Abundant Harvest Fall Urn Planters for a Stone and Stucco Home

Today I'm sharing the abundant harvest fall urn planter arrangements that I created for my clients, T&J. A few weeks ago I met these clients t their gorgeous custom home for the first time.  They've asked me to"tweak" a few things on the exterior as well as to do interior staging and select the finishing touches for their incredible home.

As you can see from these photos, their home is a gorgeous, custom stone and stucco  that confection that was built just about five years ago. Their new landscaping is getting established and filling in nicely.

I love projects like this where most of the "heavy lifting" is complete and all I need to do is to add the "jewelry" to an already gorgeous design.  In the front of the home,  I'll be adding shutters to a couple of the windows, a window flower box above the garage,  and choosing furnishings for their front patio.

Since fall and winter are coming and I'm also working on my own home, I'll be designing the shutters and window box for this home in coming weeks but depending upon weather, they may not be installed until spring.  In the mean time, I've created fall urn planters for their front entry and added just a few mums to bring fall color to their yard.

 Using their existing containers, I created arrangements using mums, kale, heuchera, broom corn and faux pumpkins from the craft store.  The size and scale area appropriate for the size of the home and these planters will last until we do their holiday decorating in late November.

I love it when my clients see their home decorated for a particular season for the first time. The look on J's face when she stepped out of the door on Saturday was so sweet as she hugged me and said "I must have done something really good at some point in my life to deserve to have you in my life."

It's moments like that....a few brief seconds, shared on a gloomy Saturday morning or a sunny Friday afternoon, that remind me of how much I love doing what I do. I love helping clients to create warm and welcoming environments that are a reflection of them. Bringing the feelings and visions that they have for their home to life is my favorite thing to do.

I can't wait to show you the inside of this gorgeous home in the coming months.  I'll be staging and decorating four bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room and family room.  I'll also be doing some holiday decorating for them both inside and outside (and you know how much I love the holidays!)

 I'm thankful to have this gorgeous home to decorate while our home is being renovated. Creating abundant harvest themed fall urn planters for J & T's  front entry is just the  start of the fun so be sure to follow along.

I'll be sharing my own fall front porch decorating as well as farmhouse construction updates later this week so be sure to stop by.

Thanks so much for reading!

Gold and Orange Fall Pumpkin Urn Planter

Since tomorrow is the first official day of autumn (and since the sun finally decided to pay a visit after about a week long vacation), I snapped a few quick photos of  my fall harvest themed urn planter.

Blue and White Outdoor Summer Urn Patio Planters

 
 Summer has finally arrived in the Midwest and after a cold and seemingly endless winter it has been so much fun to be able to fill my urns and planters with colorful annuals and not have to worry (too much) that I'll be running out every night to cover them to protect them from frost.  This year, my color scheme consists of cool colors: blue, purple and white.

Brightly Colored Spring Urn Planter Decor

Sometimes, I can't help myself.  There are days when I have the urge to decorate and when I've got nothing to do at home, I fulfill the need by decorating  for other people..even when they don't expect it.  On Saturday night, these urn planters in front of my friends' store, Vintage Fresh, got a spontaneous spring decor makeover courtesy of temperatures in the upper 50's coupled with my sudden urge for a little spring and the fact that the center of my own urn at home is still frozen solid.

There were cute little evergreen trees in the centers of them which had fallen victim to our really harsh winter this year so they'll need to be replaced when local nurseries get their stock but for now, they made a fine base for the addition of  a few spring flowers from Hobby Lobby, a little tulle, and a few plaid bows.

Someone had already added cute little Easter stakes and a few eggs so I used them as well.  All of the flowers that are in these pots are silk because that's what was available at 6:30 on Saturday evening when the urge struck....

All I really wanted was to create something bright and cheery to surprise my friends when they arrived on Sunday morning to open their doors for Downers Grove's first ever Bridal Walk and to fill the urns for the next few weeks until warmer weather arrives and we can plant them for summer!

If you have urn planters that need a little pick me up, consider adding brightly colored netting, and bows along with a few flowers (faux or real) to create a sunny spring welcome at your door.  And if you live near me, be warned...if I have a few hours, this could happen to you!

Christmas Front Porch and Urn Planter and The First Snowfall at the French Farmhouse

This year, for the first time in over ten years, I decorated my front porch entry with live greens.  I hung live balsam wreath on the door, added some mixed green garland around the entry and then filled the urn planter outside of my front door with an assortment of natural materials (both real and artificial).

Fall Porch and Urn Decorations

I did some decorating on the front porch of the French Farmhouse last week.  To be completely transparent, I did it so that the neighbors can tell that someone actually lives here now and that it's safe for children to come to the door to sell things. Take for example, things like Girl Scout Cookies...

Summer Urns and Container Gardens: Tips and Tricks

I've been designing and planting gardens, urns and planters for over thirty years and my favorites are still  That sounds like a really long time, doesn't it?  

Spring Urn Planter: Tulips, Forsythia...and Bird Houses!

Well, that's going to be a tough act to follow...

I remember those words as if it were yesterday.  Last spring, basking in the unexpected glow of several weeks in the 70's and 80's in March, I'd been inspired to create what was probably my favorite spring arrangement ever in the huge urn that sits on the stone wall in the front of my home.

Woodland Winter Mantel..and NFL Fooball

 
Sometimes, decorating for Christmas in a house full of men has it's challenges...like when they question why I'm doing it at all. Especially when I'm doing it on Sunday afternoon...in the middle of a football game.

The groaning and complaints about ladders blocking the television and vacuuming drowning out the sound  got me thinking....

I have come to the conclusion that my decorating for Christmas is the holiday equivalent of a Sunday afternoon of NFL Football. Yep. They're the same.

Fall Pumpkin Planter - A Cinderella Story

Did you read the story of Cinderella as a child?

Or, for that matter, do you still read Cinderella as an adult?  I do.

In fact, I seem to have a fixation with that story. If you don't believe me, see Exhibit A.

I've got to admit that, any time I read a story that involves a handsome guy with money rescuing a kind, hard

working,  girl from a life of cooking and cleaning, I think to myself,

"Really?  Sign me up!" 

Fall Planters and Urns: What I DIDN'T do this Sunday

 I'll bet that you thought that you'd be reading about my fall outside decorations today, didn't you?

You probably thought that you'd be seeing photos of  beautiful urns like these two that I did for my neighbor, right?

Boxes and Baskets and Pots of Flowers!

Urn on the garage wing wall.

I was reminded this weekend of the reason that I always plant my annuals during the first week of May regardless of what the USDA says: It gets freaking HOT in Illinois at the end of May!  This weekend, (after inquiries by neighbors as to my health and a kind offer from my friend Sadie, (the florist) to plant my urn at the behest of my family), I finally made time to do a little planting.

Of course, this weekend the daytime temperatures also reached 98 degrees and there wasn't a hint of a breeze! I actually felt sorry for the plants! Our window boxes are on the second story of the house and they face West and North. The plants that live (or at least try to) in these boxes take the words "full sun" to a whole new level...it's something more along the lines of full sun living in a copper planter with the heat from the roof baking your roots off." Note to self: on the next house, window boxes made of wood, facing East.

West Large Window Box - View from the Driveway

North Large Window Box - View from the driveway.

West window box - View from my son's room.

North Window Box - View from the Master bath.

White Begonias (at least some day they will be) as borders for the front yard gardens.

Front Yard Plant List (Coral, White and Gray):
Hydrangea Endless Summer "Blushing Bride"
Euphorbia "Diamond Frost"
Begonia "Borias"
Cut Leaf Sweet Potato Vine
Dichondra "Silver Falls"
Bedding plants: White begonias

I also planted a few containers around the pergola. I'm still putting the finishing touches on a couple of projects before the "big reveal" but I thought that I'd share a few photos.

Patio Container

Patio basket

Thank you, Mom and Dad! I LOVE it!

Rear Yard Plants: Pink, Gray and White (with a little Blue from my parents)
Hydrangea Endless Summer - Blue
Euphorbia "Diamond Frost"
Soft Pink Geranium
Silver Pink Petunia
Pink Angel face (no idea what the real name is)
White Lobelia
Dichondra "Silver Falls"
 Mercifully, it's cooler here today and the forecast is for unseasonably cool weather for the next several days. I got to turn the air conditioning off and open the windows.  This is a good sign that maybe the plants will survive and that my electric bill won't be so huge that I'll be forced to get a second  third job to pay it!

xo,

S

Linking to:
Funky Junk

An Unlikely "Blogger"

I'll admit it, I'm shy. I've never been comfortable putting myself out there. I'm the one who's always happiest working behind the scenes to create beautiful settings for other people's parties and beautiful things for other people's lives.  So, you see, the mere concept of writing about the things that I've done all my life is, for me, more than a little daunting but the desire to create things is as natural for me as breathing.