Fall Outside Decorating Ideas

Fall Postcards

• Nearly everyone who drives down your street sees your mailbox without noticing it. For the fall, you can make passersby smile by employing a colorful fall mailbox cover. You can find a variety of fall-themed covers showing autumn leaves, pumpkins and other images in stores and from online retailers for very reasonable prices. But it's also not difficult to attach your own personal decoration to the mailbox -- stencil-paint orange leaves onto your black mailbox, or attach a garland of fall flowers to the mailbox pole.

Autumnal Entryway

• Your front doorway is the focal point of your home exterior, and gives you several ways to celebrate fall. You can hang a simple wreath adorned with fall foliage on your door, or wrap your doorway in a colorful garland composed of pine cones and leaves. Those products are offered in a variety of garden centers and gift shops. You can create your own personalized wreaths and garlands using readily available wreath and garland kits from a craft store, and then integrating leaves and other materials found on your own property.

Gathering the Harvest

• Create a cornucopia of fall produce on your front porch by staging an array of pumpkins, gourds and maize on bales of hay. Complement the bounty of your harvest vegetables by positioning several tawny colored potted mums at the base of your hay bales. As a counterpoint, interweave warmly colored strands of ribbon or taffeta fabric within your display that will weather naturally as the season progresses. Some homeowners may consider leaning cornstalks against an outdoor light or fence post, but that design touch may best be left to households in corn-growing regions.

Wow the Trick-or-Treaters

• There's nothing like a faux tombstone in your front yard to appeal to the trick-or-treaters. But don't stop there -- spiderwebs, complete with plastic spiders, are another popular choice. If your taste runs toward the classics, carve a wicked grin into one or more pumpkins -- but for safety sake, consider using a battery-powered light in place of the traditional candle. For a finishing touch, replace the white bulb in your porch light with an orange tinted light bulb or a blacklight bulb.

Lighting the Fall Sky

• String lights don't just come in balls of red, white and green -- you can now find them shaped like witches' hats, jack-o-lanterns, turkeys and other whimsical fall symbols. Some light kits have a very limited season -- illuminated skulls will look very out of place by November 2. But pumpkin-shaped lights that lack the carved face will serve for Thanksgiving as well as for Halloween, and they'll appear seasonal until it's time for snowmen to take their place.