Is it Fall yet???

A nice, productive weekend at home in the 'Boro. . .

Saturday evening Jennifer called me to come hang for a while and eat fresh seafood; one of the perks of being so close to the Georgia coast. Her boyfriend Rob and a few of his friends had been out on the sea all day fishing. They brought back fresh fish and crabs that they cleaned and cooked. So we sat down to Jennifer's kitchen table right at midnight and chowed on some whiting, hushpuppies and crab legs. It was quite wonderful! I was thrilled she called me with the invite.

Earlier Saturday I finished a cake and made my first wreath. I have had the same over-the-door wreath hook hanging BARE on my front door since last Christmas when I took down the holiday one at the end of December. I often think I need something festive hanging there when the seasons change or new holidays approach...then I look at the price tags on store bought wreaths and catalogs and push that thought aside. I was feeling Fall-ish (even though the temperatures outside are mid 90s). I recommend looking online for "how-to" tips as a guide.

I was quite pleased with the final product. It's such an easy and inexpensive project that can yields a pricier look. You can spend as little or as much as you want. Hobby Lobby here had all of their floral supplies 50% off this past week. All in all I spent $14 on the entire project!

I bought a basic 16" grapevine wreath (retails for $4 but was $2 with the 1/2 off -- so cheap!). I also took the time to rummage their clearance corner in the floral section. Most of these were too summer-y for autumn decorating, but I did find 2 flowers that I liked: one a deep red and one a deep orange for $1.70. In the fall floral section I splurged on a large red flower that caught my eye (1/2 of $7), along with a cluster of autumn leaves and 2 sections of stems filled with bronze ball clusters.

I did not use a glue gun, instead some thin gold wire that I already had on hand. This way when I get tired of the look, I can easily clip the wire, remove the current foliage and start from scratch by recycling the wreath base. The stems of the foliage all tucked into the many grapevine wreath branches securely, so I used minimal wiring. I determined how I wanted to arrange the 3 flowers and worked the other accents around these. As a final touch, I picked up a bolt of zebra print ribbon with gold-fringed edging (also 50% off) and wrapped it around the wreath. Finally I made a bow to hang the wreath from the door hook.

I carried over the leftover ribbon to a white ceramic dessert stand that my cousin Wendy gave me for my birthday last year and weaved it around the rim to display some cookie sandwiches I had made with some icing left from the cake.