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Porches during the winter are most often bleak and cold. They have a forsaken look in need of some renovation. Decorate them with whimsical and bright notions according to the seasons and transform them into interesting spaces. Halloween is a good time to start. Construct a barebones skeleton from white wood or branches painted white, a frightening witch on a broom, an old mop made into some faddish character, carve pumpkins, add a decorative bunch of corn with husks to the front door and give that once vacant porch some character.

For Thanksgiving remove the frightening objects and celebrate the season. If time permits, construct a pilgrim from old clothes. Two would be even better. If you have a swing, have both ma and pa Pilgrim seated side by side. You need not be totally in character unless you can easily construct a pilgrim hat and buckled shoes. Other wise any discarded old clothes will do. Whatever. Make you characters interesting and quaint. Woodworkers might want to do cutout characters if they are handy with saws.

Useful objects one might want to construct for the porch will be large colorful firewood holders, umbrella stands, wind chimes or unique containers holding ivy or winter hardy plants. For screened in porches, especially back porches, consider covering them with a heavy duty plastic and using them as sun rooms. Attach them outside of the screens so the wind will blow them against the screen and not blow them away. If these are especially sunny consider opening an inside window and allowing the collected heat to help warm the house.

Of course crafts most often concern artful decorations such as those that will invite comments from passersby. Autumn is an excellent time to consider outside yard and porch crafts since this will be a last effort to get in a little outside fun before the temperature drops to freezing. And that thought reminds me of another decorative craft that might be a useful addition to the back porch. Don't throw out that heavy wooded toy box now that the children have grown up and left home. Leave it out on the back porch and use it as an auxiliary refrigerator or freezer during the winter time. This will become especially useful during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

When you are out of ideas for crafting projects for your fall porch crafts, start visiting garage sales searching for ideas. It is true other people's junk is other people's treasures and this is true for crafts. There is no reason to pay high prices for buying what other people have crafted and are offering for sale, it is cheaper and far more interesting to scrounge for yourself. The possibilities for converting junk into useful and decorative porch art are unlimited.

Don't forget about metal crafting if you are knowledgeable about how to attach metal to metal. The most interesting crafts can be created using discarded metal rods and scraps of metal. These last for years and often are real works of art. First, however, you may need to get some special training for this type of crafting. For experienced welders this should be no problem. They will only need the interest and the time to craft.

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