End of the Season Salad and Fall decorating

 I had one last lonely tomato and a handful of cherry tomatoes.  And I still have more peppers than I know what to do with.  This salad is a good way to use them up. Boil 1 pound of the pasta of your choice.

Add 1 diced cucumber, some diced tomato, thinly sliced peppers, a small thinly sliced sweet onion, 1 can of black olives sliced and some cubes of fresh mozzarella.
Add some cubed cheddar and a handful of fresh basil.  Sprinkle with 1 tsp. of celery seeds.  I tossed this with an Italian salad dressing:  Mix 1/3 C. of red wine vinegar, 1/2 C. olive oil, 1 T. honey, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, 3 T. grated Parmesan, 1 tsp. Italian seasoning and salt and pepper.  Shake it in a jar to mix.  Taste and add more honey if needed.

Considering all that is going on around here this year, I was thinking I might skip decorating for Fall.  It is at least a month later than usual for me. When I mentioned this to some friends and family, they were insistent that I decorate anyway.  So, yesterday I started making the bases for the decorations.  I am trying something different this year and using mesh as a base for the garlands. A lot more will be added to all of this but I thought I would show you the base structure.  The wreath is formed by making loops with the mesh and ribbon and attaching them to a wire wreath frame using pipe cleaners.
 For the garland base, I had to work on my dining room table.  I was using a hot glue gun so I put an old oil cloth tablecloth down to catch the inevitable glue drops. They can easily be scraped off of the oil cloth.

 I used a long piece of coated wire and hot glued pipe cleaners every 6 inches.  Then you can just loop the mesh down the wire attaching it as you go.  I used 3 different colors of mesh and then added a plaid ribbon.  I bought some decorative branches and added them too.


 The 2 sides of the garlands are 117 inches long.


 Then I made the swag for the top.  It is 70 inches wide.  Once these are hung, I will start to add all sorts of Fall adornments.  I'll post them as I go.


Comments

Anonymous said…
what an amazing creation, its beautiful!!!
Creating your beautiful fall decorations will take your mind off all those dangling feet outside your windows!
Guillaume said…
Oh these autumn decorations are gorgeous!
Anonymous said…
It'll be interestingto see these decorations when they are finished and on place!

Have a great day!
Christer.
greekwitch said…
You scared me there for a moment, no fall decorations... What's this nonsense? We need the gold lanterns and the pumpkins!
...but..but..how about Halloween decorating..you're going to do that..right? Witches etc. So, bottom line is you ARE going to do some Fall decorating right? I finally did it.
I started so late this year that I just went right on and decorated for Halloween. I can never get enough of that anyway. I pretty much finished today. Some tweaking, naturally.
Is the wreath for the front door? You will need two?? My favorite time of year..Fall.