How to Take Your Fall Front Porch from Halloween to Thanksgiving

We’re on the final countdown to Halloween!  T-minus four days and counting – give or take.  Halloween costumes are ready, pumpkins are purchased and ready to carve, and we are narrowing down our options for Halloween activities (Pumpkin Plunge at the pool anyone?).  I’m kind of glad that Halloween falls on a Saturday this year – and that the forecast does not include rain!
I know that when Monday comes along I will be over Halloween and I will be more than ready to pack away the decorations and move along to the next holiday so I try to keep this in mind when I do my crafting and decorating to make the switch as easy and painless as possible.  I have a couple of not-so-secret ways to do this – want to hear them?

That was my Halloween front porch last year (or more likely the year before).  You’ve seen the Witch Wreath and Boo Swags (here) and the Wooden Home of the Wicked Witch sign (here) before.  My best and easiest trick is mounting one of those 3M Command Hooks on the door.  They are supposed to be removable without damaging anything (and they are) but that hook just lives on the door so I can easily switch out the wreath.

I made the fall wreath a couple of years ago during one of my neighborhood craft days.  It was my first attempt at the “curly” version of the deco mesh wreaths and I had a lot of fun putting it together.  I love the shiny gold and bronze mesh.  The only drawback was that it turned out HUGE.  It stands away from the door at least a foot and would reach out and grab your clothing or hair if you brushed up close to it.  But I think the size works really well for the scale of the front door and the house.

If you’ve been reading my blog the last few weeks I’m sure you’ve clued into my second trick – double-sided crafts!  When I designed that wooden witch sign on the front porch I knew that I wanted to put a Thanksgiving quote on the back.  I did this for a couple of reasons.  1 – because holiday decorations can be big and bulky and take up a lot of storage space when not in use.  2 – because I liked the look of the wooden pieces on the back of the sign and wanted to highlight them.  And 3 – because it makes switching the decorations as easy as turning it from front to back (duh!).  Two seconds – instant transformation.
(I have the full tutorial for the double-sided wooden sign in an earlier post HERE if you want more details)

I don’t know if you noticed, but I also turned the pumpkins around so that the carved part was facing the wall.  We typically carve our pumpkins only a day or two before Halloween so as long as the teenagers in the neighborhood don’t go out pumpkin smashing, the pumpkins will stay looking decent for a couple of weeks.  Depends on the weather of course.

The piece of my Halloween decor that didn’t require any maneuvering at all were my Pallet Pumpkins – aren’t they great?  Nice and rustic – and cheap to create!  (You can find my tutorial for the pallet pumpkins HERE)  Those stay out on the porch from September through Thanksgiving.

And as a finishing touch, the mailbox got a little swag of its own with deco mesh and ribbon left over from the wreath.

Easy as that!  I think the whole Halloween to Thanksgiving transformation took less than 10 minutes, and that includes hunting up the Fall wreath and putting away the Halloween ones.

Quick Review – the keys points to making the switch from Halloween to Thanksgiving decor easy and painless are:
1.  Keep Command Hooks on the front door for wreaths and anywhere else you normally want to hang decorations.
2.  Double-sided decorations make the transformation as easy as turning your decor from one side to the other.
3.  Use items that are multi-purpose and can be used for more than one holiday.  For fall I use pumpkins, but the same concept would work well with lanterns, vases or urns, baskets and crates.
4.  Instead of decorating every surface, pick a few key spaces and decorate those every holiday.  You could decorate your front door and mailbox outside and maybe your mantle, entry console, and dining table for the interior.

How about you?  Do you switch out your Halloween decorations for Thanksgiving?  Or do you just let the Halloween stuff stay out until you’re ready to put out the Christmas lights? 😉

You may want to check out some of my other fall decorating ideas!
    
–Double-sided 2×4 Halloween/Thanksgiving Craft
–2×4 Pumpkins
–Decorating with Witch Hats

Linking to:  Learning from Each Other, Lifestyle Link Up, Pretty Pintastic Party, Link Party Palooza, Made By You Monday,