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Autumn Decor with Elements of Nature: Ideas for Your Fall Home

Autumn Decor with Elements of Nature is all about bringing the outdoors inside to create beautiful farmhouse decor with natural vignettes.

There is no need to spend a lot of money when decorating your home for fall. Fall is the best time to forage and decorate for free.

I’ve created several different vignettes around the farmhouse using fall foliage, dried stems, twigs mixed with vintage containers, and faux stems.

Pine combs in ironstone bowl. Autumn decour.

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Pinterest Challenge

This months Pinterest Challenge comes from How to Decorate with Real Branches for Fall from Sarah Joy Blog and here is the inspiration photo.

How to Decorate with Real Branches for Fall. Easy fall decor ideas using fall branches and leaves.

If you are joining me from Cindy at County Road 407, welcome. Didn’t you just love Cindy’s cozy fall decor. All the other inspiration will be linked at the end of this post. You will want to click each link.


Elements of Nature

What can you bring inside to create interesting autumn vignettes without spending any money?

What are elements of nature?

Here are a few things that occur naturally as fall approaches.

  • Acorns, pinecones, nuts, persimmons and gum balls fall from the trees
  • Leaves begin to turn colors and branches become bare
  • Flowers begin to dry and fade
  • Grapevines are easily pulled from the trees
  • Wildflowers are blooming in the fields.
  • Corn stalks are drying.

All of these naturally occurring events allow you to pull from nature for Autumn Decorating.

Kennedy Rocker with fall basket. Faux plants with natural autumn elements.

Insider Tip

Cautions about bringing the outdoors inside…

First, a few preventive measures should be taken when bringing the outdoors inside. You may bring unwanted guests into your home.

Here are a couple of way to prevent uninvited guests.

  1. Place stems, flowers, acorns, etc. in a large bag and spray into the bag with insect repellant. Seal bag for 24 hours to be sure everything is dead.
  2. Smaller items such as acorns and gum balls can be placed in the freezer for a few days to kill any bugs.
  3. Larger items can be sprayed with insect repellant and left outdoors. Most bugs will find a new home.

Farmhouse Decor for Autumn

First, creating a rustic farmhouse decor is easy with a few DIY grapevines and some gathered acorns.

Create a Fall Table Centerpiece

The fall centerpiece is created with easy wreaths and candle rings. You can pull grapevine from the trees before the vines dry if available. When the vine is more pliable, it is easy to form into a wreath shape.

Next, add some acorns to a hurricane vase and fill in around the candle. Be sure to use a candle poured in a secure glass container or battery-operated flicker lights to prevent creating a fire hazard.

Fall Autumn Vintage vase with grapevine base. Fall decor tablescape.

You can see more details about this forage fall tablescape here.


Autumn Vignette with Milk Glass

For my next farmhouse decor autumn vignette, I combined Dried Okra Pods, Wheat Stems and Gum Balls with vintage milk glass vases.

Do you have collections of milk glass? Be sure to see 15 Stunning Ways To Use Milk Glass in your Home.

Milk glass vases with foraged craft fall displays.

Elements of Nature Floral Arrangements

I love to forage for fall decor and another great idea is to gather stems laden with persimmons. These stem are great for a simple, but beautiful arrangement for the greenhouse.

For this arrangement, I used a thrifted amber vessel to hold the persimmon stems.

Greenhouse with Autumn decour. DIY fall elements. Fall Pumpkins.

You can see more of the greenhouse decorated for fall on the DIY Greenhouse Fall Tour.


This trash day, roadside ice cream churn loves being filled with floral arrangements all year long. For fall, I combined autumn foliage, marigolds and some faux stems to create a centerpiece for the screened porch coffee table.

Screen porch with slate coffee table. Vintage Ice Cream bucket with Autumn plants.

Another screened porch arrangement combines dried eucalyptus with foraged autumn foliage in a ironstone pitcher.

Fall foliage is perfect in a ironstone pitcher for Farmhouse Decor.

The hanging basket is filled with colorful persimmon leaves foraged elements of nature.

Autumn Decor using fall foliage for Farmhouse decor.

Dried Flowers for Autumn Decor

You can add dried flowers such as hydrangeas or zinnias to your home to create autumn decor.

Although you technically need to plant these flowers, if you live in the south, you would think they are a natural element.

I like to cut and dry both to use all year long.

Insider Tip

There are two ways to dry hydrangeas and zinnias. The most effective way is to cut the stems at their peak and bundle several stems together. Tie the stems and hang them upside down in a cool, dry space. Don’t expose them to the sun to prevent fading.

Another method is to cut the blooms and add them to a floral arrangement. Allow the water to evaporate and let the blooms dry.

I find this works well with zinnias and some hydrangeas. It allows you to enjoy the blooms before they dry. I recommend drying hydrangeas by hanging them if possible.

This vintage dough bowl holds a large selection of dried hydrangeas from this season.

The dried hydrangeas will hold their color for several seasons if kept away from direct sunlight.

See 6 Ways to Decorate a Dollar Tree Pumpkin Frame for more ideas.

Another great stem to cut and use all year long is pussy willow branches.

Here, a large basket fills a corner of my office area.

Autumn Decorating with elements of nature.

Although still lovely, a basket of dried hydrangeas has faded to brown after exposure to the greenhouse’s sunlight.

Autumn Decor with Elements of Nature. Dried hydrangeas.

Bare Branches

As autumn turns to winter, the branches become bare and this gnarly tree limb was rescued from a neighbors trash pile. I will be adding a few twinkle lights as we move into Christmas decor.

I also like adding bare branches to outdoor flower containers during the fall and winter. It’s a great way to keep your containers full until spring flowers appear again.

These branches are painted white, and sweet gum balls have been attached. You can see more detail on How To Make Sweet Gum Ball Branches with Foraged Materials.

This DIY apothecary cabinet is still a favorite furniture transformation.

Dried Corn Stalks for Outdoor Decorating

You can also decorate for fall with dried corn stalks. They are easily found along country roadsides, farmer’s markets, and home and garden shops.

You can see several ways to use corn stalks and corn husks on 8 Corn Husks Crafts for Fall Decorating.

Shop Resources for Fall Decor – Click Below

Shop All My Favorites in my Amazon Storefront. I add items daily as I find great deals.


I hope you enjoyed these vignettes and you are inspired to bring the outdoors inside with some elements of nature.


Time to continue on the tour

Next up is Christy at Our Southern Home and you are going to love her cozy fall vignette. Be sure to click each link below to follow along on the tour.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks for stopping by today. I look forward to sharing my next adventure with you!

Pin It To Remember It

Did you find some great ideas you’d like to save for future reference? Hover over the images you’d like to save and pin to your favorite Pinterest Boards when you see the PIN button.

Autumn Elements with vintage ice cream bucket and faux fall plants.

Renae

Thursday 5th of October 2023

So many great ideas. There is nothing like the beauty of natural elements. Hugs to you. my friend.

Rachel

Thursday 5th of October 2023

Renae, Thank you.

christy @ our southern home

Wednesday 3rd of November 2021

Rachel, That greenhouse is just fabulous. I love all the ways that uses branches in your vignettes. I must say that those are the prettiest dried hydrangeas.

Rachel

Friday 5th of November 2021

Christy, I really appreciate this.

Marty

Thursday 28th of October 2021

Oh wow, all of your leaves, twigs and flower arrangements are stunning. I loved them all. Tons of inspiration too.

[email protected]

Thursday 28th of October 2021

Marty, I'm so glad you liked them.

Carol@Blueskyathome

Wednesday 27th of October 2021

Rachel, what wonderful ideas! You are so lucky to have access to real fall foliage. All your vignettes are so pretty and I love your containers. I’m jealous of your screened in porch.

[email protected]

Wednesday 27th of October 2021

Carol, This is so sweet. I appreciate your compliments.

Cindy@CountyRoad407

Tuesday 26th of October 2021

Love each of your ideas and all the new inspo. Still trying to find an old ice cream container. Thank you for joining us this month. Pinned

[email protected]

Wednesday 27th of October 2021

Cindy, I appreciate your encouragement.