3 Fun Themes for Fall Door Decorations

Do you love apple-picking time and cruising local farm stands for end-of-season produce? Use ideas from both for this display. Fresh-picked apples fill vintage harvest baskets (stuff bottoms with newspaper). Dried cornstalks, attached to porch posts with wire hidden under burlap, add sizable impact. Indian corn, various gourds, and an old rake and pitchfork round out the country theme. Unite this riotous mix with pots of red mums and red fall leaves (we used fakes!).Click to our next two slides for details of this display.

Our door wreath is simply a head of kale surrounded by faux apples, seedpods and leaves on a foam base. Use glue, pins or floral wire to secure decorations to the base.

Straw bales act as display ledges. Top with leaves, gourds, a weathered birdhouse, ears of corn or any other items that fit the theme.

Maybe you love long walks in fields and woods, watching leaves change and discovering small bits of nature. Bring those elements home with cut branches wired to climb one side of the door frame (we attached gathered fallen leaves) and big pots of grasses.Click to our next three slides for details of this display.

Four pumpkins on a table spell out FALL using antique keys (secured with long straight pins).

Embellish a square store-bought magnolia wreath with color-coordinated real and faux materials, including twigs, seedpods, nuts, berries, wheat and leaves.

To keep a sophisticated, muted palette, arrange groupings of gourds and pumpkins in shades of peach, gold, pale green and beige. Scatter in other organic objects, such as antlers and branches.

If your fall is all about anticipating Halloween fun, then create a door that sets the proper mood. The centerpiece is an eye-catching, life-size removable tree decal. (Similar decals available from Dali Decals). Click to our next three slides for details of this display.

Use old chairs, barrels, metal laundry tubs, pails and more to corral traditional orange pumpkins, easily decorated freehand with black stripes or polka dots. (We drilled holes in some pumpkins to duplicate the painted dots.) Paint your favorite Halloween sayings between the stripes.

The rungs of a vintage ladder propped next to the door hold crafts store letters spelling BOO. Repeat the stripe and dot motif of your pumpkins by draping matching inexpensive fabrics on the ladder and over barrels and tubs for a high-spirited, coordinated look.

A fake raven, gourds and wooden container add fall color and flair to a ladder-back chair.