I adore this time of year – the weather hinting at the change of season, apple picking trips, and pumpkin hunting on the horizon. There is so much potential in the months ahead for fun outings, craft projects and decor, and yummy recipes. One of those fun activities is decorating a Fall porch!

This post contains affiliate links for which I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. Please click here for more details. I truly appreciate your support!

We have a very small front porch – in fact it’s more like a little concrete block. Even still I love to dress it up with all the mums, pumpkins, and lovely Fall decor! (Don’t ever let your circumstances dampen your creativity – there’s always something you can do with what you have to make it lovely!)

The other day my husband and I hit up a local nursery (shoutout to Thies Farm!) after going on a little lunch date. I picked up a few big mums in beautiful shades of purple and yellow. Then the kids and I visited Trader Joe’s a few days later and picked out a few smaller mums and tiny pumpkins. It’s become a tradition in our house to pick out some little white pumpkins for the kids to paint. I always grab a few for the front porch or around the house too, knowing that in the next few weeks we’ll visit the pumpkin patch for our larger pumpkins.

Tips to Decorate Your Fall Porch

I’ve heard that if you repot your mums into new pots with fresh soil they will last longer. I’ve never tried it, but I could see how that would be true. I don’t, however, have any spare pots large enough nor do I have any potting soil left. So I had to get creative because I really didn’t like the look of those little shiny plastic pots!

Here are 2 hacks for hiding ugly plastic mum pots:

1. Stick the whole thing in a basket, bucket, or crock.

The thrift store is a great place to find containers for your porch. Not only is there usually a great variety of baskets available, but you’re paying such a low fee for them that it’s less catastrophic if they get damaged by weather or [heaven forbid] someone takes them. That’s honestly why I’m a little hesitant to put something like a crock on my porch. We’ve never had anyone take anything like that, but you never know. You know your area best and what you feel comfortable placing outside.

If your mum is too short to stick up over the top of the basket or bucket, put a paver stone, upside down pot, sturdy plastic Tupperware container, or something similar in your basket and set the mum on it. Easy peasy! It instantly dresses up the mum and makes it look very classy!

2. Cover the plastic over with burlap or fabric.

Another way to hide ugly mum pots is to cover them with burlap or fabric. I used a cute sheet from the thrift store this year.

Just cut your fabric or burlap to size – I used pinking shears for a cute zigzag edge – and secure it around the top of your mum pot with a large rubber band. Trim any oddly big corners of fabric. If you don’t have a large enough rubber band you can cut several rubber bands and tie them together into a larger band. (Ask me how I know haha…) You want it to be pretty tight so it holds the material up but not so tight that it’s working its way back down the pot!

Then cut a length of burlap several inches wide, wrap it around the pot, hiding the rubber band, and tie in a bow. So easy and cute!

Try mixing and matching with the reverse – pots wrapped in burlap and tied with a fabric bow from the material you used on the other pots!

Create interest through grouping and variation.

Our eyes like to see things in groups, especially in odd numbers.

• Group your mums in odd numbers, vary their heights, and vary their colors within your chosen palette.
• Line up your little pumpkins in odd numbers on a ledge or bench.
• Stack your pumpkins in threes (choose flatter pumpkins with no stems for the bottom layers).
• Occasionally lean a pumpkin up against something else at an angle (mum, bigger pumpkin, bench leg) to create a sense of the unexpected and break up the vertical and horizontal lines.

When decorating a porch it helps to create height.

I’ve had this little indoor/outdoor bench in my living room for a few years now just sitting there holding a plant. I finally got the idea to try it out on our porch and I love it! It just fits at an angle next to our door and is perfect for holding mums and pumpkins!

• Use an outdoor-proof bench or chair to display your flowers and pumpkins. Put some items on the bench and some on the ground.
• Create variation in height by propping up mums inside of baskets and purchasing various sizes of mums.

Be mindful of the walking path and keep the door clear.

For everyone’s safety maintain a clear walkway so no one trips. Make sure you can get in and out of the door quickly and safely in the event of an emergency.

Thanks for joining me on my little decorating session!

I just love the orange of the pumpkins with my blue door and shutters! (Door and shutters are painted “Liberty Blue” by Fusion Mineral Paint.) Stay tuned for a Fall wreath very soon – I bought the supplies this morning!

Blessings,
Melissa

This post contains affiliate links for which I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. Please click here for more details. I truly appreciate your support!

So I did.

Immediately what popped into my head was the famous Luther quote, “Here I stand…” which is totally punny for a doormat but also deeply meaningful.

“Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

It is debated whether or not Luther actually said these words – some sources include it and some do not, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Luther was convinced that we are saved by Grace, through faith in Christ alone, and refused to go against what he knew to be true.

How true it still is for us, as we going through challenging times, facing all sorts of falsehood and opposition to truth. This door mat, for me, is more than just a funny pun (although I enjoy the humor of it too) – it is a reminder to myself, a statement to others, and a request to God that I may always hold fast to the Truth:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

Tutorial

Below is the tutorial for this mat, and I’ve included the files for my design. However, you can totally make your own design to say whatever you’d like! No circut machine needed!

If you do have a cricut machine, consider yourself blessed. But if you don’t, like me, this is the old fashioned way.

Supplies:

1 Coir Doormat – this is the one I got from Target. This one from Amazon is similar. Mine is 23 x 35″

Digital Design File – download below or design your own

Card stock or printer paper

Printer

Scissors (Love my Scotch titanium precision scissors!)

Ruler

Masking Tape

Black Sharpie

Small craft paint brush (don’t use your favorite – it’ll never be the same)

Black Acrylic Paint (or Fusion Mineral Paint Coal Black – that also worked well!)

Flex Seal Spray, Clear (optional)

Directions:

1. Print letters on card stock or paper. Cut out with scissors. If you use my files, they are scaled for use on a 23 x 35 inch mat. If your mat is a different size, simply adjust the scale (percentage) in your printer’s settings when you print. You may have to experiment to see what size works best for your mat.

2. Use a ruler to find the center of your mat and lay out the letters roughly where you want them. (Can you tell my printer was about to run out of ink?!)

3. Once positioned, use pieces of masking tape rolled up (like little tubes – so the entire outside is sticky) to secure your stencils to the mat. Make any final adjustments to placement as necessary.

4. Trace around each letter with black sharpie. You will have to “dab” at the mat to make a mark – just running the sharpie around the letter in one stroke won’t leave a dark enough line.

5. Using your craft brush and black paint, fill in all the letters up to the edges of your tracing lines. Work the paint down into the coir as much as you can to make the lettering as dark as possible.

6. Let mat dry completely. You can use it as is, or seal it with the flex seal spray for added durability.

My parents and in-laws both want one now, so I’m working on making more of them!

I hope this has inspired you to create your own personalized door mat!

I loved our house, but every time I drove up all I could think was, “It would look SO much better if those shutters were…” fill in the blank.

Major projects like kitchens and bathrooms came and went, babies were born, life kept chugging along and we never painted those silly shutters.

I finally had my mind set – it was going to be black or gray. Those were classic. Those were safe. Except…

…every time I took the kids on a walk, I passed this one house a few blocks from ours. The shutters and front door were a cheerful blue, and I began to notice that I smiled every time I walked past.

And then it clicked – that’s what I wanted – not something safe…

I wanted something that would make me smile every time I drove up to our house.

Blue is certainly still a classic color – just look at many English cottages! I was sold.

You might know by now that I love Fusion Mineral Paint. It is awesome stuff; I’ve used it a bazillion times around our house and have been nothing short of impressed.

But could I use it on vinyl shutters?!

People use it on their front doors all the time – even on a bicycle, as I saw recently! Why not shutters?

Just a note – our roof has a really generous overhang around the perimeter – the windows never actually get a lot of direct rain or snow. This made me even less concerned about durability. I’m confident, though, that even if you don’t have a deep overhang, it would still hold up well.

I’ve used Fusion Mineral on our dining table, black bench, the twice-painted table, and a number of other projects. I’ve scrubbed pasta sauce off that dining table countless times over the last year and it’s held up like a champ. Toys have been scooted across that bench over and over again for well over a year and it has yet to flinch. And that’s without any sort of topcoat. It’s incredible stuff.

To prep, we removed the shutters from the house and gave them a good cleaning with plain old dish soap and water.

We let them dry and power washed the siding while we were at it.

Then I gave them two coats of Fusion Mineral Paint in Liberty Blue.

What a difference even after just one coat! (Still wet in photo.)

Don’t freak out if the paint looks a little like camouflage while it’s drying – it will even out! When I first saw the shutter look like this…

…it was a total “oh no!” moment – but trust me, it doesn’t look splotchy now in the slightest. Fusion Mineral Paint is also self-leveling! Woohoo!

You know what impresses me even more than how well 2 coats covered? It didn’t take away the texture of the shutters! They still have that faux-wood grain visible! Just make sure you don’t get gloopy with the paint – use a light hand and try not to go back over what you just painted, because it’s already starting to dry.

My husband purchased new shutter pins and I painted those too. He rigged up this block of wood with holes to stick the pins in so I could easily paint them. (Make sure you check your pin size before purchasing! They come in different sizes.)

After doing this, I would actually recommend painting the pins after the shutters have been re-hung. As he was hammering the pins in, the paint chipped in a few places, resulting in touch-up work. It’s totally up to you – the block was super convenient, so if you don’t mind touch-up work, then you could do it that way.

It is amazing how much paint can make a difference!

(Okay, well, some landscaping too…)

This would have been a 2-day project except that I ran out of paint. We started first thing in the morning, washed and painted the shutters, then let them dry overnight and put them back up the next day. As it so happened, my paint took most of a week to come in, so my neighbors had to look at a half-done house. (Sorry, neighbors!)

It took 1.5 containers of paint (500ml each) to put 2 coats of paint on 10 shutters – 6 long shutters and 4 short shutters.

I am totally in love with the blue.

It’s taken me a few weeks to get to writing this post, and so far the paint hasn’t had any problems. Even the finished shutters that got left out in the rain before we re-hung them were just fine. I will keep you updated as the seasons go by as to how they hold up, but I feel really confident that they will be A-okay!

Guess what – I smile when I drive up to the house now!