decorate for fall with me 🍂 harry potter, practical magic & dark academia vibes

Hello friends! The weather is actually starting to get cool outside. It's a bit blustery today, which is perfect because in this video I will be decorating for autumn, showing you some of the stuff that I've purchased, doing a bit of a haul, and because I'm me, I couldn't stick with one theme to go for this year, so I've decided to theme each room differently. So here's what I'm thinking. For the living room, I wanted to have the vibes of Molly Weasley decorating the I love Harry Potter and I love the cozy, warm colors, the kind of like thrifted items, the quilts and knitted blankets, lots of books and frames all over the walls, kind of like organized chaos but in a very cozy, warm, autumnal way, and of course, touches of Harry Potter. It's not much. It's brilliant. So I think we're going to be hanging candles from the ceiling. I'm so excited. And then moving on to the kitchen, I really love the Victorian house that they live in the Practical Magic movie. The kitchen is full of a more subtle autumn touch. Lots of dried flowers and herbs, browns and whites and earthy tones, mason jars, wood utensils, and then just like lots of dried leaves. So that's the kitchen. And then of course, dark academia for my bedroom. Lots of gold frames, Greek busts, exhibite, lots of books and candles, and I really want to do a wall covered in book pages. I've seen that a lot on Instagram, and I love the way it looks. So I don't know if I'm going to do an entire wall or just part of the wall near my desk, but I really want to cover it in old vintage book pages. So now that we have a plan, let me show you some of the stuff that I've picked up from Hobby Lobby and Michaels and Joann's and Target recently. I kind of went a little bit crazy. This is in no particular order. Let's just get started. I grabbed this throw blanket from Target. When I saw it, I knew that this was something I would need in my Weasley themed living room. It looks kind of homemade, which is exactly the vibe that we're going for. And then from Hobby Lobby, I picked up this mug because this dog is D'Artagnan. And you can't tell me otherwise, for those of you who might be new, D'Artagnan is my dog. I also have a bit of a mug obsession, so this was a no brainer. And then also at Hobby Lobby, I picked up some decorative pumpkins. These were $3.99, but they were on sale for 40% off. And then I also got these candles that are kind of chiseled out to look like they have leaves all over them. And again, I feel like Molly Weasley would be a bit extravagant with her decorating, so I feel like these fit perfectly for the living room. Also from Hobby Lobby, I got this purely pumpkin candle, which I got last year. I think you see it in my perfect fall day video. And I was obsessed with this candle, love the scent, and I think it's really pretty to decorate with. And speaking of candles, I kind of went a bit crazy at Bath & Body Works. They were having a 50% off sale on their candles. So here are the ones that I picked up. We got Caramel Pumpkin Swirl, which smells purely of like caramel and vanilla with a bit of pumpkin. And then Leaves, which is one of their most famous. It just smells like an autumn morning. And then I got Pumpkin Vanilla Cream. This one might be my favorite. It also says it has graham cracker crust as a fragrance note. Oh, it's so good. And then I got a Studio Ghibli Tote Bag, which isn't very like, it's not like super autumnal, but at the same time it kind of is. And I'm in love with it. It's this Kiki's Delivery Service Tote Bag. It has Gigi. And then we have Kiki's Broom. It's so cute. I love it so much. So I mean, Gigi is a black cat and we got the witch's broom. So I say it's autumnal enough for me. And then from Joanne's, I got a Kitchen Towel. Says slow down and enjoy the moment. It's a little bit cheesy, but so am I, so it's okay. And then for the Weasley Living Room, I picked up the Perfect Garland, in my opinion. It's these felt leaves that it just looks homemade. I probably could have made this if I wanted to take the time. And I love the colors of it. Since we're going for homemade vibes with Molly Weasley, I thought this was the perfect choice. And while I was at Michael's picking up that garland, I found these red vines. They are candy corn flavored. Red vines are usually just cherry flavored, I think. I'm not even a candy corn fan, but when I see something that's a unique flavor, I always want to try it, whether I like that flavor already or not. So I got it just because it's autumnal and has candy corn and leaves on it. So later when we get to decorating the Weasley Living Room and I put on Harry Potter and make a cup of tea, maybe I'll try these and we'll see how they taste. And then for the Dark Academia bedroom, I got this bust from Amazon. Get on Pinterest and search for Dark Academia bedroom inspo, and you will see these in so many photos. And then I picked up some pumpkins, real pumpkins, because these were three dollars for this entire thing versus $3.99 for this. And then along with that, I got some bigger ones as well. And then at Trader Joe's yesterday, I found some even bigger ones that I will be stacking on top of each other in the living room. And then I found some amazing items at the thrift store. And the first one is this, I don't know what to call this, display for these flowers. And I looked at them and felt them and they are real. They're so beautiful. I also found this white candle holder. I think it's made out of wood. And then this little wood shelf, which I'm going to put out in the Weasley Living Room because I think it needs more on the walls. So that's why I picked this up. And then while I was at the thrift store, I couldn't not go to the book section. So I picked up a few books. I got a new Agatha Christie book. Well, it's not new, but it's new to me. It's very old, actually. It has writing all over it and the pages are all yellow, but I love that. Thinking about the lives that books have had before I got them is actually something that makes me so happy. This one is Murder in Mesopotamia. It's a Hercule Poirot mystery. He was my favorite detective. And then I got a Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events book. I read these all when I was younger, but I don't have any of them anymore. And to be honest, I picked up this one because of the colors. They were the most autumnal. It has a name inscribed in the front by what looks like a very young child based on the handwriting. I love that. And then these next two are new, but I finally got my hands on this beautiful illustrated pop-up edition. It's the MinaLima. Am I saying that right? Of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Since we're doing a Weasley living room, I had to get this. I love the spine. I think it'll look really nice on my book cart that I have out there. And then I picked up this book called The Swallow. It is a ghost story by Charisse Cotter about these two girls. They live in separate houses overlooking the cemetery. One girl's wish is that she could stop seeing ghosts and the other girl's wish is that she could see them. All right, moving on. I got a ton of these little pumpkins from Target in the dollar section. And because I just can't be stopped, I got more pumpkins for the Weasley living room that look like they're homemade. And then for the dark academia theme in the bedroom, I got this really heavy gold kind of brassy looking pumpkin. And then for the kitchen, I got these bottles. I want to start making more like caramels and pumpkin syrups and stuff like that. And I like the gold detailing. So I'm going to be putting these in the kitchen. And then I also picked up this quilt because I noticed that when I was looking at pictures of the borough, Molly has a lot of quilts in the living room and I didn't have one. So I think this one's perfect. I love all of the colors. And then from Costco, I got these pillows. They have pumpkins on one side, but I really just like the plain side. And then I just picked up some snacks to get me through all of the decorating. So from Trader Joe's, I got their pumpkin flavored JoJo's, which if you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, you've never been to one. They're basically like Oreos, but these ones are pumpkin cream flavored. And then I also picked up these Haribo sour vampire bats. I love snacking on Haribo gummies. So we've got the plan. We've got the snacks. I think I want to start with the Weasley themed living room. So I'm going to go put on Chamber of Secrets and maybe make some tea and then we'll get to decorating. Before we continue, today's video is sponsored and I'm so excited and honored because the sponsor is Acorn TV. If you're anything like me and you love the UK, cozy mysteries, period dramas, basically anything British, let me introduce you to Acorn TV. So Acorn TV is a streaming service with thousands of hours of binge-worthy British shows. During a time when I think most of us have seen virtually every show available on other platforms, it's so refreshing to have this whole new world of television available. It has so many of my favorites. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, which I highly recommend. The best adaptation of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, the queen of murder mysteries. And that's one thing I love about Acorn TV. It's full of the best cozy and spooky content to watch during autumn. But if you're not into that, there are cozy mysteries, comedies, documentaries, dramas. There's even a section for movies and TV shows that are based specifically on books. I also recently started watching Walking Through History, which showcases some of Britain's most historic landscapes. And I'm really excited to start watching Midsummer Murders because I've heard really good things about this one. I think it's really well-loved. Acorn TV is super easy to use. They have an app that I go to directly on my smart TV. There are new releases weekly, and the best part about it is that it is commercial free and only $5.99 a month. So if you do want to try out Acorn TV free for 30 days, you can go to acorn.tv and use my code DarlingDesi. Thank you so much to Acorn TV for sponsoring this video. Now, let's get to decorating. So I think my tactic is going to be to start from one side of the room and work my way over. So we're going to start with the couch, and I have some curtains that I want to hang up, and I'll bring out all the pumpkins, and then we'll just slowly work our way over. So this is what the living room currently looks like. Plan is to cover it in pumpkins, thrifted items, and lots of cozy blankets, pillows, and art on the walls. Every year, I look forward to covering this room with pumpkins. So anything that makes me feel like I'm outside in a pumpkin patch, I want it in the living room. And they go great to fill the room with so many different hues of orange. And then I changed out the sofa pillows with these ones that I got from Costco. And then I added this super cozy throw blanket. Some of my favorite autumnal colors to decorate with are burnt orange and mustard yellow. They're just cozy colors. And then I just added some fake leaves and some velvet pumpkins to the windowsill behind the sofa. I never realized how expensive curtains are. 50 bucks for these! Things you don't learn until you're an adult. I think they'll take a bit more adjusting and finagling, but for now I think they look nice. So now I'm gonna get Jared to help me bring out the fireplace so that we can finally have somewhere to put the TV, and then I'll decorate my book area. We usually keep the fireplace out here, but I had it in my bedroom over the summer. I really don't like the way the TV looks, so we usually just keep it in our office room. But we have a lot of spooky movies that we want to watch this fall, so I'm excited for all of our movie nights that we'll be able to have out here. Then I'm just filling this space with some of my autumnal books. Autumn is my favorite season for reading, so I have a lot. And then I just filled my book cart with some flowers and pumpkins and even more autumnal books, and of the island being one of my absolute favorites. Some books that are perfect to read during autumn. Frankenstein and Dracula. Classics for a reason, guys. Frankenstein is my personal favorite, and if you're trying to decide between the two, Frankenstein is a lot shorter. Anything by Agatha Christie. Endless Night is one of my favorites of hers, and it's creepy. Like, this one's actually creepy and blew my mind in the end. The October Country by Ray Bradbury. The most beautiful autumnal writing, this one, and something wicked this way comes. If you like the style of Kate Morton, very kind of slow burn, but perfect to in your cozy reading chair on a gloomy day, and you want to be just fully absorbed in a book. The Darkling Bride by Laura Anderson. Set in the Irish countryside in this beautiful castle, and there's a mystery and a girl who is cataloging a library. So if you like books, it's super cozy, but also a bit mysterious and suspenseful. The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. This is gothic and creepy. This one will very much keep you on the edge of your seat. And then my favorite series to read during autumn is the Practical Magic series. Magic Lessons is my favorite book out of the series. If you like witchy books, these are top tier in my opinion. And my favorite book of all time, and also in my opinion the perfect book to read during autumn, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. This is it. There is no better book to curl up with on a cozy autumn day than Rebecca. It's gothic, suspenseful, there's romance, there's mystery, the most lush, beautiful writing. I just, I don't know what else to say. It's my favorite book and I think everybody should read it. Whodunits are a classic for autumn and this is one of my favorite whodunits. It's the Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. The ending of this one blew my mind. You think you know what's going on, but I can almost guarantee you you'll be unable to predict the ending of this one. It's insane and the sky is going around trying to figure out who murdered somebody and it also kind of feels like crown tog day because he lives the same day over and over again until he can figure out the killer. It's so good. And then a book that I want to get to is A Discovery of Witches. This is a super famous book and a series. It's described as twilight for adults, which it kind of does feel that way so far, but also it's very dark academia. I'm gonna get to finally putting these away and then get started on decorating the walls. Okay, let's get to it friends. The next morning I had a look at the wall and realized it could use a bit more artwork and even more books. This shelf is usually in our office, but I thought it would look really nice out here by my favorite reading chair. I get asked a lot to do a bookshelf tour, but to be completely honest, these aren't organized at all. There's zero organization going on here. It's completely random, but somehow I still know exactly where each book is. So I put this candle on the table because it's so beautiful, but then I saw a TikTok of this girl. Her and her friends matched up Bath and Body Works candle scents to the Weasley's. So like Ron and Ginny and everybody, they have their own scents. And then she had a specific scent for the burrow, which was, I think it was pumpkin apple. So I left to go get it. I smelled it. It smelled so good, but sitting next to it was this one. Old fashioned cider doughnut. And this is it. This is the burrow candle, like of all candles. I swear this one smells exactly how I imagined the burrow to smell. Like old fashioned cake doughnuts, baked apples and brown sugar and cinnamon. I'm going to be putting this one out in the living room instead. So we've officially finished up the living room and it reminds me so much of the burrow. It's warm and inviting and smells of apple cider, doughnuts, brown sugar. And it gives me all the feelings of coziness and the magic that is the world of Harry Potter. There's some things though I know for certain. Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Plant lavender for luck and fall in love whenever you can. Decorating the kitchen has been something that I've been anticipating for months. There are random pieces that I feel like don't fit together super well and I've always wanted to give it more life and more character. So I'm starting with this entryway table that I recently got on Facebook Marketplace for $50. It really needs a paint job so I started by removing the handles and spray painting them with this brass color. I decided to go with white paint so it would match the rest of the kitchen and originally we were going to strip the black paint because it's really messy and I think there was even red paint underneath it. I even bought the paint stripping stuff but the week I was filming this video Jared had emergency surgery to remove his appendix. We'll also be moving next spring so we won't have this table with us for very long anyway so we ended up just painting over the black and it actually turned out pretty well after three coats. Then it was time for the countertops. I know most people do DIY marble counters but I've always always wanted wood counters. So I got this faux wood contact paper from Amazon for actually really cheap and you just kind of stick it over the counters like it's one big sticker. It was really time consuming but I love the way it turned out. After that I just put these white brick backsplash stickers over the gray that we already had there. My goal was to make the kitchen feel warm and bright and gray is more of a cool toned color so I've been wanting to do this for quite a while. They were not straight like not in the least by any means at all but if you don't look at closely you can't really tell. It turned out so well. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. I love it so much. I was so naive and thought that we'd be able to get that done in three to four hours but I was so wrong. That took all day. I feel like I'm in a brand new kitchen though. So now that we're done with that I figured it was time to take a snack break. I forgot to try these earlier so I'm going to try these candy corn red vines. I have very low expectations because I'm already not a candy corn fan but making something that's usually cherry flavored candy corn I don't I just don't know how that's going to translate. What does candy corn even taste like? It just tastes like corn syrup and sugar and like flavors gone wrong. If you're someone who actually enjoys candy corn I would love to know. Please let me know because I feel you guys are a rare breed. How do they do that? Oh my gosh they're super soft. So squishy. Sometimes they're a bit old and stale. Okay do rubber soles of a shoe have a flavor because that's what I'm getting. There's no flavor there. This just tastes like what I imagined rubber to taste like. Yeah no that's yuck. So I think that's gonna be it for today. I will come back tomorrow to finish up the decoration. I'm gonna go throw these in the trash. So the next morning I made a warm cup of tea and started figuring out how I wanted to decorate. I knew that I wanted the main focus to be on dried flowers, herbs, and lots of jars and vases to kind of mimic the conservatory and practical magic. Then I used these command hooks because I wanted to display some of my favorite autumnal mugs. I've seen people do this but I was always too scared to try because I was worried that the mugs would fall and break but it actually worked really well and it gave the kitchen so much more character. Plus I think cute mugs are meant to be on display and appreciated. Then I found a bunch of these faux vines and plants at a thrift store. They still had the tags on them. They were originally from Michael's. We have high ceilings so I wanted to take advantage of that space by adding plants to once again kind of give off the greenhouse conservatory vibes. And then for the entryway table I used it to display vases, dried flowers, and herbs, crystals, teas, and a few decorative pumpkins. I found this witch's potion candle and I thought that would be perfect. I have dried flowers and this amazing pumpkin spice tea that I got from Trader Joe's. I love the subtle witchy vibes and I thought about adding some fall leaves but then I ended up taking them down because I feel like they didn't really fit the greenhouse theme. The kitchen was okay before but I really love the end result. It's more warm and inviting and it makes me want to spend the day baking pumpkin cookies and brewing harvest tea while listening to the Practical Magic soundtrack. So lastly to prepare for my bedroom I already did a bit of rearranging. I changed up the setup of my bed and brought in a new bookshelf. I started by changing my duvet cover. I love this floral one but it doesn't feel autumnal to me so I'll be putting it in storage until springtime. I love soft creams and almond colors for autumn so I got this linen duvet cover from Amazon and I absolutely love it. It's so soft and it has these decorative wood buttons. Then I added some throw blankets. I actually made this yellow one on top. It's so soft I'm obsessed with it. And then I got more Costco pillows for a bit of color and I made this little dark academia setup complete with The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Then I put in my bluetooth earbuds and listened to my current audiobook. It's so good. It's The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. So many of you have recommended this to me knowing about my love for Dracula and fascination with vampires. Then being very on brand I decided to decorate using books. There's just no better way to make a cozy corner than by adding books. I kind of just went crazy with the books. If your space ever feels empty just add books. They'll also just make you feel happy being surrounded by your favorite comfort characters. Then I added some small frames on top as well as some candles and velvet pumpkins and then it was time for my favorite part. The artwork. I purchased a couple of dark academia photo bundles on Etsy and printed them out on photo paper and I'll leave the shops that I purchased from down below in the description box. This is a great option if you can't afford buying physical prints and they actually look really good. Then I used this poster paper to measure the length that I wanted for my book page wall. I got this vintage book at a thrift store because I wanted the pages to be a bit worn and old looking. Then I just hot glued them down on the paper and layered them slightly over each other. This was actually very relaxing. Now it's not a dark academia bedroom without vintage and classic books. I put these together to go on top of my writing desk. Some of the covers are absolutely stunning and then I also included a few books that are perfect to read if you're into dark academia. Now I have to tell you about this candle because I'm confident that I've discovered the perfect dark academia candle. This is the Book of Kells candle by Mythology Candles. This candle somehow smells otherworldly like another time in history. It has notes of damp ink, leather bound covers, sweet musk, and old book pages. It's amazing. They also have a historical bundle and I think any of these would be perfect for dark academia. Then I added this suitcase because it reminds me of going off to a boarding school and then every autumn I cover this wall with this sheet that I got from a thrift store. My goal here was to make a cozy reading setup so I added this side table with the essentials, comfort books, a candle, some pumpkins, and of course a reading snack of pumpkin spice cookies from Trader Joe's. Then I added some frames and this orange throw blanket. I ended up putting this picture above my desk because I feel like it just fit better with the vibe of the room and then the room was finished. It's like a cozy dark academia vibe and I love reading in my bed at night with the books and the pillows just being all cozied up. There's something about being in a corner having my bed in a corner that's just so cozy so if you're looking for a very cozy setup I highly recommend making yourself a little corner like this. I cannot wait to read spooky books, watch a Discovery of Witches, improve my calligraphy and handwriting, and just enjoy this autumnal hug of a bedroom. I am tired and now I just want to go watch Discovery of Witches and drink my grapefruit juice, get in my pajamas, and be an absolute couch potato for the entire evening. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope that maybe you were able to get some inspiration. If you are still working on your fall decorations, the kitchen was the least fall-y because I could have done like orange and yellow leaves everywhere but instead I went for green leaves but I really was just going for the Victorian greenhouse conservatory type vibes from Practical Magic. I think I did pretty good with what I have. I realized that I could have done a lot better but I didn't want to go spend a bunch of money so I mostly worked with what I had and I picked up just a few items from the thrift store and I think it turned out pretty well. I hope you have a wonderful autumn and I will see you in my next video. Bye friends! Grapefruit juice just hits different.