Decorating Exterior Shutters for Fall Holidays

While exterior shutters protect your home from the elements, help keep out drafts, and add to the appearance of your home every day, on special occasions, they can serve as a whimsical avenue for an arts and crafts-savvy family.

While decorating exterior shutters may not be everyone.s cup of tea, if you and your family DO get into the holiday spirit, explore Estate Millwork.s wooden shutters decorating ideas. You might fall in love! Our craft tips are great for all ages — especially families with kids.

Get the whole family into the holiday spirit with these simple decorating ideas:

• Attach a piece of poster board to the exteriors of your wood shutters. Then, paint the poster board with a cheerful, opaque background color. Painting the poster board provides a surface for attaching decorations or charms without damaging the beautiful wood finish of your exterior shutters.
• Purchase waterproof tape to attach any decorations to the poster board. You can find waterproof tape at craft or big box stores. Using waterproof tape will make sure that your decorations do not come down too early.

Deck out your exterior shutters for the holidays.

Halloween

• A black trash bag or black poster board can make a great background for a ghost or a witch. For younger kids, you can decorate your background with cardboard cut-outs of pumpkins. Add some glow-in-the-dark paint accents to your decorations. When dusk descends on Halloween night, the glow will add a fun touch. A pair of glowing eyes or a broad jack 'o lantern smile from an otherwise dark window will add a touch of spookiness to your wooden shutters while providing whimsical charm for the younger trick-or-treater set.
• Cobwebs are usually something to be swept away, but on Halloween, consider festooning your exterior shutters with a few sets of these spiders. lairs. Many craft stores sell artificial cobwebs in their seasonal decorating departments. Cobwebs are fun, and when you add them to your wooden shutters, they can make your house look more ominous. Don.t forget to add a plastic spider, too!

Thanksgiving

Cardboard turkey or pilgrim cut-outs can make your exterior shutters more festive. You can often purchase such cut-outs from a craft store. Better yet, have your children make them. Kids love crafts, and your young ones will feel a sense of pride when they help contribute to decorating the home.

Christmas

Often considered to be one of the biggest holidays of the year, Christmas presents you with myriad exterior shutter decorating options. Angels, presents, snow flakes, nut-crackers, wise men and more...the choices are endless!

Here are a few ideas to kick your imagination into high gear:

• Jumbo-sized gift bags, which you can purchase at a craft store, can be trimmed to fit your exterior shutters. Tape the bags carefully to the shutters, add some waterproof bows or ribbons, and your .gift. house becomes a beacon of holiday cheer.
• Hang a few waterproof, decorated Christmas stockings — perhaps with a few presents poking out of the top — from your wood shutters. Your neighbors will know that you expect a generous visit from Old Saint Nick on Christmas night.
• Cut snowflakes out of waterproof white tarp material, and tape them to your exterior shutters using waterproof tape. Different sizes and shapes of snowflakes will create the appearance of a serene winter day — right on your shutters.
• Purchase some strings of outdoor-use holiday lights and hang them from your shutters. This decorating trick works especially well with louvered wood shutters, as you can weave the lights between the louvers. Your home will be illuminated with Christmas spirit.
• More advanced decorators may want to try to add a manager scene, angels, snowmen, candy canes, and more — let your imagination run free!

Estate Millwork customizes your exterior shutters to match your home — and you can customize them to match the season.

Any questions? Call 1.866.322.0040 . our expert customer service representatives are glad to help.