Inspired By...Frugal with a Flourish!

Let me start off by saying I LOVE autumn.  I love the colours, I love the crisp air, I love the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin in the air.
I recently purchased a house (it seems recent...it was actually last November), and it was in need of some fall themed decorating!  So thanks to the lovely and uber creative Jess at "Frugal with a Flourish", I decided to try my hand at a fall wreath and a pumpkin topiary! (Thanks for the inspiration Jess!  I love your blog!)
So here's how it went!

Getting set up! The bunches of fall leaves and berries were on sale for $1.49, and the craft pumpkins were 50% off! Go Michael's!

I had the black spray paint already from a summer project, but picked up pretty bronze and pewter for the leaves and pumpkins.  On sale for $4.99 each!

I cut the bunches of leaves apart for the wreath and gave them a light spray with the bronze paint, then an even lighter sheen of pewter

Starting at the top, I stuck sprigs of the painted leaves into a grapevine wreath that I had picked up and was waiting for inspiration to hit!

I had a small mini pumpkin that I gave a coat of bronze to and added it to the wreath.  I LOVE how it turned out!  Very nice fall colours, and just enough sparkly with out making my front door look like an autumn disco party entrance!

What a pretty pumpkin! I love that it has such a nice satiny shine! The pewter was a bit more silver than I expected, so I dusted it with a light spray of bronze and black for highlights.

Now, here is where there is a bit of a gap in the picture taking...it started to get dark quickly, so I gave a terracotta pot a coat of black spray paint and glammed it up a bit with some sparse shots of bronze and pewter paint.  Then I filled the pot with some rocks to stabilize it, and cut a piece of styrofoam to fit inside about an inch down into the pot.  This gave me something to glue the bottom pumpkin to.  I glued the pumpkin to the styrofoam and pushed it into the pot and voila! It stayed! (MAGICAL! I was sure it would topple over!)  Then I cut the leaves of a garland I got on sale for $2.99!  I used my glue gun to create a bed of leaves between the pumpkins and also around the pot.

And here is the finished product!  I'm so pleased with it!  Although next time I think I'll use a bigger pot.

I had so much fun with this project! (Although I had to take breaks from all the spray paint fumes...even outdoors I found the smell quite strong!)  I think even Audrey likes the result:

Ummmm....so do I get to eat this when you're not looking??

Do you have any creative projects that you have under taken recently?  What about blogs that inspire you?  I'm always on the look out for great ideas!