When it comes to my outdoor urns, I dread the time between when I clean out all of the summer plants that have finally given up the ghost and when I put my spruce tops in (somewhere around Thanksgiving). Every year I resolve that I'm going to come up with decor that I can just pack away and put out year after year, rather than something that I just end up throwing out at the end of a couple of months, but it just never happens. So... when I saw these wrought iron pumpkins on clearance at the end of the season last year, I snatched them up knowing that they would be the perfect size for my urns!
When I bought the pumpkins I had envisioned doing something similar to the image below from BHG.com (you may recognize it from the Fall Decorating In Turquoise and Red post that I did recently).
After looking around a bit this year for what might work best to go with the pumpkins, I decided to wrap a grapevine wreath with some fall garland that I purchased at Michaels for 50% off. After laying that on the top of the urns, I set the wrought iron pumpkin on top. (10/16/10 - edited to add: I forgot to mention that I also sprayed the garland with Krylon UV-Resistant Clear Acrylic Coating in hopes that it would help the garland last longer outdoors.)
There was a 3-inch disk in the middle for a candle, so I decided to buy LED candles and set one of those on the disk. Even though my wonderfully practical husband pointed out that these would fill up with water when it rains (or, God forbid, snows!), I still decided to use them. My plan is to take the candles off during those times that I know the weather isn't going to cooperate with my decorating plan. We'll see how that works out. :-)
Unfortunately, I have NO idea how to take photographs at night or I'm sure this image would be much better, but this is how they look when I turn the candles on after dark. I love the warm, cozy glow, and think they'll be a nice little welcome for our guests...
Another note about the urns. They were SO bad about a year and half ago that I was ready to get rid of them, but I decided to try to spruce them up with some paint before completely giving up. I sanded them down and sprayed them with Rust-Oleum Multicolor Textured Paint in 223525 - Aged Iron. Can't tell you how impressed I am with how it worked. They looked brand new! Of course it's been a year and a half now and they've weathered some but they're still looking pretty decent. I'll probably let them go through another winter and spray them again in the spring.
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