hanging from it, it looks like a black hole where anything could be hiding under the first shelf of the hutch.

We’re going to turn your hutches into mystery graveyards.

Start with the shelves. If you have items you can’t take off the shelves, you will at least need to cover them up to make the theme work. If you can remove the items, you have more decorating space. You will want to put foam tombstones and possibly some fake bones of hands or feet sticking off the end of the shelf.

On the counter portion of your hutches, you need to put down a layer of protective material (a garbage bag will do in a pinch), and then cover it with black fabric. On top of this you will need to place a couple of bowls, which can be pushed back to the wall of the hutch (these are going to be your treat bowls).

Now you need to decorate the front of the counter on the hutches with more tombstones, skeleton pieces and anything else that gives a creepy look. Finally drape the whole area with cobwebs.

What you want to have accomplished is an area where the kids will have to reach through the scary graveyard and cobwebs to go to the bowls they can’t see at the back of the hutches to get their candy.

Motion Activated Items

Many stores carry motion activated items these days that are great to add to this theme. They could be items you can set on the shelves or the counter of the hutches or have sitting nearby. All that matters is as the kids try to approach to get their candy, the motion activated toys come to life.

Sounds and Lights

A big part of what makes Halloween spooky is the lights and sounds of the holiday. You should set up your stereo to play a creepy soundtrack and have very dark lighting to make your hutches look even more like a scary place to visit.

Final Touches

If you really want to be a tough venue, you can also mix up the bowls. You can have some of the bowls have treats and others have store bought slime that they may reach their hand into. You can claim it’s the brains of someone who was buried in the cemetery and watch them scream.

Author Jennifer Akre is an owner of many niche online stores providing consumers with products and information relating to furnishing and decorating indoor and outdoor living spaces. No matter what you what to do, whether it is refreshing the look of your living room or building on outdoor spot ideal for taking in the weather, there is plenty of helpful advice to help make that happen. Today, she shares her insight when investing in lavish dining room furniture and sturdy kitchen tables. Each would be a nice purchase.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Akre

Decorating the inside of your house for Halloween doesn’t have to be as big of an ordeal as the outside is. You do still need to live in this space, so it needs to be manageable.

Look Online

Start your search for how to dress up your home online. There are plenty of interior decorators that will be happy to show you their Halloween best. While you may not be trying to go all out, like they do, their decorations may give you ideas for the direction you would like to go.

See What You Have

Look around your house. Chances are you have plenty of things that can take on another role for Halloween décor, especially those fun items that you could put on accent tables. That black cloth you haven’t gotten around to using for a craft project will be great to cover a coffee table or end table. Those accent tables that look like barrels are already perfect pieces of décor that can become a part of your show.

Go Shopping

A trip to the store will likely give you many more ideas for ways to decorate some portions of your house. The key is to hold off on buying until you are sure of what you are doing. It’s easy to think things are great looking and start buying without knowing how they will go together. Then, you get home and have a lot of things you no longer want to use, yet spent money on.

Start Putting It Together

Once you have a theme in mind, start to piece it together. If you don’t have any unique furniture, you may want to drape the wooden pieces you have with cobwebs and black cloth. Then consider shopping for a few accent tables that can fit the theme. There are very affordable accent tables that are made specifically for Halloween. These are great if you have a lot of storage. If not, you may want to choose some that can be used year round.

Accent tables with wrought iron legs or those that look like they were made of old driftwood or barn wood can look like part of your Halloween décor as well as part of the décor you may use every day.

Once you get all your scary items in place, make sure you don’t forget the important things – treats. Everyone expects that well decorated homes will be the ones giving out yummy treats. You can choose a couple of themed bowls to set up on your accent tables so there is always something sweet to snack on. After all, remember, if you don’t have treats you may well end up having people playing tricks on you come Halloween night.

Author Jennifer Akre is an entrepreneur who runs different online specialty stores providing consumers with products and information on how to furnish and decorate any indoor or outdoor space. Whether it’s your living, bedroom, or even your deck or patio, there are many tips you can use to make those spots both practical and appealing to the eye. Today, she offers advice on how to create a fabulous indoor area by using beautiful console tables and grand accent tables. Each would be a nice investment.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Akre