I debated even making a blog about this figuring everyone knows how to decorate their homes. But some of my girlfriends and my husband reminded me that if you don’t have an eye for decorating, it’s helpful to have some hints. And after years of having to do visual merchandising as a Store Manager, I got plenty of practice with displays. So here goes with tips on how to decorate your home for Fall!

Where to shop:

My big three stores to hit up for all holiday and fall decor are: Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Home Goods. We have a great Home Goods/TJ Maxx in Castle Rock so I always have a lot of luck there. I also love supporting small businesses so I will find other odds and ends off Etsy.

In the photo above, the orange “pumpkin spice” cauldron with fake whipped topping, the “Pumpkin spice and everything nice” sign, and the mug hats are all from Etsy! My biggest tip is to go on there and type in “tiered tray Fall decor” and scroll. If it’s small enough to fit on a tiered tray, it’s small enough for the shelf above. (Which you can purchase from Hobby Lobby here. It’s normally $150 but is half off this week!)

What to get from each store:

For my bigger items, I rely on Home Goods. I love Rae Dunn pottery so I tend to gravitate towards her canisters and mugs. If you have a lot of “Dunn hunters” in your area who tend to scoop up Rae Dunn pottery instantly, don’t despair. I encourage you to join some of the Rae Dunn link sharing Facebook groups. In it, collectors will sku search TJ Maxx’s website and share the links to online Rae Dunn items. Then when the links go live where you’re able to shop them, you have to HURRY and buy. Rae Dunn items are affordable and have an excellent resell value. I happened to find a mini Halloween canister a couple weeks ago that was $7.99 being sold on Ebay and Mercari for $150!! But I’ll digress about Rae Dunn…..

For smaller, cheaper pieces, I source Etsy and Bullseye’s Playground (the dollar spot at Target.) Our local Target does not have a very large dollar spot area so it’s completely hit and miss. Target used to sell Bullseye’s Playground items online but no longer offer that. I also will source Etsy for smaller items like wooden block signs with cute Fall sayings, baby rolling pins.

For fillers: To me, in order to pull your eye into a certain display, you need particular fillers. For Fall, those include garlands, fake leaves, baby pine cones, etc. In the Spring I like to use colorful wooden bead garlands, faux baby plants or trees, and fake greenery.

When to shop:

This is important! Hobby Lobby has half of their store marked 40% off every other week. So if what you are looking for now is full-price, just wait a week or two and it’ll be at least 40% off!

If you don’t know what’s currently on sale, go to their main site and click on “Weekly ad”. Since I knew floral was half off this week, I went there this morning. I got fake leaves, leaf garland, and some floral/pumpkin picks to add to my displays.

At Michaels, they always have a 20% off coupon. They don’t run as good of deals as Hobby Lobby, but they also carry better stuff sometimes. To get their current promos, click here.

While Etsy itself doesn’t run sales since it’s just a website housing a ton of independent sellers/shops, I’ve noticed that when I save an item as a “favorite”, it will alert the shop owner. If they need the business, they’ll often times send you a promo for 10% off. Or they’ll offer free shipping and things of that nature to entice you to buy. In fact, that’s how I got the Fall “pumpkin spice” orange cauldron!

For big box retailers like Target, the sooner you shop the better. They don’t tend to have many deals because they know they have millions of customers who will pay full price. But when you want something specific, you can often find a deal on it. For example, they have 20% off bedding today, so you could buy a pumpkin printed throw blanket for Fall. They frequently run deals like “20% off wall decor” and things of that nature, so keep an eye on their website.

How to decorate:

Make a plan:

The first step is to lay all of your shit out in front of you to see what you’ve got. For my hutch above, I set my Fall themed shit on the floor. Then I started with the bigger glass items. I staggered them on each shelf roughly where I thought they’d look good. I used picture frame holders to prop up the glass pumpkin tray you see on the top shelf to have it visible.

Be mindful of color stories. You’ll see I have cranberry, orange, teal, and off-white all scattered throughout the entire hutch. I wouldn’t want all the cranberry or teal stuff grouped together or else it starts to look choppy. I put pops of each color everywhere so that your eye is drawn to different spots every time.

Stagger things at different heights:

My friend, Jen used to make fun of me as a kid when we would play Barbies because I would line all my Barbie shit up in one line. She would make rooms by angling the doll furniture just right. So I learned from a young age that height and angles matter.

For the hutch, you’ll see I used wooden risers on the top shelf to give the pumpkin canister some height. On the second shelf, I use a cake stand to hold glass pumpkins. On the third shelf, I have the sign that says “Hello Autumn” on top of a wooden riser. If I had left it as is without putting it on the riser, you wouldn’t be able to read the words on it once I put decor in front of it. So be mindful of height and don’t have an area where there is a ton of white space. And don’t scrunch it all together. I got all the risers from Target here.

Use fillers:

Each shelf above has this leaf garland from Michaels that I just weaved around random items. Then on bottom layer of the hutch, while it’s not as easy to see, I have fake leaves strewn about under the wooden village houses on the second to last shelf. In the photo below, I filled awkward spaces with baby pine cones and tiny orange bead garland. These kinds of fillers bring warmth to your entire display. And they work two-fold to also hide risers or shelves that may be unseemly.

Have a couple accent pieces:

For the photo below, I bought a white gumball canister from Target, stripped it with citristrip, and spray painted it pumpkin orange. Then I filled the bottom of it with moss from Michaels and got a doll house miniature wagon with hay bails and pumpkins to give my canister a terrarium or snow globe look to it. Then I put a big ribbon around it and threw it on my small shelf to give some height to my display.

The last piece of the puzzle for me is to get bougie as fuck and make it smell like fall! So I light pumpkin or vanilla scented candles from Bath and Body Works. Or, I put cinnamon sticks inside of the mugs so that I get a whiff of cinnamon when I walk by.

I hope you found this helpful! I REALLY went bananas buying Halloween shit, so I’ll be happy to show step-by-step how I decorate for Halloween. My kids get really into all my decorations, and let’s face it, that’s what makes the holidays even more fun!

Update as of 8/25/22:

Each year I switch up how I decorate, so here are some photos of this year’s display! For tips on how to decorate for Halloween, check out this blog here. Or for Christmas decorating tips, read on here. Hope you enjoy!

And an update as of 2023: I haven’t bought any new shit since last year, but I slightly switch up how I stage things! Below are photos from this year!

And here is a little reel of Instagram showing how I decide where to put shit! Hope this helps!