A Festive Fall Front Porch on a Budget

I'm going to get a little personal here.  The last couple months have been really stressful for my McKay and I.  McKay's job has been in jeopardy because of the nationwide sequestration.  With several rounds of layoffs at his work and more to come,  McKay and I have felt so uneasy about his future and the need to have a more stable job so he can finish his masters and support Amelia and I.  The good news is McKay has been offered a job with a government program where they allow him to go to school full time, pay him salary, and they pay for school!  This is a huge blessing, but there's one crappy stipulation, it's a significant cut to his pay :(

We've had to have some serious heart to heart talks about our finances.  We even thought of moving out of our home and renting it out for a couple of years to save money.  Even though that would save us money we just didn't feel right about that option and plus I would feel overly territorial about someone else living in my home, worrying about whether or not they're keeping it clean, and thinking about someone sleeping in my bedroom (it kinds of creeps me out).

We'll be able to survive, but money is going to be really tight for the next couple years.   It's hard to be at a comfortable stage of your life then being forced to feeling like a poor college student again.  You feel like you're taking three steps backwards.  After weeks of feeling mopey and "my life sucks" kind of mood, and dealing with some health issues (it's been a rough week).  I've realized that this isn't the end of the world.  Many people go through set backs in their lives and this one will be such a small one in the grand scheme of our lives.  We're extremely blessed and have SO much to be grateful for.  This new opportunity is going to get McKay through school, have a stable job, and allow him to be home more.  Not many families in our area do have options, and I need to remember that.

I'll stop my whining now.

My friend Allison from Cupcake Diaries asked me to be apart of her series of 30 Days of Halloween where each day she features a blogger creating something Halloweenish.  You can go here to learn about the series and see all of the other awesome Halloween ideas you can use this year.

Anyway, I really, really, really, wanted to dress up my boring front porch this year for Fall/Halloween for Allison's series but needed to do it on a VERY small budget.  I was pretty skeptical I could pull it off.

I set a budget of $5 and promised myself I wouldn't go over it and I'm happy to say I was able to stay on that budget!  It wasn't easy.  I wanted to get a few new fall decorations I saw at various stores, but I stuck to my guns and bought only what I really needed.  Everything else I used I already had in my house, found in the garbage, borrowed, reused, painted, and grew to get this front porch looking festive.

Here is the breakdown of my budget:

Quart Size Mums (2) $1.50

Pint Size Mums (2) $.96

= $4.92

Like I said above, all of the other decor I used was stuff I already had in my home and garden.

I made this mason jar vase by painting it with a sample of Annie Sloan Chalk paint I got in at a bloggers conference.  The color is Primer Red and I did about four coats of paint and let it dry in between layers. Then wrapped a grosgrain and yarn flower headband of Amelia's around the vase.

These yarn candy corn are very easy to make.  You wrap three different colors of yarn around a foam cone.  Hot glue the ends of the yarn to secure each section.  For the tip of the cone, I made a spiral circle of yarn and hot glued it to the top.  There's actually three of these, but one of them flew away in last week's wind storm :(

This cute printable was given to me by a friend.  It's a free and you can find here!

I was really wanting to get a cute table to use on my front porch, but didn't have the budget to buy one.  Then I got to thinking and remember how my grandparents have this table that sat on their back porch they never used and I thought it would be the perfect table and size for my front porch.  I asked them if I could borrow it.  They were so glad I was taking it off their hands, they gave it to me!  I'm very grateful for loving and giving grandparents.  This table means a lot to me because it was handmade by my grandpa.  

The awesome gold twig candle holder was purchased when I attempted to use an interior designer for my living room.  I got the small pumpkins and corn husks at our neighborhood garden.  The basket was an old plant container.  I spray painted another mason jar in gold spray paint I had leftover from when I redid my retro living room chairs.  I took some fabric leftover I used in Amelia's nursery and modge podge the terracotta pot with the fabric.  It was kind of hard, it doesn't look the greatest up close, but feel like it adds a nice patterned touch to the table.  Also, make sure when you water the pot, that you don't get the entire pot wet, it becomes sticky from the glue. 

I got this door mat a couple years ago on clearance at Target.

I made this wreath by wrapping yarn around it.  Then I made the rosettes by cutting long strips of felt and working them into a spiral.  I glued Velcro to this wreath so I can change out the flowers depending on the season. 

The pumpkin was grown from our neighborhood garden, the bamboo planter I found in a dumpster in Park City (so random), and one of my dining room chairs.  

It's funny, everything you see on my porch is all the Halloween and fall decorations I have in my house.  I'm happy with how my front porch turned out and how I was able to do it for super cheap.  I'm finding when I have a small budget, it makes you to be more creative.  And that is one of the reasons why my sisters and I started this blog, so I'm glad I'm being forced to use my brain in that way.  Do you mix your Halloween and fall decor together?  Or do you have different decorations for both and keep them separate?  

Parties I'm partying at:

The Trendy Treehouse

Someday Crafts

The NY Melrose Family

Clean and Scentsible

The 36th Avenue