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« Read the full blogSpend the Holidays with Your Girlfriends
The brisk air is upon us, lit trees line the streets, and the feeling of giving is all around us. Oh, and did we mention the traffic, packed malls, and hectic shopping scene? This season, spend time with friends and family without any worries. Our advice: stay away from the malls and head out for some quality holiday time with your girlfriends. Here are some activities and ideas you can try this season for some holiday cheer.
Ice Skating
Most cities and towns open an outdoor ice skating rink surrounded by lights and holiday music. This is a great idea to do something active outside. You can usually rent skates at these locations, so don’t worry about bringing your own.
Tree Lightings
Check your community newspaper or online to find out when their tree lighting ceremony is. There are usually refreshments available, and of course, some great lights and holiday cheer!
Holiday Cocktails
Some restaurants during the holidays will have one or more special holiday drinks. Grab your girlfriends for a night on the town!
Holiday Shows
Whether it’s the classic Nutcracker or White Christmas, check to see what’s playing in your area and head to the theater. Make a night of it by going out for dinner first. Maybe the Rockettes are in your town—don’t miss that show!
Holiday Party
Throw a holiday party for a group of your girlfriends. Make cookies, egg nog, and holiday-inspired cocktails. Get the ingredients to make gingerbread houses and you can all make your own. Play Secret Santa or a Yankee Swap. A Secret Santa is when you put all your girlfriend’s names in a hat and you each pick a name. The name you get is the person you buy a gift for. Then at the party you exchange gifts. A Yankee Swap is when everyone buys a gift and brings it to the party. Then you put numbers 1-10 (or however many people you have) in a hat. Each person picks a number. Number 1 picks a gift first from the pile of gifts and opens it. Number 2 picks a gift from the pile and opens it, then has the opportunity to keep the gift or take Number 1’s gift. This goes on until you get back to Number 1 who then gets to pick from everyone’s already opened gifts.
Decorated Houses
Have a low-key night with your girlfriends. Take a warm drive around your neighborhood (cocoa in hand!) to see who has decorated their houses in lights. Some people go all out with so many lights you wonder what their electric bill is!
Holiday Shopping
Everyone has some shopping to do during the holidays, whether you’re treating yourself or giving to others. Avoid the malls, with their long lines and crazy traffic, and instead visit locally-owned shops this year. Some local boutiques have such unique gift ideas, including great clothes and accessories. Grab your girlfriends, map a route, and explore some local shops! Grab a CRAVE book to guide you along!
We hope these ideas inspire you to go out and enjoy this time of year with your best friends! If you and your girlfriends have any other holiday traditions, let us know by commenting below.
Happy Holidays!
Beyond the Bottle: Hostess Gifts
You don’t have to break the bank on an expensive bottle of wine to show appreciation for your hostess. All you need is a little creativity to come up with a fab gift. Here are just a few ideas to get the juices flowing:
1. Veggie bouquet made up of delicious garden delights. Pick beautiful fresh herbs, greens and veggies from your garden and place them in an old glass pickle or salsa jar. Jars make a charming vase for your bouquet and are an environmentally sound way to recycle.
2. Custom mani-pedi set. Put together a kit containing of all your favorite polishes of the moment. Include manicure tools like tweezers, a large nail clipper, a small nail clipper, small scissors, a folding nail file, a nail cleaner, 2 eva foam white toe separators and an emory board nail file/buffer.
3. Infused Vodka. (Recipe via about.com) Ingredients: 750ml bottle of premium vodka, 1 sprig of rosemary, 2 sprigs of lavender and infusion jar with tight sealing lid. Preparation: Rinse the herbs and place them a clean mason jar or similar jar with a tight sealing lid. Pour the vodka over the herbs and shake a few times. Seal the lid tight and store the jar in a cool, dark place for 3-5 days. Test the flavor of the infusion everyday, beginning on the second day. Once the lavender and rosemary flavor is to taste, strain the herbs from the vodka using a fine strainer or coffee filter. Wash the jar and return the flavored vodka to it. Store as you do other vodka.
What is the best hostess gift you have ever received?
Learn How to Make Candy Soap
Anne-Maire Faiola or “The Soap Queen” is the founder of Bramble Berry, a website dedicated to the art of soap making.
Interview with the Owners of Portland’s Stand Up Comedy Boutique
Just when we thought PDX couldn’t get any better, we discovered Stand Up Comedy a bountiful boutique that stocks rare art publications, gorgeous clothing, and sexy objects. Check out excepts below from a fantastic interview with co-owner/entrepreness Diana Kim via Dream Sequins.
“We’re both interested in the absurd, so the name and the shop are a kind of challenge to ourselves, to remember,” Kim says. “We love comedy and stand up especially and are interested in its practice as a way of looking at the world we live in now… To laugh is to be on the edge of crying, right? The intangible quality that exists in between those two impulses feel very subversive. It’s like, what if you had an idea but no words to express it? That’s why the shop exists.”
The shop, Kim explains, operates on a set of default rules, which reads, appropriately enough, like an artist’s mission statement:
Stay within your budget. Have a memorizable inventory. Don’t add anything fixed to the space that doesn’t already exist in some form, only take away. Do not stock anything that can already be found locally. Make a website using a free program. Make it a living archive. Do not deviate from the standard template. Do not style products in the shop. Do not style products on the website. Do not attempt to cultivate an experience, only hope for the best. When a project is done in the shop, it becomes a shop project. Nothing should happen behind closed doors, no matter how messy or odd it may seem to a visitor. It’s all small ways of acknowledging that art becomes life becomes work becomes art. And on a more brutal note, that retail environments don’t have to be precious; neither does inventive, really special work of all kinds have to be.
For inventory, Kim says both she and Silberstein buy for the store together and “talk about every piece in minute detail before buying it.” Typically, she says, they buy only a few pieces of each item: “When buying, it’s better for us to be rather austere. Otherwise, too many outside influences can infiltrate.” In addition to price point and quality, Kim says “the main criteria are whether or not the thing adds a continuum to the story of the shop at the moment; and, does it help the creator reach a new audience or does it help the audience to be introduced to a new maker.”
Express Yourself Visually with Wordle
Sometimes to get things done, you just need to write it out loud. We love Wordle.com which creates “word clouds” from text that you provide. We use our “clouds” for inspiration and just for fun.
Wedding Wonders: Tips for Toasts (Part 3 of 3)
Spring is in the air, and wedding season is in full bloom! A close friend’s impending nuptials can be an emotional, invigorating and often stressful experience for her bridesmaids. We asked around about wedding stressors and found women believe ‘toasts’ to be the most daunting girlfriend duty.
Petrified of public speaking? Read our tips below!
1. Write your toast with ample time in advance to prepare — at least two weeks.
2. To get the creative juices flowing begin by writing down 10 memories you share. Anything goes at this point. You can edit later.
3. Watch wedding toasts on Youtube. Notice the formulas developing and know that it is ok to stick with them! Your toast will be personalized by content.
4. Pick up the pen again! First, write an introduction that clarifies who you are, and what your relationship is to the bride. Next think compliments and congratulations. Quickly describe the bride’s unique personality traits, and follow by drafting a humorous or touching friendship story that exemplifies her special qualities. Recount the way you were introduced to her husband to be. Address what makes them a good match. End by relaying a genuine hope you have for their future.
5. Record yourself reading the written toast on your video camera or computer. Then record yourself again speaking from memory. Playback the second version and write a transcript of your words. This will be your final draft. This version will feel less scripted and more comfortable and conversational.
6. The day of, remember to eat, breath, and keep alcohol consumption to a minimum.
7. Make steady eye contact with the bride as you deliver the toast. You are speaking to her first and foremost.
8. Let the emotions flow! Trying to hold back tears will make your toast look and feel stilted.
9. Reward yourself afterward with the large margarita you’ve been eyeing or the second piece of cake you have been coveting.
The 3/50 Project – Support Local Small Businesses
Sneak Peek – CRAVE Portland Book
Join CRAVE and on May 11th at Relish to celebrate the launch of CRAVE Portland The Urban Girl’s Manifesto. Sip DRY Soda and nosh on treats from: Truffle, Mother’s Bistro, Dream Dinners, and Bliss Cupcakes. Be the first to check out the book!
Event Details
Where: Relish Design
When: Monday, May 11th 7-9pm
Click here to RSVP.
Here is a sneak peek from her interview with Krista Colvin from Organize in Style, one of the many amazing gals featured in the book:
How would you describe your business in 3 adjectives or less?
Functional. Fabulous. Sassy.
What are the most popular or best selling products or services?
Speaking engagements, The Organize in Style Consultation, and The Shebang VIP membership.
People may be surprised to know…
I’m a piler. I’m equal right brain/left brain, and I’ve been known to lock my keys in the car now and then.
What was the inspiration or motivation behind starting your business?
I got antsy being a stay at home mom and turned my ‘domestic diva’ leave from teaching high school into a business helping women keep it together at home and in the office.
Who is your role model or mentor?
Erma Bombeck sprinkled with a little Martha glitter.
How do you spend your free time?
If I’m not at the park with the kidlets, I’m connecting with old friends or drinking coffee with girls.
What is your indulgence?
Coffee, a pair of sassy shoes, and reading a book with my toes in the sand.
Blackberrys? Only on your Ice Cream!
We found a great “Girlfriend Etiquette” resource at holidaygolightly.com. Check out what they have to say about electronics while dining out:
They’re hip, they’re techy, they’re helping keep you connected! But they are horrible dinner-table companions. When dining out with friends, the Blackberry should be turned off and tucked away (as should your cell phone). There are extenuating circumstances where it is okay to leave the electronics on:
1. if one of your dining companions has not yet arrived at the restaurant, and might need assistance with directions, or
2. if you are waiting to hear back from the producers of “Sex & the City” about your walk-on role in the sequel.
Should you desperately need to check your email or messages for some reason – excuse yourself from the table, take the electronic device to a quiet area of the restaurant, or outside, check the messages, play 3 minutes of “Bubble Blaster,” or do whatever it is you feel necessary, then turn it off and return to the table to enjoy your friends. Most dinners don’t last longer than a few hours, and whatever it is you THINK is so direly in need of attention, probably really isn’t.
It is just good manners and good table etiquette to be 100% present with your friends. And if you’re not, they’ll definitely eat your share of the blackberry ice cream.
Do you have any etiquette rules when it comes to your girlfriends?
SHINE: Collaborative Social Media Film Project
On May 6th, the largest collaborative social media film project Seattle has ever seen is happening, and CRAVE is going to be part of it. Biznik is bringing together a dozen professional videographers, scores of expert interviewers and hundreds of Seattle’s entrepreneurs to tell a big story about small business in America. You’ve got a story the world should hear and this is your chance to SHINE! Check it out here.
Over 500 people already are planning to attend, and they’ve had 100 people volunteer their time and talent to help create something incredible. Clear your calendar and be there!
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