Our trip down south this month was a whirlwind of fun events, from our Lavish panels to lunch meetings with visiting friends and a fun team dinner with eight D*S editors at Hugh Acheson’s delicious new restaurant, Empire State South. After Lavish was over (literally right after), Amy and I ran to the airport, hopped in a rental car and drove down to Savannah, Georgia, to film a fun holiday party with one of my favorite people: Elizabeth Demos. Liz recently closed what will always be one of my favorite shops, @Home (she let us borrow some gorgeous pieces from the shop for our wedding). It was a Savannah staple, and though its doors are now closed, Liz has taken her talents to many a photoshoot as a stylist for some of the country’s top home and design magazines.

Liz hosted Amy and I, along with some of her talented friends, for a delicious afternoon of snacks, drinks and a fun DIY project. Liz was kind enough to share the full menu along with her DIY steps in today’s post!

In the video above, Liz will show you how to flock and decorate a wreath, as well as create the perfect vintage-inspired centerpiece. Her full recipes for bacon-wrapped dates, pralines, trifle (amazing!), peppermint stick drinks and more appear after the jump. Liz also shares a great favor idea, so be sure to check out the full post below.

Thanks so much to Liz, her husband and son, all of her friends and Skip at Savannah Films for helping us with this video. You can check out more of Liz’s beautiful work online right here. Happy Holidays! xo, grace

CLICK HERE for the full DIY steps, recipes and favor ideas after the jump!

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No font day would be complete without some inspiring words of advice and expertise from designers specializing in the word of type, font and lettering design. Last week, I set out with my camera to interview some of my favorite local artists who work with letters. I was thrilled to sit and chat with Louise Fili, Jesse Ragan and Jessica Hische. Each artist speaks to a different area of font/type/lettering design and I was so happy to get each of their unique perspectives on camera. And, because they all had so many great things to say, I decided to run them each as separate videos so I wouldn’t have to smoosh them into one five minute clip. Whether you’re considering font/type design as a career or just love the skill that goes into the letters you see on the page (and screen), I hope these interviews will inspire you. Especially because we have a fun contest coming up next for which a little font inspiration will come in handy . . .

Thank you again to Louise, Jesse, and Jessica for taking the time to chat with me last week. I hope you’ll enjoy their stories of how they got started, what inspires their work and what their design processes are like as well as their advice for aspiring font/letter/logo designers. xo, grace

*Click here to see more Design*Sponge videos (DIY, cooking, interviews, decorating and more).

Video above: Interview with Jesse Ragan

Interview with Louise Fili. (My apologies for the sound. I didn’t notice it sounding echoey in person, but it did on playback. Sorry!)

Interview with Jessica Hische.

Note: If you’re in NYC, you should definitely check out the Nightwood pop-up shop and meet Myriah and Nadia! (And don’t miss Myriah and Nadia’s sneak peek!)

Image above: Flowers by Amy Merrick; photograph by Samantha Contis; chair by Nightwood; boucherouite rug from Kea Carpets and Kilims

CLICK HERE for more of Amy’s bedroom makeover and see the other bedding options!

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Click here to pick up a copy of Erica’s new book

CLICK HERE for the written instructions and Erica’s Marbled Paper Necklaces after the jump!

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To kick off today’s bike theme, I decided to interview the woman whose shop inspired my current bike obsession: Julie Hirschfeld of Adeline Adeline! When my 29th birthday came this past June, I took the day off and immediately headed over to Julie’s beautiful bike boutique in New York City’s TriBeCa neighborhood. After testing a few bikes, I found my new best friend: a grey/grey Abici two-speed bike that now helps me get around town. For a newbie biker like myself, Julie was a pleasure to work with. She made me feel at ease, answered all of my dorky “What do I do if I fall off?” questions, and gave me the confidence to get out there on the road and have fun. So today I thought it would be a treat to interview Julie as part of our bike theme. I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know Julie and her shop while hearing her thoughts on bike style, design, trends, and safety. Thanks to Julie for taking the time to chat with me! xo, grace

i’ve been learning so much from the consulting sessions i’ve been doing with independent business and blog owners lately that it’s really inspired me to get a bit more involved in the biz ladies section of d*s. so many of the same issues and concerns keep popping up, and rather than keep the solutions between just two of us, i thought i’d share some of the advice i’ve given clients with everyone. last week it sort of hit me over the head just how much people’s businesses and blogs are suffering from a lack of promotion. and believe me, as someone who rolls their eyes on a regular basis about some of the gross ways people promote themselves online, i wasn’t looking to encourage people to do the same. but there are some great tools, tips, and ideas that i use for promotion that i think help people feel more comfortable about reaching out to bloggers, fellow business owners, and traditional print media. so today i thought i’d share another video slideshow i made last week for my consulting newsletter.

today’s video focuses on the reasons you should be promoting your business and blog, the places and ways you can promote, do’s and don’ts of tasteful promoting, and general “rules of thumb” to follow when doing your own promotion. i’m not going into press release detail like i did in this PR how-to document, but rather hoping to help people think outside of the box in terms of what informal but personal promotion can look like. i’m covering everything from emails and newsletters to twitter and facebook so i hope you’ll find these ideas helpful. remember- no one knows your business or blog as well as you do. and no one can convey the passion and excitement you have for your work like you- so don’t be afraid to be the face of your company’s outreach- people will be thrilled to hear from you directly. best of luck!

*if you want to catch up on the rest of my biz ladies video slideshows, click here for the archives on youtube