Although today’s cloudy skies looks nothing like the day I took these photos of my autumn mailbox, I decided to share them in hopes of bringing a bit of sunshine and inspiration into your day.

Since all the flowers around my mailbox have finished blooming, I’m left with a bunch of dead heads and green leaves, so I wanted to bring some color to the curbside. I will soon clip the dead flower tops once the yellow finches have polished off all the seeds before winter.

This little box top arrangement was super easy to create with just a few necessities. I started with a floral saddle created for just such a thing (and headstones too, but our project is much more fun). Bend the sides of the saddle to firmly grip your mailbox and wrap the foam with dried Spanish moss. You can purchase bags of the moss for cheap at most craft stores. You don’t need to adhere the moss with anything, because your floral stems will hold it on.

Now it’s time to start poking in your pretty stuff. I used one bush of sunflowers and one bush of oak leaves (on sale at Michael’s), but I also added some smaller flowers I had around the house to fill in some bare spots. You will need some type of wire nippers to trim the flower stems to length, and this is probably the most difficult step in this project. Those thick stems can be tough to cut, but with the correct tool you shouldn’t have a problem.

For the finishing touch, I added a large bow made of wired burlap ribbon to each side of the arrangement. I made the bows and adhered them using wired floral picks (also available at craft stores). The bows add a nice touch and also help cover the sides of the saddle.

That’s all it took to create this fun mailbox topper that should last until Christmas décor time, but I hope it withstands the elements well. I’m sure the quality of my contents will play a part in this, but so far the rain and wind haven’t affected it a bit.