Quick little DIY for you today that I put together in preparation for the Womens Christmas Dessert which is taking place next week. My holiday tablescape is nearly complete, but I wanted some retro festive flair for some of my basic recycled glass votives.

I poked around the craft room and came by an extra half yard of white pom pom trim reminiscint of 60s fashion, but also, of snowballs!

This is hardly a tutorial, since the basic steps are to measure out your votive, and sew a ring of trim, but I took photos of the steps in any case. Enjoy!

Measure circumference of your votive

After cutting the appropriate circumference, mark the overlap so you'll know where to sew. Cut off any poms that hit each other at the overlap.

Sew ends together. You could also use fabric glue or a hot glue gun, but I wanted these to last so I did a quick stitch to keep them in place.

I love how they turned out. Simple, modern, graphic – but still whimsical.

Voila!

Then, after I took photos of the finished product, I played around with how else you could use this if you wanted to switch out the votives. Turns out they also work with additional fabric scraps (tulle, glittered nylon), as reindeer harnesses (of course!), and as napkin rings.

Super quick (less than 10 minutes if you have the supplies on hand), cheap, and versatile.

[Linking up with the Christmas Cheer Holiday Link Party! Check it out, VERY festive and fun projects today and the rest of the month!]

The title of this book really says it all about our usual weekends.

Filled with projects, everything from crafts to recipes.

B is now twitter-ing.  Tweeting?  Twit-ing?  I’m not really sure.  She is way into it.  I’m way into making fun of the word twitter.  But, I’m sure in about, oh, six months, I will be eating my twit-ing words and coming up with witty twitties to tweet.  {I however, am not convinced I am that clever, interesting or that anyone really cares about my day in tiny sentences though.  Go ahead, convince me.}

I digress.

{Shocking I know}

Any-tweet…

B spotted this book signing event on the twitter two weeks ago.  It was at Dry Soda, downtown.  They are a local soda company, with all kinds of fun flavors like juniper berry, lavender, blood orange, and rhubarb.

B is a sucker for lavender anything, and I am a sucker for new books, signed by authors.  So, win win.

Plus, we met this awesome blogger, Lyndsey, who is new to town and could talk about paper and such with us!

And, some yummy desserts…

Kelly, the author and blogger, made these luminaries that night.  The detailed how to is in the book, but essentially it is just wax paper, with confetti or leaves between the two sheets of the paper.  Then she irons the sheets and uses decorative tape on the edges.  Simple, cheap and very customize-able for whatever gathering you are throwing.

Talk about some great Christmas gift ideas!

Did you know that this Saturday is Small Business Saturday? Its a little ironic, in my opinion, since the official campaign is sponsored by American Express (definitely NOT a small business), but as small business owners, we can certainly get behind the message. In order to complement the CRAZINESS that is Black Friday, the campaign encourages you to support small business and local shops to make a difference to those important parts of our economy.

We keep this blog in order to record our projects and adventures, and we try not to self promo too much. But, now that holiday shopping season is in full force, we wanted to let you know that both our handmade and vintage shops are re-stocked with vintage goodies and your favorite handmade items. Come on over and take a gander.

As our way of saying thank you for supporting small business this weekend, we are offering a 15% discount (Good through end of day cyber monday) with the code RGHOLIDAY2011. This is valid at both our shops: Ravenna Girls Handmade and Ravenna Girls Vintage.

If you’re a local reader, an additional note to mark your calendars for the Ravenna Holiday Arts and Crafts Sale which is taking place on December 10^th at the Ravenna Eckstein Community Center. We will be there with handmade items including felt bow brooches, Evergreen ornaments and gift tags, Vintage Frame Jewelry Hangers, Upcycled Yarn Wreaths, and Soy Candles. Come say hi, we’d love to meet you!

I hope for everyone’s sake that if you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, its dry where you are. Because it is beyond damp here. and windy. and dark.

In order to brighten your day, I bring you the cutest thing I’ve found in awhile: Robot shaped cupcake molds!

via poppytalk

The price is a bit much, although maybe not if you consider that they’re heads spin!

I just realized I never shared a project I completed this summer with you! (shocking, right, considering i’ve been dragging on most topics lately)

You all know how much we love our friends’ twin kiddos kaylee and ethan, as well documented here and here. In August they turned one which seems BEYOND crazy, but well, it happened.

Their mama wanted to throw a Dr. Seuss themed Thing 1 & Thing 2 birthday party and came to me with some ideas for their outfits after having trouble finding just the right thing on etsy. I was up for the challenge, so she bought some fun Dr. Seuss fabric, I snagged some patterns from the interwebs and off I went. Here they are modeling their outfits:

The pattern I used for Kaylee’s dress was from here. Its super simple, and I think super cute with the little ruffled sleeves. I made the dress with the Thing 1 Thing 2 fabric and a turquoise oval pattern that Dana found. We took some artistic liberties making a diaper cover for underneath with matching ruffles. For the diaper cover I used a tutorial found here. TOO CUTE.

For Ethan’s Shirt, I used this pattern. This was my first foray into anything remotely tailored, and I think it went pretty well! I made trial outfits for both of them to ensure the fit, which definitely helped to have a chance to try out the pattern. I definitely need some work on learning how to nicely finish the garment on the outside, but the focus for this was just to make sure Ethan looked cute. I added my own little flourish, a pocket square in the turquoise fabric to match his sister.

D made them awesome birthday hats, and off we were to an afternoon of fun (and lounging. . .)