After painting my front door yellow this summer, I felt like I couldn’t pass up this new colour opportunity to create a floral door arch for autumn and fall. Later on in October, I’ll add some spooky details to make it suitable for Halloween!

I never want to drill into my door surround or the render on my home, so I always create a base structure upon which to attach autumnal decorations. This year, I decided to do a half-door design rather than an arch that wraps all around the door, like I did a couple of years ago.

Use a strong metal shelf bracket

Heading to the DIY store, I picked up two treated wood posts and cut them down with a saw to fit around my door frame. I then created a ‘r’ shape with the wood by attaching them together using a strong metal shelf bracket. I felt this was quicker, easier, and more secure than relying on drilling long screws into the wood.

Use Postcrete

Once I had my ‘r’ shape built, I needed a way for the wood to stand upright. I took an old flower pot, placed some cardboard over the drainage hole at the bottom, placed the base of the wood centrally into the pot, then filled the pot with Postcrete. Postcrete is a very fast setting cement that holds up fenceposts, so I knew it would do the job.

The end result was that my wooden frame stood on its own accord. However, as the steps to my home are thin, I only used a small pot. If you have flat land, use a larger pot (or even better, a bucket) to add more Postcrete. I knew that I could secure my wooden frame my railings, so I was fine with just a flower pot on this occasion, but if you don’t have extra support, go big on the bucket!

Decorate the top before installation

Previous experience making decorative door arches for the entrance to my home meant that I knew that I should decorate the top first before installation, so I could lay the wood posts on the floor and attached the flowers easily. If you don’t decorate the top first, it will result in a lot of stretching and going up and down the ladder! Exhausting!

Forage for free!

As this floral installation embraces autumn and halloween, when I took my dog for a walk, I gathered up as many sticks and twigs as I could to use as part of the design. I chose bare branches and also branches still containing brown leaves. This way, the majority of my autumnal DIY home decor was free!

Be sustainable - use reusable cable ties

In the past, I’ve used basic plastic cable ties to secure faux florals and items around my door, but I have since discovered reusable cable ties, which are sustainable as you can use them again and again! I took a number of my foraged branches and secured them to the top using the ties, then I tucked the more decorative pieces into the existing ties and around and through the twigs.

Once I had finished the top pole that was to sit horizontal to my front door, I brought the whole structure out front and secured it to my railings (again using the reusable ties). Once secure, I took my larger branches and attached them down the railings. Not only do the twigs add to the Halloween ‘look’, but they act as a stucture upon which I could build up my decorative foliage.

Faux Chinese Lanterns Will Be Your Best Buy

I used a few faux autumnal garlands in orange and purple eucalyptus, threading them through the sticks and around the wood pole so that it could not be seen. I then built up my design with lots more faux autumnal foliage. Most of this faux foliage came from Dunelm and my local floral wholesalers. The main things I used were:

Eucalyptus
Faux Chinese lanterns
Red pampas grass
Faux leaf bundle
Faux protea
Brown grass spray

I owned a lot of these elements from previous styling work that I had undertaken, but if I was to advise you to buy one thing, get the Chinese lanterns - they are so bright and add so much! You could make a basic version of my design using only branches and faux lanterns!

As a final touch, I had a couple of bags of small plastic pumpkins, which I hot glued to the twig branches.

This display will now last the whole month! To finish off, I added a few real pumpkins on the steps and a couple of raven decorations in preparation for Halloween. If you want to watch the full process of making this autumn arch, click here to watch the video tutorial.

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