Recycling Corn Stalks for a Harvest Door

Welcoming Thanksgiving guests with a great front door can be tricky.  There are not as many easy, go-to decorations for Thanksgiving as there are for so many other holidays.

 In the spirit of using what I already had on-hand, I recycled.  If you can somehow transform your Halloween decor into Harvest -- that is a win!!

Remember these fall decorations (below) from our Autumn Apple Cider get-together?? 

 I've had a Thanksgiving-ish/harvest inspired idea floating around in my head since we originally picked up the con stalks...

I decided to turn the corn stalks into front door urn fillers. 

 I cut the tops of the corn stalks off, and "planted" them in my urns.  I tied them with raffia (recycled from the "Halloween Scarecrow"  (below) --remember him??)

The cornstalks mimic wheat, the way I have them tied in the middle.  To carry that look forward, I added sprays of wheat to the wreath.

I gathered the stalks in the middle, giving them an hour-glass shape and tied them with a gingham, wired ribbon.

THE HARVEST WREATH

I traded out the front door wreath, added some feathers, dried naturals, pine cones and faux fruit.  I added a ribbon to the wreath to match the urns.

Feathers, bittersweet, faux apples, pears and pomegranates give a distinctly harvest feel to this Thanksgiving front door wreath.  Adding dried naturals, pine cones, berries and sprays of wheat, give the front door the look of a cornucopia, only in wreath-form.

Mixing fabrics and patterns of ribbon on a wreath adds interest; it helps to take the wreath up a notch and gives it a more upscale, designer look.  Adding two ribbons also helps to fill in gaps and take up space on a wreath--which can be a big help...

Here I used a matte, gingham, next to a copper iridescent wired ribbon, it almost looks like a sash...

 A COLONIAL WELCOME!

I am a big fan of the colonial pineapple welcome.  A few weeks ago I picked up some very 1980's era copper molds at the thrift store, my favorite past time... (the thrift store, not 1980's shopping)  I think almost every 1980's kitchen had copper molds as a decoration...and...If you were wondering where  all those copper molds went... they are all at the thrift store.  

I thought for Thanksgiving, adding a copper pineapple welcome mold to a wreath would be charming.  However, I ran out of room on my front door wreath, so I had to find somewhere else to display my 1980's copper mold....

A very black fuzzy caterpillar was watching me work...Is he a sign of a snowy winter???

 Taking a cue from our front door knocker, a pineapple, I added the pineapple copper mold to the leftover stalks at the light post.  Just as welcoming and a little unexpected, since the light post is usually unadorned this time of year.

About the pineapple...we had a service man to the house a few years ago, when I answered the door, he greeted me with a hearty "ALOHA!"... 

I just stood there puzzled... I said "Aloha???"  

The service man explained that he knew how much I must like Hawaii and pineapples, since my doorbell and knocker were both pineapples...  To which he bellowed "ALOHA!" once again, as he made his way into our house... I was very amused.  

I spared the service man a lesson on the traditional colonial pineapple as a sign of hospitality...

In case you would like a brief history on the colonial pineapple: 

Colonial Pineapple History

Best of luck transitioning your home from Halloween to Harvest... and if you have plans to grab a copper mold or two, don't worry, there are still plenty waiting for you... at the thrift store...

Aloha!

LINKED TO:
The Scoop, via Stone Gable

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