1. Fall Foliage

Harvesting fall foliage is easier than it sounds. I’m from South Louisiana and we get close to no fall-colored foliage, but I can still manage to bring the outdoors, in. I just trim a few oak branches and wait for them to die. I know, it sounds awful, but it works. They turn a beautiful honey gold and dry quite well. I used them last year, tossed them out, and am already on the hunt for more. I think I’ll use them in the basket on my front door this year. Stay tuned to my Instagram to see how my front porch turns out this fall.

Here’s a reel of the simple process + my top tip for preserving your foliage and protecting your home when you bring nature in to enjoy!

2. Pinecones

This is a no-brainer! Pinecones are so annoying and ugly in the yard, so I bring them in and get good use out of them in the fall. In fact, I use them all winter, through Christmas and the new year. I even saw packs of pinecones in the dollar section at Target recently if you don’t have any near your home. Adding a little cinnamon oil or Autumn/Christmas blend of essential oils makes them even more appealing. Keep it simple when displaying them too! I love a wood or concrete bowl overflowing with them, a fireplace basket jam-packed or a front porch planter full. Last year I displayed them in just about every room and plan to recreate the look again this year.

Bringing pinecones in is easy but doesn’t come without a little risk. There can be a bug or two lurking inside the cone itself. Modern Homestead has a great tutorial on preparing your pinecones for use as decor.

3. Nuts in the Shell

I realize you probably don’t have edible nuts growing in your yard, but I still consider nuts in the shell to be free decor because they are so yummy and serve a dual purpose, food and fall accent in one! I always have nuts out for the family and guests year around, (usually peanuts and/or pistachios), but in the fall I use them to make more of a statement. The thought of a large bowl of fresh pecans in a wood or marble bowl gives me instant cozy vibes. I keep a smaller bowl near for cracked shells and to hold the nut crackers themselves. This is another super fun way to get creative! Nuts anyone??!

4. Seasonal Fruit

Using seasonal fruit to accent home decor is not a new concept by any means. Think lemons, limes and grapefruit in spring and melons, kiwis and pineapples in summer. However, winter fruit isn’t usually something we consider, but can be so beautiful. Pears, pomegranates, apples and small oranges are a great way to add color and dimension to your tablescape or kitchen countertop.

Additionally, pumpkins and gourds are readily available by mid-September and can add a traditional fall look to your home as well. If you’re truly wanting to get the most from your natural decor elements, opt for a “pie pumpkin” (small pumpkins often in the produce section) to add to your fruit bowl. These small pumpkins last 2-3 months indoors and only get riper over time. This means your beautiful decor turns pumpkin pie come Thanksgiving Day! Again, making it serve a dual purpose and making it virtually FREE!

5. Acorns

Calling all kiddos! Collecting acorns outside sounds absolutely miserable if I’m being honest, but kids freaking love it! I make it a competition and a counting game every year! Whoever gets the most acorns, picks the restaurant that weekend. Easy right? I guarantee you’ll end up with more acorns than you know what to do with! Using them in a small bowl or tray is such a sweet way to add a little fall to any room.

Like the pinecones, there is a small process involved when preparing your acorns for use in your home. Maria at “Staying Close to Home” does a great job breaking it down in this post.

I’m certain that between these five ideas you’ll find a way to spruce up your space using nature and free decor elements. Having a home that we’re proud of is possible on any budget. It’s achieved by paying attention to what’s around us and what’s happening in that moment, or season in time. Take advantage of the decor God has already given us. Happy fall friends, and cheers to all that it brings!

Thanks for stopping by, Jamie

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Jamie Gremillion, Bloom Co.

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Jamie

Most of my decorations I have used for a few years at least, some have been around forever (at least since we were married in 2008) and one or two things are new this year.

Before we dive in to the gallery of photos, I just want to share a few things that I’ve learned over the years decorating for Christmas (and other holidays too!)

• I RARELY pay full price for Holiday decor. I may pick up a splurge item once a year, but other than that, everything I have, I bought on sale. Shopping after Christmas is a great idea, shopping at Hobby Lobby or Home Goods before Christmas works too! This year I’d love a few special/unique items to add to my collection, so I’ll be hitting the local gift shops and florists after Christmas!
• My mom and I take photos of our holiday decor every year so we can remember how we arranged things. This doesn’t mean we do it the same every year, but it’s nice to look back for inspiration. I store the photos in my phone, Mom prefers to print them and pack the hard copies in her Christmas tubs with her decor.
• I focus much more on the meaning behind a decorative item vs. the way it looks. This has caused my decor to become pretty eclectic over the years, but I’m okay with that. When I walk through my house during the Christmas season, it’s like a museum of treasures that are linked to great memories. I wouldn’t trade that feeling for any magazine home on Instagram or Pinterest, and I mean it! Y’all know I focus on the “why” behind everything (sometimes too much!), and it’s no different for my simple holiday decorations.
• Lastly, I choose function over fashion every time, especially in the season I’m in with small kids. This is what I mean… I don’t put breakable ornaments near the bottom of either of our trees. I don’t put heirlooms or irreplaceable items within reach of kids (sometimes I don’t even take those items out of the box). I don’t over-decorate a space. For example, I don’t decorate my kitchen counters, at all. I can’t care for a family of five without counter space and I know this about myself. To minimize stress and maximize joy, I haven’t invested in beautiful cookie jars or any other kitchen decor over the years… but I will one day! I use kid-friendly decorations in kid zones: this includes the coffee tables, their bathrooms, their bedrooms and the play room. Our home is not a free-for-all during any season, and my kids are used to us having boundaries, so it’s an easy transition. However, I want to set them up for success and not spend my holiday fussing for them not to touch. For now, we share our home with our children. One day I’ll have glass nativities and ornaments galore, but today is not that day. Bottom line, know who you’re decorating for!

Without further ado, lets get started…

As you enter through the front door, you’ll notice the exterior decor is simple. We are extra busy with our family and businesses this year, so we made a choice to, again, minimize stress and maximize joy and decided on wreaths without house lights this year. It turned out beautifully!

In the foyer, I added to my usual decor on the buffet. My favorite candelabra (a gift from my parents for college graduation) is dressed with rustic jingle bells, there’s glass Christmas trees in neutral colors from various stores, a brass lantern and my “every season” floral arrangement create a warm welcome on top of our “scratch & dent sale” buffet! One of my favorite pieces is the dark-green iron mailbox for Santa’s mail. I splurged on this last year because it made my heart sing! The kids use it and think it’s the most magical little box! It was worth it’s full price tag, so I have no regrets. (Not pictured is the time-out chair that usually sits just to the left. Penelope especially loves being in time-out after dark this time of year because she has a “brilliant view of the Christmas tree!” as she says.)

The tree in this room is our family tree. It is my favorite. We decorate it as a family and walk down Memory Ln. while we hang ornaments. I can tell you where every single ornament came from. It’s filled with kid’s creations, their first shoes, ornaments they’ve picked out over the years, souvenirs from all our vacations and get-aways, ornaments from my students when I taught, glass balls filled with dried flowers from my grandparent’s funerals and our wedding, paw prints of our fur babies over the years, silly ornaments friends have given us and the list goes on!

Moving into the living room, a kid-zone, things stay minimal and practical. I use faux poinsettias on the stairs to dress things up (A Michael’s find from 10 years ago! Mom and I got them 90% off and bought all they had!). I always use faux around pets and kids, poinsettias are poisonous if eaten.

The banister is draped with faux evergreen and pine garland. I used live greenery last year and it was a mistake! It was beautiful, smelled great, but wasn’t practical for us. It got bumped every time someone went up or down and therefor “rained” down needles. Plus, it was impossible to spritz it with water to keep it fresh without getting water on the floor and stairs. When I know better, I do better… so this year we went with faux!

Since I went with faux greenery, I decided to add one thing to dress it up… Eucalyptus! I bought 4 stems (50% off at Hobby Lobby), used my tin snips (best tool ever, read about it here) and cut them apart. I just stuck them randomly in the garland and the wreath above the fireplace. I love the soft look it created and it how it ties in with some of the other greenery I have in my home.

Our personalized “Santa Sack” is a fun addition to the banister and is something the kids look forward to seeing hung every year. I ordered it from Etsy after Clark was born (7 years ago). It’s still one of my favorite things!

The main focus in our living room is the fireplace and built-ins. This year, I decided to leave up our “handless clock” (as my husband calls it) and add a wreath. We’ve had this wreath for years and I’ve used it indoors and outdoors. I like how it looks natural and is pretty plain. Again, I added Eucalyptus and wired it to the clock face to keep it secure.

I chose to display my beloved Nutcrackers front and center this year! These boys are one of my most special pieces of decor. We found these in my Gran and Pop’s shed after they had died. They still had the tags on them and I claimed them immediately. I know my Gran is so proud to see me use them every year. She loved beautifying her space even more than I do (imagine that), and was one of the most creative people I’ve known. It’s silly really, but these Nutcrackers remind me of her and all our beautiful Christmas Eve dinners spent in her home growing up. No matter how much I change things out over the years, these will always have a place!

For the built-ins, I added a little pop of red along with a few other “Christmassy” things. Throughout the year, the styling on my shelves is fairly simple. I don’t like the look of clutter, so I kept it clean for the holiday too. I wanted a little splash of Christmas, and adding these vintage silk spun ornaments did the trick! I just placed them randomly in glassware I already had to create the look.

The coffee table barely deserves a mention, but it may give you an idea for your home. I pile Christmas books in a basket and let the kids go! Sure I pick them up a million times throughout the season, but it beats picking up precious decor that gets knocked over!

Looking around the living room, I spot my favorite new addition this year! If you follow Bloom on Instagram or Facebook you might’ve seen some of our latest projects. One of the things we did, was mount two racks of antlers in the living room and I’m thrilled with the look. They added so much coziness and charm to our space. We are very southern, as is our home, so it ties into our decor nicely. For Christmas, I added some mini vintage mercury glass ornaments on fishing line for a playful look. Though I’ve had the ornaments a decade, this is my favorite way to display them.

Another project we recently tackled was the addition of these photo ledges to a previously blank wall in the living room. For Christmas, I didn’t want to take away from the clean lines of the ledges, so I just added a few loose pieces of greenery, berries and Eucalyptus. Honestly, these were “scraps” and really too small to use elsewhere. You have to really look closely to even notice them, but I like the way it turned out.

Moving past the photo wall, we come to the Sitting Room. This is an area off of our kitchen that was used as a breakfast nook before we opened the floor plan during the house renovation. (You can read more about that here.) From the kitchen we have full access to our dining table, plus we added a snack bar, so we use this as an additional sitting area and I love it. Our “pretty tree” is in here every year and is the focal point of this small area. This year I was so blessed to collaborate with a local, professional tree decorator. She did a phenomenal job! Get her pro tips here.

I kept the other decorations simple, so as not to take away from the tree. This antique, family heirloom table is styled with two lit, woodland trees in burlap and a couple of white ceramic village houses. I picked up these little houses at Target a few years ago for next to nothing, but they feel so wintry to me. I just love them!

The bar cart has a few Christmas glasses and a reindeer wine/utensil holder added to make it a little more fun. There are so many styling options for bar carts. Ours is understated, but you know, kids!

The coffee table in the sitting room is more formal because it’s a little less of a “kid zone” than the table in the living room. Still, nothing is breakable or irreplaceable. The reindeer I have had since college and the two other pretties usually go on the shelves in the living room. Also, I always have seasonal magazines on this table, call me old-fashioned, but I sill love a good magazine!

This year I coordinated our wrapping paper & ribbon with the decor of the tree and I’m so proud of myself! Again, I was blessed to collaborate with a professional. This time, a professional gift wrapper! She taught me how to make my gifts even more beautiful, as well as how to pick paper and ribbon. Read about it here.

Moving into the kitchen… As I mentioned, the kitchen is a work space, so the decor is minimal. I added some jumbo-sized jingle bells over the sink and styled the small table (moved from the foyer) with some Christmas favorites. We have our “Giving Manger” set up here, along with Christmas dessert plates and glasses. Down below, keeping it “kid-friendly”, I placed a bundle of soft, virtually indestructible candy canes to add a pop of color.

One of the things I really love at Christmas is beautiful tea towels! However, if you’re a mom you know, these usually end up on the floor if you have small kids. I came up with a solution! I tie them on to keep them in place, and I love the casual look it creates! So get out that pretty tea towel momma!

Wrapping up the downstairs, is the dining room. This year, we discovered that our family-favorite, giant Advent calendar fit perfectly where our brown paper roll goes during the year. We splurged on this hand-painted canvas from Pottery Barn several years ago after seeing it in someone’s home and falling in love with it! We use it to countdown the days until Christmas, and the kids get a small candy or trinket in the pocket each day. If there isn’t a treat in the pocket, there’s a little branch from the family tree. When they find the branch in the pocket, that means the surprise is under the tree that day (usually because it didn’t fit in the little pocket). I use this to get them excited about things I would be buying anyway. For example, a new Christmas book, their yearly ornaments, their Christmas Pajamas, a new Christmas jigsaw puzzle, Christmas Oreos, a gingerbread house kit, tickets to a Christmas movie/play, etc. Some days it’s as simple as a sticker book, a pack of hot chocolate or a small pack of M&Ms. This simple tradition adds another element of excitement to our December days!

I kept the dining room table extremely simple. Though it isn’t a “kid zone” per say, it is “family-central”. We eat our meals here, do homework, wrap presents, everything! I filled my favorite birdcage with glass ornaments in neutral colors, and paired it with a pewter deer antler I’ve had for years. That’s it! Since I have to move it out of the way when we use the table, I wanted to keep it simple.

Onward and Upward! The upstairs is totally a “kidzone” so we kept the decorations playful and fun! Clark’s bathroom has fun garland and felt poinsettias, while Penelope’s has a tiny tree, a colorful gingerbread house framed print and a vintage tree topper that reminded me of her when I bought it! Simple and sweet!

The big kids got their own Christmas trees in their rooms for the first time this year and I don’t know why we didn’t do it sooner! This was one of the things they got for Advent early in the month. On December 1st, they opened the trees. December 2nd, the skirt, topper and garland; and December 3rd they got the ornaments! I stretched it out as long as I could! It really was a lot of fun! Clark’s is traditional red and green, and P’s is “beach themed”. Sweet P loves all things beach! I got everything for both of their trees at Big Lots.

As you leave our home, you’ll see this little treasure. It doesn’t exactly “go” with anything I have, nor is it flashy or particularly pretty. However, this is the Advent calendar my husband Adam remembers growing up. When we first had Clark and talked about a family Advent tradition, this little mouse became the topic of discussion! The way Adam described his excitement as a child moving the mouse closer and closer to Christmas made my heart burst with joy. His mama must’ve felt the same way, because she looked high and low for that old calendar, and when she couldn’t find it, she took to the internet. She found it on ebay, paid “goodness knows what” for it, and presented it to us as a gift! It now hangs by the back door, and everyday Adam lets one of the kids help him move the mouse. Even with all the other things going on… the big Advent calendar, the gifts, the Elf on the Shelf, etc., the kids get just as excited as Adam used to, watching the mouse get closer and closer to Christmas!

I love the home we’ve built any time of year, in any season, with any decor. I thank God for it every single day, but there is just something about it at Christmas. I hope you have seen something in this post that inspires you. If you have any questions or want more info on any of my decor or holiday traditions, feel free to comment below, message me on social or email me at mybloomcreative@gmail.com.

To finish it up, I created a mood board that captures the overall look and feel of our home. These are Amazon finds that are similar to items you’ve seen in our home tour. Feel free to shop from it or use it to help create ideas for your own space. Of course, every item I linked is ON SALE!

Thanks for stopping by and Merry Christmas, Jamie xo