With the leaves falling and changing color, the colder, crisp air calling for sweaters and jackets, and the daylight fading earlier once again, there is no doubt that fall is upon us. One of my favorite seasons, and perhaps yours as well, I love fall because it’s a season of comfort. My favorite part about each season is decorating and truly experiencing the unique dynamics of each season. Through colors, signs with fitting phrases, and glowing lights, decorating allows you to express yourself while creating an atmosphere that you enjoy and want to be a part of. Here are some ways that you can decorate and *spice up* your dorm this pumpkin season without breaking your budget. Because, of course, we all need money for our pumpkin spice lattes and hot chocolate.
- Pumpkins
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Starting off, I think smaller pumpkins are a must-have for dorm windowsills and rooms during the fall. Orange and white pumpkins look adorable and festive when paired together. You can get smaller pumpkins at virtually any grocery store, as well as larger stores. Also, it can be a really fun and therapeutic activity to decorate the pumpkins, which are then personalized and unique in return. Whether you use acrylic paint or decorate the pumpkins with fake flowers and ribbon, it’s really easy to customize them. You can simply and cheaply buy some artificial flowers and ribbon and hot glue them on. However, if you don’t want to use real pumpkins, you can buy fake ones. Fake pumpkins are good to use if your dorm room gets too hot. I’ve found that the fake sweater-material pumpkins look really cute and also feel soft and cozy. With fake pumpkins, you can also buy them in a variety of different colors, such as olive green, red, burgundy, etc., and they’re reusable. You can buy a fake pumpkin or plush pumpkin for relatively cheap and reuse it again next year. Wooden pumpkins also look nice and refreshing on a windowsill, creating more of a vintage fall look. Additionally, you can put pumpkins in many places in your room- on your windowsill, on a desk, on a dresser, or on a table.
Overall, I think pumpkins look really festive on a windowsill, and there are so many different varieties and colors that you’re almost sure to find one you like and that matches the vibe or aesthetic that you’re going for. You can even mix the colors up! Buy some orange, some white, some tiger-striped pumpkins–and maybe some gourds as well. Having a good variety of colors–and real and fake pumpkins–makes the space look better and draws your attention in. Pumpkins are a very easy and cheap way to liven up your room for fall while making the space warm and inviting.
- Signs
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The second item I believe is needed for a perfect fall area is a sign. Signs can have cute, inspirational fall sayings. They can be funny, and they can come in a variety of different shapes and sizes. You can purchase small, medium, or large-sized signs depending on what you want for your specific area. I have a box sign I purchased from Aldi’s, which is nice because it’s reversible, so it’s basically two signs in one. One side says, “Pumpkin Spice Makes Me Nice,” and the other side says, “Farm Fresh Pumpkins, Hand Picked.” Every time I look at it, I just feel happier and more cheerful, and it brings color to a space that can sometimes feel dull. You could also purchase standing signs to place near the pumpkins on your windowsill that have cute and aesthetic fall phrases. Lastly, you could also buy smaller signs for a limited space. I have a very small orange sign shaped like a pumpkin that states, “Thankful, Grateful, Blessed.” All of these signs often cost five dollars or less, and you can leave all of these decorations up until around Thanksgiving time, so the great thing is once you put them up, you can leave them up for a while. I’ve found that signs look really good tilted and on the edges of the windows in a dorm room, and you can then place pumpkins around them, and you already have a fall theme going on.
- Lights
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One of my personal favorite forms of decorations is lights. I know many people like to have lights in their dorm rooms, and there’s a way to incorporate lights into a fall theme. In my room, I have a small scarecrow on a bale of hay on the windowsill, and then fall flower lights draped across the signs, scarecrow, and pumpkins. I’ve found putting lights on top of decorations really brightens up the decorations, and your room will be very cozy and lit up throughout the night.
Another fun and unique way that you could incorporate lights into the fall theme is by using a mason jar. If you take some LED lights (such as LED wire lights, for example) and then place them in a mason jar and add some fake fall flowers to the jar, you have a nightlight that you can place virtually anywhere, whether on your window or a nearby table. This lit-up mason jar will also shine very brightly at night, and it looks homey and cozy.
It’s also important to note that you’ll save a lot of money if you do it yourself and buy the jar, fall flowers, and lights separately rather than buying them together. I bought all of these components separately at Walmart. When I went to Walmart, mason jars with lights were all at least twenty dollars. However, if you buy the items separately and create the jar yourself, it can cost around ten dollars. The best part is that typically LED lights are on a timer, so they will come on every single night as long as the batteries are working. Lights are a fun way to brighten your room for fall.
- Gel Clings
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Another very quick and cheap way to decorate your dorm room is with gel clings. I’ve always loved gel clings for the holidays and seasons ever since I was a kid, and they also look really nice at a distance, so people can see them if they go past your window on campus. Gel clings come in so many different shapes and sizes, such as pumpkins, sunflowers, apples, acorns, owls, leaves, etc. There are so many different and unique designs and autumn phrases you could get, and they are available almost everywhere and typically very cheap.
- Placemats
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An effortless way of decorating is by using placemats for each holiday and season and changing them. You could place them on your desk or on a side table. I have placemats that say “Happy Fall Ya’ll” with mason jars and sunflowers on them, and they were only five dollars for four of them at Ross. They also fit with the mason jar theme, as mentioned earlier. It can be easy to tie the different types of decorations together so that you have cohesion between the decorations in your room.
- Pumpkin-scented pouch
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Lastly, if you’re truly going to embrace fall, then of course you have to have your room smelling like it! I have a pumpkin-scented pouch from the dollar store that you could stick anywhere in your dorm room if you’re a fan of the pumpkin spice scent. You could also get a cinnamon broom or some cinnamon acorns and place them in a mason jar or vase for that quintessential autumn smell.
In conclusion, I hope you learned some helpful tips to help liven up your dorm room and make the space your own. With the colder weather incoming, many of us will be spending more time indoors, so I think it’s really important to have a space that feels warm and comforting for you. You can easily decorate for fall and do it without spending too much money at all. If you make some decorations on your own, you not only spend less but can make things that are completely unique and personalized to you. So, this fall, why not decorate your room? It can’t hurt to spice things up.