Hey there, Friends! It’s Sarah here from the Archer & Olive Ambassador team and SHEdesignsKC over on Instagram. One thing I look forward to every year is that chill in the air and all the cozy vibes that autumn brings. And since fall is my favorite season, I love to deck my house out in fall splendor! I also love to create my own decorations, or embellish simple decor pieces I find with my own touch. So today I’m going to use my Archer & Olive Acrylograph pens to give some ordinary decor items a really fun and unique lift! If you’re crafty and you know it, grab your pens and join me!

SUPPLIES

I purchased all the decor items I’m using in this tutorial from my local craft store. You can typically find these items, or very similar ones at craft stores or even dollar stores. These types of items are known as “craft blanks” because they’re basically blank canvases ready for *something* to be added. And we’re gonna add that something! Apart from the craft blanks, I’ll be using:

• Archer & Olive Acrylograph pens
• Scrap paper

Shopping for some Acrylographs or other Archer & Olive products? I’d love it if you’d use my affiliate code! It’ll save you a little cash and I’ll get a little commission, which I sure do appreciate so much! My code is SHEDESIGNSKC10 - happy shopping! :)

Keep in mind that I’m just showing the embellishments I decided to use, but there are countless other options! And if you want a peek at some doodle ideas, be sure to check out my free printable! It includes step by step instructions for doodling some classic fall elements. Plus, a few traceable hand lettered phrases you may like to use. You can snag it here! Okay, let’s get started!

Artificial Pumpkins

Oh, pumpkins. The most iconic fall decor item of them all! I have a fair amount of pumpkins already in my fall decor collection, but I’m going to turn these into extra special ones. The great thing about adding your own touch to these craft blanks, is that you can cater it to your own style. For example, maybe you’re into fall, but not so much the really “orange-y” fall that we often see. You could get a white pumpkin and embellish it with pink or dusty blue, or whatever colors will suit you! I got three pumpkins, and decided to do the largest one in a fall theme. The smaller two are going to be more in a Halloween style. I used a dark green Acrylograph to do leaves all over the largest white pumpkin. I didn’t do any type of sketch, but you could lightly pencil on some guide lines if you wanted to. Once I had covered the pumpkin with leaves, I went back in with a much lighter shade, a taupe color, to add stems and veining. For the small white pumpkin, I did black polka dots. For the small black pumpkin, I decided to letter the word “boo”. Then I did orange polka dots as well. I have a medium sized black pumpkin that I covered with small white ghosts last year, so I thought this little trio would be perfect! The Acrylographs worked beautifully on these artificial pumpkins! 

Wooden acorns

I wasn’t too sure how I was going to use these little cuties when I purchased them, but they were so sweet, I couldn’t resist! I finally decided on using these in a hurricane jar I have. I had a lot of fun doodling on these, although they were easily the trickiest because they’re so small. Cue the hand cramps! Thankfully, Acrylographs dry really quickly so I didn’t have a problem with smudging my work! I did a number of different patterns and designs on the acorns, including polka dots, stripes, and solid colors. Once they were all fully dry, I placed my candle inside the hurricane jar, and then poured them around the candle. So cute!

Wooden leaves

These were the hardest of all my craft blanks to draw on because the wood was a little bit unfinished and not totally smooth, but I love the final look of them! Once I discovered that I was not going to get a flat, even color without doing a number on the tip of my Acrylographs, I decided to do a streaky look with various fall shades and then added black veining later. There are so many things you could do with these cuties! I decided to scatter mine in with the acorns in my hurricane jar. I have a few extras that I was thinking of using as place setting markers for a dinner. They’re the perfect size to write a guests’ name on and then tie around a cloth napkin. So fancy!

Cutting board

My last (and favorite!) craft blank was a tiny cutting board. It’s so cute! I wanted to do some fall lettering on this one. The wood is quite dark, so although I initially tried a light pencil sketch, I couldn’t see the sketch at all and gave up on that. I ended up just winging it with this one. A bit of chalk would’ve worked well to do a sketch because it would have shown up on the dark wood and I could’ve just wiped it off, but past me didn’t think of that. :) I used my black Acrylograph to letter “hey fall” and then drew a few fall leaves for embellishment. I love how this one came out!

Thanks so much for joining me as we cranked up the cozy vibes today! I hope you’re inspired to add some personality and fun to some of your own fall decor using Acrylograph pens. If you’d like to watch the process as I doodled on all these items, you can check out the YouTube video here. You’ll see how I placed these around my house with my fall decor!

 Be sure to tag Archer & Olive (@archerandolive, #aoshare) and myself (@SHEdesignskc) to show us your fall favorite pieces if you try any of these ideas out. We would love to see what you’re up to! And come say hi to me on Instagram! I love to chat with y’all there! Thanks again and talk to y’all soon!