Natural Fall Decor: Simple Ways to Bring the Outdoors In

Welcome to the first installment of my newest series, Home for the Holidays: A Southern Season of Charm. Today we begin by sharing ways to bring the outdoors inside to decorate your home with natural décor for fall.

The holiday season in the South is rich in tradition. It’s a graceful time of the year where we extend hospitality and celebrate the season by adding seasonal touches in gathering spaces. Each week of the Home for the Holidays series will be a celebration of meaningful traditions, nostalgic décor, and cozy inspiration for the heart of the home.

Whether you plan to host a large holiday gathering or your goal is to simply add traditional touches around your home, I hope you’ll come back each week for inspiration and a sense of community.

Why Choose Natural Fall Decor?

Albert Camus is credited with saying, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower,” and I can’t hear this quote without thinking of the mighty Southern magnolia.

Truly a Magnolia grandiflora, in the spring she entices us with massive, fragrant flowers in a milky white hue that contrast with her green leaves. Yet, the Magnolia doesn’t stop in spring! In the fall, we are presented with brilliant and strange cones that push out bright red seeds as they ripen. The vivid green leaves of spring have developed their velvety brown undersides, softening as the heat of summer eases into the first chilled autumn evenings of the Deep South.

During the spring and summer, we bring nature’s bounty indoors to eat. When autumn arrives, the growing season has come to an end. But that doesn’t mean we turn our backs on what nature has to offer. For generations Southerners have brought nature inside during autumn to decorate with and enjoy. By taking advantage of what nature has to offer us from the land, garden, and forests, we can decorate our homes in the traditional Southern fashion for little to no cost.

The Three Categories of Natural Fall Decor

To make gathering from nature more approachable, I like to think of natural fall décor in three categories.

The Harvest: Abundance for the table and sideboard

The food we harvest to eat in the fall can also be used to decorate our homes. Apples of all shades from yellow to red to bright green mimic the colors of the leaves. A basket full of apples in the center of a breakfast table becomes edible artwork.

Pumpkins are sometimes overlooked as indoor décor. Most houses will be seen with one next to the front door, waiting for a face to be carved. But pumpkins can be used as indoor décor as well. A large pumpkin can be turned into a centerpiece, and small pumpkins can line a windowsill.

In the fall we also harvest other growing plants like cotton, wheat, and many types of flowers. Bundles of cotton and wheat can be used in vases or wreaths. Dried hydrangeas and goldenrod are also traditional Southern fall decor.

The Gathered: Treasures from the forest floor

A walk through our natural surroundings will reveal all sorts of treasures if we observe the world around us. These items aren’t necessarily grown to harvest at the end of the season. They’re little gifts that we can find while looking on the forest floor or in the trees. Sometimes a stroll along the shore of an ocean or lake will reveal a prize to bring inside.

In my own yard I collected magnolia and pine cones, acorns, and pecans. I filled all kinds of bowls and vessels to use them as natural fall décor. I also cut branches of magnolia to use in floral arrangements.

Other gathered finds are items like feathers, antler sheds, ethically sourced turtle shells, and oyster shells. All of these can be thoughtfully integrated into your fall décor.

The Handcrafted: Artisan-made with natural materials

The final category of natural fall décor is the handcrafted. Artisans use natural items to create things that we use on a daily basis. We can thoughtfully incorporate those items in our fall décor to highlight their natural materials and craftsmanship.

Candles made of beeswax perfume the room and add a warm yellow tone to the space even when they’re not burning. Baskets made of local grass and willows are useful all year round, and in the fall they can be used to showcase things like a bunch of gourds.

Other handcrafted items to consider using in your natural fall décor are quilts, pottery, and sculptures made from wood or local rock.

How to Incorporate Natural Decor into Your Home

A common mistake people make when decorating their homes for the holidays is to go overboard with a theme. If every item in your home has a pumpkin motif on it, it will start to look more like a gift shop than a home with decorative touches. The same thing can happen if you go overboard with natural fall décor.

I recommend finding ways to integrate natural fall décor into your existing vignettes. Take one or two natural elements and treat them as “hero pieces” in combination with other groupings of existing décor. Consider things like textures, colors, and size when you’re styling or arranging your spaces.

Four Places to Add Natural Fall Decor

• Mantel & Hearth: baskets with pinecones, magnolia garlands, antlers alongside brass candlesticks.
• Dining Table: simple runner with wheat stalks in an ironstone pitcher; beeswax tapers in brass holders.
• Kitchen Counter: dough bowl with apples or sweet potatoes; hydrangea stems in amber glass.
• Entryway: oyster shell dish for keys, paired with acorns and a quilted throw on a bench.

Shop the Look

If you like the idea of decorating for fall using natural décor, but you don’t live in an area where you can find it on your own, I’m sharing some links for items that I recommend. I’ve curated a list of items you can use throughout the year, as well as some resources for natural items like shells and dried flowers.

You can find this list by clicking the image below or going directly to my curated LTK shop for fall.

Looking Ahead: A Season of Charm

Throughout this eight-week Home for the Holidays series we’ll explore a few Southern holiday recipes, decorate our tables for special holiday meals, and explore easy ways to show hospitality and care to those around us this season.

I invite you to come back each Saturday for the next installment of Home for the Holidays: A Southern Season of Charm. Be sure to bookmark this website in your browser and follow along on Instagram for updates. Links to the other segments in this series will be added to the bottom of this article as we make our way through the holidays season together.

Closing Thought

When we choose to use natural décor in our homes it honors the environment around us. We’re at a time in history when home décor is being treated as though it is disposable. Walk into any craft store, and you’ll find shelves up to the ceiling that are lined with hundreds of identical decorations that will likely only be used for one season before ending up in the trash.

I want to encourage you to consider buying quality items that can be used in different ways every season, instead of something that can only be used for a couple of weeks. For example: A dough bowl can be filled with eggs in the spring, shells in the summer, acorns in the fall, and ornaments at Christmas.

Investing in quality décor saves money in the long run and decreases mental and physical clutter in our homes. Dante Alighieri said, “Nature is the art of God,” and I hope you have been inspired to bring nature into your décor this fall.  

Explore More from This Series

Each article in this series celebrates the beauty of Southern living through the seasons. You can find the full collection on the homepage under Home for the Holidays: A Southern Season of Charm.

• How to Roast a Fresh Pie Pumpkin (Plus a Cozy Pumpkin Muffin Recipe)
• A Sweet Potato Pie Recipe from a Vintage Southern Cookbook
• Fall Garden Prep: Essential Tasks for a Beautiful Start to Spring
• How to Create a Thanksgiving Floral Arrangement
• Set a Beautiful Thanksgiving Table with Vintage Turkey Dishes
• Keep the Holiday Magic Alive: Traditions for Every Age
• How to Beautifully Customize a Costco Christmas Wreath