Recently a local magazine, "Boom" was coming to my
house to take pictures for its September issue.
I wanted to have Fall decorations in place to fit in with the
the time that the magazine would be published but no real
pumpkins, no mums or even crotons were for sale at
any store for decorating the house.
Usually I like to mix some real items in with artificial ones for
decorating to try to "fool the eye" of the beholder but this early
Fall decorating had to be strictly "faux" items.
Faux is the French word for "fake". Some nicer words used
might be "artificial", "simulated", or "imitation".
Faux in pronounced like "foe".
I love decorating for Fall so I have quite a stash of faux
Fall things to decorate with in the attic.
When you come in my front door, there isn't much of a foyer.
You are actually in the dining room. This big white faux
pumpkin sits between two lamps (which happen to be a good
Fall color) on top of a buffet in this area.
The vines coming out of the pumpkin's stem actually are real
ones gathered from the woods. A grapevine wreath was placed
on top of the urn and decorated with artificial Fall leaves,
berries, and acorns then the pumpkin placed on top.
To your right when you come in the front door is the dining
room table and chairs with a hutch along the wall.
The hutch is one that I have had for about twenty-five years.
It's one of the true antiques that I have. I got tired of the dark
wood color but for years could not bring myself to paint it.
When the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint line came to America, I
did decide to try paint on it. It is a layered technique of her
Old Ochre and Coco colors. Click here if you want to see
how that painting process went.
The faux pumpkins for the hutch had to be skinny to fit
inside. They were held together with wooden skewers
that you can get in the kitchen supply area in the grocery store.
The glass in the hutch is wavy so it is hard to see through.
Here is one stack of faux pumpkins with the door open.
To make my "faux antique chandy" have some Fall flair I
added a cut grapevine wreath onto the arms and started adding
artificial fruit, leaves and berries to the wreath.
If you want to see more details how to add the wreath to a
chandy, you can look at this tutorial where I did a similar
decoration on the chandy in the Spring.
The other eating area of the house is adjacent to the kitchen.
I normally don't buy black furniture but this table and chairs
was such a good deal, I couldn't pass it up. I thought I might
paint it but it looks good in the Fall with these black candlesticks
with pumpkins on top.
The candlesticks make the faux pumpkins have more impact
than they would just sitting on the table. Most of the candlesticks
were from the clearance shelf at Hobby Lobby and painted black
to use at a friend's wedding reception.
I guess I must like pumpkins on candlesticks...I did it again in
the living room area. Because the faux pumpkins are so light,
they are easy to stack up. These actually don't have anything
holding them together but you could use wooden skewers if
you wanted to.
This vignette could use some more embellishment but you
get the idea.
These acorns are too big to be considered trying to fool someone
into thinking they are real but they make for a fun table display.
"Every great oak tree was once a nut that stood its ground."
The living room also has a faux painting over the mantle.
I've had fun adding artist gel to art prints and changing out the
out the pictures in the frame with the seasons. To see the details
of how this Fall colored print was made to look like a painting
you can click here.
If you like to decorate the outside of your house for Fall, you
can also use faux things out there too provided they are
weatherproof. Even if you don't do a lot of outside decorating
you might at least put a wreath on your front door.
I bought a faux berry wreath but when it actually got on the
door, it looked too skimpy. To make it look fuller I wired the
top of the berry wreath onto a grapevine wreath about
the same size. The grapevine wreath also made a good place
to add faux leaves and other interesting elements.
"X" marks the place the two wreaths are wired together.
Here is a side view of the two wreaths together in a test
shot from the magazine shoot.
After seeing this shot, more items were added to the side
of the wreath to hide the grapevine wreath a little more.
Outside of the front door there is an urn on each side of
the porch. This past Spring I planted the urns with pink
Mandevilla and other sun-tolerant plants. Most of the
plants have survived with regular watering but not all.
I replaced the wimpy plants with Fall colored coleus.
The urns were still needing some "filler" height plants to replace
the ones that "couldn't take the heat". Instead of getting all new
live plants, I got a couple of real-looking plastic greenery bunches
at Hobby Lobby too. They were 50% off so $4 each.
They have a tinge of Fall look to them...not super bright green.
Even though I will still need to water the urns every day for the
live plants, I know that these faux plants will keep their height
and be good fillers for the next few months.
Where I live in Alabama, not many of the trees have
started changing into their Fall colors but a few have.
So for me, it is not too early to start sneaking faux Fall colors
into the urns and planting beds in the front yard. If you do it
a little at a time (and when they are not looking), your neighbors
will probably think that your Fall accents are real.
Mixed in with the real coleus and morning glory are the faux
greenery, little orange mums and a stem of orange and red berries.
This is another picture angle of that same group but the faux
plants don't show very much...I just think it is a pretty shot.
Right now the urns are still mostly Summery-looking.
The vines did not fill out the trellis as much as I would have liked.
They also mostly wait till they get to the top to bloom so there are not many blooms along the way.
I'll keep adding faux Fall stems to the urns gradually and then
pile up pumpkins at the base so the urns will look something
like this later in the Fall:
I was hoping that I would have real pumpkin patches in the
planting beds in the front yard this year. Sadly, all but one
of the once-flourshing pumpkin vines has died.
Here is the last pumpkin greenery left. See the shriveled up stem
beside it? I don't know what I did wrong. A little faux pumpkin
sits under the lone surviving plant to give the illusion that it
is growing there. It will be replaced by a bigger pumpkin later.
After most of the pumpkin plants died I put out green sweet potato
vines to try to act like pumpkin vines. Under some of the sweet
potato vines, I put little fake pumpkins so folks passing by might
think the vine and the pumpkin are the real thing.
Here is one of the pumpkin patches from last year using a mix
of real and faux pumpkins.
The mailbox has a small planting bed around it also. It has real
plants and flowers that go through seasonal changes but I tuck
some faux stems out there too when it gets sparse. I only use
faux flowers that are really real-looking for this.
Here's how the mailbox area looked at Memorial Day 2014:
It was all lush with purple clematis flowers on the vine
and day lillies and cone flowers getting ready to bloom.
See the twine on the side of the post to give the morning
glory seedlings a place to climb?
Now at Labor Day 2014 the mailbox has a different look:
The clematis vine has been joined by the passion vine
(that comes back on its own every year) and morning
glory vines to make an impressive topper for the mailbox.
It is so hot that not much is blooming on the vines now.
These passion vine flowers have found a shady spot on the backside
of the mailbox to bloom. When the weather cools down usually the
vines' flowers bloom more...the clematis even makes a comeback.
The real vines will start being joined by faux Fall leaves pretty
soon now. They also are added a little at a time to give the
illusion that the vines are changing colors like the trees.
Here's a photo of the mailbox from a past Fall:
The bed at the mailbox base looks pretty scraggly even though I
have put out some red coleus and orange blanket flowers to try to
replace the plants that have died back.
Oh yeah, those purple and pink flowers are Summer fakies...I'll pull them out soon.
Even the pumpkin vine that was out here died. I'm trying the
sweet potato vine and faux pumpkin look out here too.
Some orange and red faux flowers are tucked into the real
plants to start giving this bed a Fall look and to fill in blank spaces.
If you pull some real greenery around the flowers and keep them
kinda low, most folks will not realize they are artificial.
Pretty soon Fall mums will be available to be planted and
the mailbox bed will look full again and ready for a new season.
I hope you have a REAL fun Labor Day Weekend!
I'm sharing this post at
Natasha In Oz's Say G'day Link Party
Be Different/Act Normal's Show & Tell Saturday
Tatertots and Jello's Link Party Palooza
Meatloaf & Melodrama's Snickerdoodle Sunday