How to Make Cheap Fall Decor Look Expensive for Under $20 | High End DIY Dupes

Hello friends! Today I'm going to show you how to make cheap fall decor look expensive. Three high-end fall DIY dupes and all three of them together cost me under $20. A vintage looking frame for the fall and Halloween shelf, a pumpkin and a tray for the kitchen counter. These are the kinds of pieces I keep seeing on boutique websites this time of the year for $40 and $50 each. We're getting the same designer look for less using nothing but paint, a bit of wax and knowing exactly where to put it. No special tools, no skills you don't already have and every single one of these techniques will work on almost anything you bring home. If that's your kind of fall decorating and DIYs go ahead and subscribe. I do budget high-end dupes like this all season long and stick around to the end because the frame is the last one and it's my favorite thing I've made all fall. Let's get into it. We're starting with this plate I found at Dollarama. They've had these out for a few seasons now so if you've got one near you there's a good chance it's still on the shelf. And here's the thing, the shape of it is genuinely lovely. The little grooves, the stem. However, the designers did a really nice job on it. It just didn't work in my house. The color was a bit too much for the way I decorate. Everything here leans soft and warm and kind of muddy in the best way and this was sitting on the counter shouting at me so it went into the cupboard and there it stayed. The fix was one coat of paint. I'm using dried sage. It's a soft muted green, barely a green really, more of a grayed out sage. This is a chalk mineral paint and I'm just brushing it on. That's the reason I reach for this stuff consistently on pieces like this. The coverage is so much better than you'd expect and it grips onto slick surfaces that don't normally want to hold paint. No priming, no sanding, no fussing with it. But here it is painted and fully dry and look at what happens. All that shape that got a bit lost before now reads properly. The grooves, the stem, all of it. But I want to push it further because right now it's nicely painted plate. It isn't yet a piece that looks old or good. This is brown antiquing wax and this step right here is the whole secret. All things are darker in their low spots. That's it. That's the entire trick. Dust settles, hands don't reach in there and over years the recesses go dark while the raised parts stay light. So when you want something to look like it's been around, you don't paint it randomly. You follow the lines the pieces already have, the piece already has and you darken them. So I'm working the wax over the stem first. Then I'm going into the grooves laying it on thicker in there and just tracing what's already there. And I'm bringing it around the edges as well. I went over it again to deepen those lines a bit more. The rhythm is put it on then blend it out. Put it on, blend it out. Don't try to get the perfect in one go because wax is forgiving. You have a good long window to move it around before it sets and you can always add more. That's why I like it so much. To finish I took a very light coat of the same wax and worked it over the whole plate in little circles. Not enough to mute the sage, just enough to take the newness of it and pull the darker grooves and the lighter body together. So it reads as one aged piece instead of painted thing with brown in the cracks. Before we move on, if you want to actually serve food on this, please finish it with a proper food safe top coat. I did not cover mine so mine is purely decorative. It's a catch all, a tray, a place to set things down. If that's your plan too, you can leave the wax as your finish or hit it with spray wax and call it done. And I love how this turned out. This looks so much more natural now. Almost like a piece of stoneware someone made by hand. Right now it's living on my kitchen counter holding a little jar and a couple of mini pumpkins. But it would be just as good on an entryway table for keys and sunglasses or on a table as the base of a vignette. It's one of those pieces that quietly make a spot look intentional. Next up is this pumpkin and this one came from the thrift store for $5.49. I nearly left it. Watch what it does in a light here. See that shine? It has a really glossy slightly plasticky finish and that's usually enough for me to put something back on the shelf. But the shape was so good. The proportion, the way the stem curls over and shape is the thing you can't fix. Finish you can absolutely fix. So it came home with me. I took this one outside because shock spray paint and indoor air do not mix. Please open the door or take it out or take it outside. I'm spraying it in a soft creamy color. This is just what I had on hand and I want to be really clear that specific color doesn't matter here at all. As long as it's light and natural it will do the same same job. White bone or pale putty pick whatever suits your house because the magic in this one isn't the color it's what happens next. Once it was dry I went in with Van Dyke brown glaze. This one's Dixie Belle and I'm applying it with a chippy brush. And here's where it stops looking like a painted craft pumpkin because the light spray is sitting in the deeper parts and on the inside and glaze is catching on everything raised so on the outside and it suddenly you suddenly get so much depth. Two tones instead of one. The stem especially look at it now it really like a real dried stem not a molded plastic one. That's the whole project spray glaze done. Same principle as the plate light base dark in the low spots just with glaze instead of wax because there's more surface to cover. And again make this yours if your house is warmer go terracotta or soft rust if you like a moodier fall do it in a deep charcoal or green with the black glaze over it. The technique does not change one bit. This is exactly what I wanted. I went from something that didn't suit me at all to something that looks like it belongs here. And now my favorite. I saved this for the end on purpose because I have been unreasonably delighted by this one all week. You've probably seen these on boutique sites. The little oval frames with vintage witch or moody fall scene or an old storybook illustration inside. I had one in my saved folder for ages told myself was silly to spend that on something I'd have out for six weeks and that then never bought it. Then I found this frame at Dollarama and I picked it up immediately because look at the shape the scrollwork the oval the little chain that is genuinely vintage looking frame. I just wasn't sold on a paint that came the print that came inside of it which as it turns out is a completely fixable problem. The insert was glued in so I took a utility knife and worked around the edge to loosen the glue and pop the backing out. Go slow here and keep your fingers behind the blade. I want to actually keep the oval because the piece becomes the mount for the new print. For the art I found a shop with the most beautiful vintage Halloween and fall prints and I've linked it down in the description because they have so many good ones. I printed out a couple of options. Then I laid the oval back backing on top of the print and traced around it shuffling it about to get the cat position where I want it. Now full transparency I was worried that the cat was going to be too big. I scaled it down as much as I could figure out how to and I'll be honest I may simply not know how to print these things properly. That is very real possibility. I also printed the witch as a backup just in case but I wanted the cat so the cat is what we're using and we're going to make it work. Because I was trying to fit the cat the cut left me with a thin white edge showing around the outside. Two seconds of painting and then I remembered the wax. So I took the same brown antiquing wax from the first project and ran it right around the cut edges and it disappears. Completely blends in and it actually looks more intentional than it would have without it. This is the thing about these techniques once you know them you stop seeing problems and start seeing things you can know. To attach the print I'm using mod podge covering the oval fully so there are no dry patches. Then pressing the print down and working out from the middle. Then I went around the little edges as well because paper will curl on you in the second if it gets a chance and edge is always the first to go. Once it was down I gave the edges another pass on top to seal them. Now the frame itself. It came already a bit distressed which was a good start but not quite the look I was after. So I took a bronze gilding wax and applied it very lightly to the raised areas only. And I want to say this clearly because this is where the these projects go wrong. Do not cover the whole thing. The point isn't to make it gold. The point is to catch the hide points so all the lovely details in the scroll work actually show up. Brush it on and then barely touching the surface. You want to be able to ask yourself whether you did anything at all and the answer should be just barely. Last thing. Instead of gluing the print in permanently I've used just tape in it at the back because I'm already thinking about cutting a few more prints and swapping them out as the season goes on. Something moody for October, something warmer for November. It's the same frame, different mood, no extra money. And here it is. I think it's so cute and I'm completely in love with it. It's going to it's going straight into my fall shelf styling and then I'll carry it right through Halloween which is exactly what I want from it. So there you are. A tray, a pumpkin, a frame under $20 for all three. And if you pull back and look at what we actually did today it was the same idea three times over. Light base, dark in the low spots and then a whisper of something on the high points. That's it. That's the whole thing. Once that clicks you'll never walk past the dollar store shelf the same way again. You'll be standing there holding a plastic pumpkin thinking I know exactly what to do with you. If you make any of these please come tell me about it. I read every single comment and honestly the ones where somebody tried a completely different color than I did are my favorite. That's how I get half my ideas. Which of these three ways your favorite? Tell me down below. If you want the print you use the shop is linked in the description box. And if you're new here this is what I do. Thrift store and dollar store finds turn into things that look like they cost a fortune. Subscribe and stick around. There's a lot more fall coming.