Neutral Color Fall Crafts | Ballard Designs Inspired DIYs

Love Ballard Design’s but hate the prices? Today I have some Ballard Design’s dupes made with a few Dollar Tree finds. These are elegant and neutral pieces for Fall.

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Ballard Design’s Dupe  #1 // faux wood chargers

I’ve been using the same chargers for awhile now, and while there is nothing wrong with my gold chargers, I wanted a little something different.

I was browsing the Ballard’s site and came across these chargers. These were regularly $125, but were on sale for $94 for the set of 4. But guess how much we’ll paying – just $1 each! I think these would look so pretty on a rustic Thanksgiving tablescape.

I started by spray painting these chargers from Dollar Tree to give them a nice white base.

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Next, I mixed up some brown and white paint. I made sure to keep the sponge brush strokes going in the same direction to give the chargers that wooden look. 

I found a plate that was just the right size to trace. Trust me, you want a circle to trace because I have a really steady hand and tried freehanding that circle, and year, just go with the tracing method.

I used my trusty Sharpie paint pen, which is oil based. Sometimes it gets a little dried up and when paint pens get a little dry, I flip the tip around and that seems to help get the paint flowing again. 

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I used a sponge brush to measure approximately how far apart I wanted each of the leaf patterns and made a dot on either side of the circle.

Then I painted on the leaves. These leaves are really easy to freehand and they don’t all have to match exactly. The hand painted look is what makes these chargers so special.

You can add a clear coat after this, if you want to make sure all that paint stays put. Since these are chargers, we won’t be eating directly off of them. They look so nice under some white dinnerware. 

Here is my version next to the Ballard Design’s version. What do you think? Pretty close to the original, right?!

Ballard Design’s Dupe #2 // oak leaf wreath

Ok, let’s move on to the second Ballard Designs dupe. I loved this oak leaf wreath. I thought the simplicity was so elegant. It was regularly priced at $129, but was on sale here for $104.

I had done some more colorful fall DIYs this season, so click here if you want to see those. But I wanted a few neutral pieces to round things out, so I thought this would be perfect.

I started with this oak leaf paper stamp. I didn’t see the wreath in person, but it looked like the leaves would be fluttery in the breeze.

I tried the stamp on tissue paper, but was unsuccessful. It just tore the tissue paper.

So, I went to plain white paper and I could easily cut up to 2 sheets at a time. 

I try to make budget friendly DIYs here on Artsy Cupcake, so sometimes I recycle a craft from a previous season and turn it into something new. I had made this pom pom wreath and want to reuse the base for this Fall wreath.

This is just a styrofoam floral ring that I got from Dollar Tree and wrapped with white yarn. I removed the pom poms and now we have a soft white base that will go beneath those oak leaves.

I used hot glue to attach the leaves. I made sure to keep the hot glue only on the stems of each leaf. This will allow the leaves to still flutter.

I also tried to keep the leaves going in the same general direction. I bent up some of the leaves at the stem, so that there would be dimension and movement to the wreath.

If you find an empty spot, you will need to put the stem further in from the empty spot so that the leaf part is what covers the empty spot.

I was worried the paper would have that fluttery look, but the copy paper still gave it movement, so I was really happy about that!

I really thought this was going to take a long time, but it went pretty quick putting this wreath together. And look at the savings!

I already had the base, but if you bought the floral ring and yarn from Dollar Tree that would only be $2 and then just use some plain paper from home. If you have a Cricut machine, you could have a page filled with these oak leaves and have them trimmed out for you. The extra large oak leaf stamp was about $20, so if you need to buy one of those this is still way under the original price.

Ballard Designs Dupe #3 // fall florals

I had been doing lots of orange and white florals for Fall, so I wanted something a little different and this blue and beige pumpkin arrangement caught my eye at Ballards. It was originally $99, but on sale here for $79. 

I have my little shoe storage as a place for my florals in my craft closet and had just added some pretty blue florals from Dollar Tree.

Have you ever bought something online and then when you opened the box it was nothing like you were expecting? That happened with this planter from Amazon, but was expecting it to be bigger and because of the design, I thought it was styrofoam, but it is actually a really heavy stone pot.

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I still didn’t like the pattern, so I gave it a coat of white primer and then painted it beige.

I found this little white suede pumpkin in the dollar section at Target.

I used a piece of styrofoam from Dollar Tree and cut it to fit. It was just the right height to hold up the pumpkin and I could push the stems of the florals in it too.

I tried it on my mantle, but ended up liking it in the kitchen next to this other little pumpkin I found at Home Goods.

Here is the savings of mine versus the Ballard Design version.

If you want even more home decor dupes, then check out this playlist I made. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a very happy day. 

home decor dupes playlist

FTC: Not Sponsored. All opinions are always 100% honest and my own. Some links may be affiliate links. If you click a link and buy something, I receive a small commission for the sale. It doesn’t cost you anything extra and you are free to use the link or not as you choose. If you do use my links, I appreciate your support.