Julie:
Tribute to our Mother

My wreath was inspired by our mother. Growing up in Connecticut, the first ,crisp, cool days Fall, when the maple leaves start turning bright orange and red, would be the time that our mother would head into the woods with her clippers and come home with a station wagon loaded with cat tails, grapevine, bittersweet and other foliage. She'd buy pumpkins, baby gourds and cider from the local farmer. Our mother would fill our home with with bowls of tiny gourds and pumpkins. Our fireplace mantles were decorated with dried leaves, bittersweet. She would wrap the grapevine into wreaths and decorate them with more bittersweet. Her arrangements were always abundant and natural looking. I can never match my mother's artistic eye for assembling things in such a beautiful way but as I put together this wreath, my mother was on my mind and in my heart.

Liz:
Wreath the Vote

When I first heard the assignment was a "seasonal door decoration," my first thought was 'I can't possibly beat Julie in the artful arrangement of Fall Foliage or Lian in anything Halloween-inspired.' Monica's got loads of greens and leaves in her Portland backyard and Sheila, as a former first grade teacher, is excellent with decorative themes. Then I realized: It actually IS my all-time favorite season right now: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SEASON!

So here it is: Red, White & Blue all the way. I had originally wanted to have the flowers be red and blue with the V-O-T-E in white, but blue flowers just don't look right. They are not true blue enough.
I enjoyed making this decoration and it does look GREAT on my door. One of my neighbors saw it and asked me if my apartment was going to be a polling place!

Sheila:
Red Carpet Colors

My Emmy Awards inspired swag is based on all the colors we saw on the red carpet this year! You know you were watching on all three channels, admit it. Who can forget Mariska’s blinding canary yellow sheath? How about fellow Master’s swimmer Mary Steenburgen’s gold lame stunner? Finally, desperate housewife Nicolette Sheridan’s audacious purple tent really set the carpet on fire. It was a glorious parade…Jewel tones, metallics, and bright primary colors were all ablaze this year.

Too bad the broadcast wasn’t.

Monica:
Indian Summer

My poor hydrangea bush was clobbered by the giant tree limb that fell from the sky last month. The buds had just started to turn a gorgeous blue gold that happens during Indian Summer in the Northwest. With a little creativity, and my brand new mini- hot glue gun(watch out world!), I turned my hydrangea blossoms into this simple wreath. A mixture of real and silk leaves attached to the wire wreath frame anchor the drying flowers in place. It's the perfect color accent to my pale lavender colored door.

Lian:
Fall Colors

Nothing says fall to me like dried flowers. And I happen to have a couple of great hydranga bushes that needed their summer blossoms trimmed. I love me some hydrangas. I used about 2 dozen flowers, some from this year ( the greens) and some from last year
(the blues). To give my wreath that Fall feeling and make it super-preppy in a Gossip Girl-kind- of- way, I found a great Orange Fall Plaid ribbon. This one's a keeper for me. You'll be seeing it at Thanksgiving, Sisters, in my living room.