Before I start this post I wanted to say “Thanks” to everyone who stopped by, visited and linked up to my inaugural You’re Gonna Love it Party yesterday.  I was still working out the kinks yesterday, but going forward it should be much smoother.. thanks for bearing with me.

Okay, now for today’s post.  My front porch.  I mentioned on Facebook how I was going to do the big reveal today, but not to expect grand things like this Better Homes and Garden’s feature because my porch just isn’t that dramatic:

But the truth is that we all have to live in reality and decorate the home *we* live in.  My front entry is off to the side of my house and the door is actually located in a corner up against a large wall.  The area is really small, tall and at a funky angle .. so there is no way to get the beautiful symmetry like in the photo above.

You do what you have to do. Don’t think that because you can’t have a space that is magazine worthy, that isn’t worth decorating. 


To deal my the narrow space problem, I set up a couple of wooden crates and filled them with potted mums to get some height:I also added my giant stick leaf up against the window (I didn’t want to add another pot since it would block all the light coming in through that window.)

On the door I added a leaf wreath with a door plaque:

The name place is actually a ceramic plaque found at the dollar store that I transformed with my Silhouette (The full tutorial is at the end of this post):

 To finish the space I added a more fall-like pillow to the bench and I was finished:

The orange buckets are also from the dollar store (I got them since I know they will transition well to halloween) and the little lantern is from Ikea.

Personalized Door Name Plaque Tutorial

I found these little ceramic plaques at Dollar Tree.  The sentiment is nice, but they are definitely not my style.

I removed the ribbon and spray painted them white:
I actually used the back side as the front of my sign because there were flaws in the glaze on the front, but you could actually make it reversible and use both sides.

I created the actual design on the silhouette software.  I included our family name and the year we established our California home:

I cut the design out of outdoor vinyl  (Oracal 651) and applied it to the plaque:

 That is all there was to it.  It took me about an hour (deciding on the design took the longest):

Alternative ideas include: Your house number, a seasonal greeting or even something like “no soliciting.”  It really is a great way to personalize your front door for your individual need or style.