Homemade Granola Recipe

We're so excited to be sharing our favorite homemade granola recipe on Zooey Magazine today as part of our Mother's Day Brunch series with Paper Fox L.A.  Check it out here.

DIY Ombré Dip-Dyed Napkins

When the incredibly talented and lovely gals from Paper Fox LA asked us to come up with a craft for their Mother’s Day Brunch (featured on Zooey Magazine), dip-dyed napkins came to mind immediately.  Not only do they make a beautiful table setting but they are also the perfect gift.  Who wouldn’t want a set of gorgeous hand-dyed napkins?  These are super easy to make as well as being inexpensive -- the perfect combo when trying to come up with a gift for the mom who still appreciates things that are thoughtfully handmade.  And don't they all?

Materials

• Rit Dye in whatever colors you want.  We used these colors: Lemon yellow, fuschia, rose pink & sunshine orange mixed with rose pink for the peachy color.
• White napkins (we got ours from Bed Bath & Beyond).  Just make sure that they are 100% cotton and not polyester.
• A large bowl
• Salt
• Liquid laundry detergent

Directions

Before you get started, remember that you are working with dye.  Don’t wear clothes that are white/special to you.

1.  Prepare your dye in a large bowl according to the directions.  We used Rit Dye but didn’t need a giant batch so we used about half the package for each color.  First, mix the dye powder with 2 cups of hot water, 1/2 a cup of salt and a splash of liquid detergent in a bowl and stir well (this insures that all the dye crystals dissolve). Then mix in an additional 6 cups of hot water. 

2.  Rinse the napkins under hot water getting them fully wet. Wring them out and then fold your napkin the way you would like it to lay on the table.

3.  Quickly dip the napkin until it’s 3/4 of the way into the dye leaving about 1/4 of white fabric at the top.  This creates your first & lightest-colored layer.

4.  Then dip it about halfway into the dye, holding it there for about 5 minutes.

5.  Then dip it to about 1/4 of the way into the dye, again holding it in this position for about 5 minutes. 

6.  Finally, dip the bottom 1/4 of the napkin into the dye and leave it submerged until you have achieved your desired (and darkest) color.  We draped our over the edge of the bowl and let them sit for about 25-30 minutes.

*Note* With a couple of our napkins the dye bled up into the top area that we wanted to leave white. To fix this we put some bleach in a bowl and dipped that portion in for about 30 seconds until it was white again.  Afterwards, rinse thoroughly.

7.  Repeat this process with as many napkins as you want in as many colors as you want.  You can even try mixing different dyes to create your own custom colors!

8.  Once you have achieved your desired results, rinse the napkins under cold water until the water comes out clear.  Hang them to dry.

9.  Put them through a cold rinse wash (without anything else in the load) & tumble dry.  They'll probably be wrinkly so give them a good iron and fold them up the same way you did when you dyed them.

We placed our on the table with a cute little jar of jam (to go with fresh baked scones!) and a few small flowers tied together with some twine.

For more Mother's Day ideas, check out our collaboration with Paper Fox LA & Zooey Magazine and stay tuned for more upcoming tutorials!

Photos by Amanda Crew and Andrew Abajian.

Granny Girls + Shop Gracie B.

Disclaimer: The curated items and post seen below have been sponsored by Gracie B. as part of their Guest Stylist program. However, these items were chosen by Granny Girls and therefore, all opinions are our own.

One of the best things about having a blog is getting to meet and collaborate with a whole bunch of awesome people. This month we're super excited to be the featured Guest Stylists over at the gorgeous online shop, Gracie B.  We were first introduced to Gracie B. when we did our Thanksgiving shoot with Zooey Magazine.  They sent over a bunch of amazing clothes and accessories that we got to wear while (super stylishly) making caramel corn.

When the gals from Gracie B. contacted us asking if we wanted to be Guest Stylists we jumped at the chance. Their stuff is beautiful, totally affordable, and they cater to all different styles (after Amanda & I chose our favorite items we both exclaimed, "Those are so you!"  Haha).

So hop on over to Gracie B. to check out our style-picks for this month - and then pick out a few of your own!

Amber's Picks:

Drawstring Day Dress / Gold Bead Bracelet / Striped Drawstring Tote

Sequined Linen Scarf / Sunburst Belted Tunic / Emalie Lace Tunic

Amanda's Picks:

Latch Satchel / Antiqued Polka Dot Skirt / I Love You to the Moon and Back Cuff Bracelets

Sage Utility Jacket / Checked Knit Infinity Scarf / Wrapped Pencil Skirt

You can also visit our Pinterest page that we're sharing with Gracie B. to read about our favorite items and why we love them.  Happy shopping!

Granny Girls 2013 Collaborations

Happy New Year, everyone!  2013 was an exciting year for us as we spent the better part of it planning, brainstorming & creating Granny Girls which we finally launched with our first posts in mid-October.  Although we've only been up and running for a few short months (2.5 to be exact) we have been overwhelmed by the positive response and ever-growing readership!  We always knew that we loved the blog world but the connections we've already made with other blog-writers and entrepreneurs have been so much fun and have made us feel so welcome. Collaborating and getting to meet new friends who love cooking, crafting & adventuring as much as we do has been one of our favorite parts of blogging so far.  Thank you to ALL of you who have shared our site and recipes, re-tweeted and mentioned us in your own blogs.  We're so thankful and can't wait to see what 2014 has in store!  Here are some of our amazing collaborations from 2013 (click titles for links):

Granny Girls & Zooey Magazine

We have loved Zooey Magazine since we first attended one of their awesome craft parties back in the summer. Founding Editor-in-Chief, Lucia Tran, is an insanely creative and inspiring gal and we were beyond excited when she asked us to do a Granny Girls/Zooey collaboration.  We came up with a festive recipe (caramel corn) and these guys arranged the most fun photo shoot complete with adorable outfits, jewels and gorgeous hair and make-up. Lucia's team is the most hilarious group of people and we pretty much spent the entire shoot laughing our butts off.

Granny Girls & Western Living Magazine

We were super honored when Jacqueline Steuart from Western Living Magazine asked us to do an interview for their website.  Western Living is a HUGE Canadian publication and being featured on their site (and in their monthly newsletter) was amazing exposure for Granny Girls. 

Westender Newspaper Gift Guide & Cover!

Although we have big dreams for Granny Girls we didn't imagine we'd be getting our first COVER within our first few months!  When Kelsey Klassen from the Westender Newspaper contacted us and asked us if we'd be interested in joining their holiday gift guide we jumped at the chance.  We quickly organized a holiday photo shoot to go along with our gift list - and when they decided to use one of our photos for the cover we almost peed.  Receiving photos of our fellow "Grannies" posing with our issue made our day month even more.

Granny Girls & Shop Ruche 

Most of the gorgeous clothing we got to wear for our Zooey Magazine shoot came from the amazing vintage-inspired online boutique, Ruche.  We both already loved this shop before the shoot and now that we've had the joy of meeting owner and founder, Mai Olivo, we love it even more.  Mai and her husband started Ruche as a hobby and a few years later were quitting their day jobs to run Ruche full-time!  Super inspiring.  Their clothing & accessories are dreamy and we were super excited to not only wear their outfits but to be featured over on their blog as well.

#GrannyGoals

We also set some fun #grannygoals for ourselves, one of which was reaching 1000 Instagram followers by January 1st.  Thanks to you guys and your generous sharing we got over over two hundred new followers in just a few days and surpassed our goal 10 days early!

Granny Girls has received so much love in only a few short months.  We're truly grateful for all of the support and can't wait to share with you some of the collaborations we already have lined up for 2014.  Here's to an amazing year.  Dream big, Grannies! 

Zooey Magazine's Holiday Party at Milk Jar Cookies

This past weekend, we went to Zooey Magazine’s "Cookies, Crafts & Cocktails" party at Milk Jar Cookies.  You may recognize the location from when Amber & I went there a few months back for “blog research” aka to try as many cookies as our stomachs could hold.  As you can imagine, we were excited for a night filled with all our favorite things: Cookies (specifically Milk Jar Cookies), Crafts & Cocktails!

When I first walked into Milk Jar Cookies and saw that the craft activities included Anthropologie-inspired snow globes, I texted Amber immediately with a message that involved an excessive amount of exclamation marks, followed by a healthy dose of holiday emoticons.  

These snow globes have been on our craft-to-do-list for a while now, so naturally we were pumped to be making them.  It's a really simple craft that you can easily do yourself.  All we did was pick out a tree (like these), hot glue them to the inside of the Mason jar lid, add some fake snow and then close it up.  Amber had some minor difficulties when she tried to squeeze two trees onto her lid which then wouldn't fit into the jar.  This resulted in her attempting to rip off her already-glued-on tree, bending her lid in half and cutting her finger open.

A minor #craftfail.  The end result, however, was a success.

That's our friend, Mary, who also happens to be on the cover of Zooey’s Spring issue.  And, yes, I forced her to take this picture:

The other craft of the night was a gorgeous glitter pine cone.  A simple, yet beautiful craft where you spray your pinecone with an adhesive glue and then toss it in a paper bag with some glitter and shake it up!  Amber got really aggressive with her shaking technique which resulted in a perfect glitter pine cone.  

As we all crafted, we enjoyed way too many delicious cookies.   The flavors of the night were Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip, Cinnamon Sugar, and Peppermint Candy Cane.  It’s hard for me to put into words how delicious these cookies are.  Courtney, from Milk Jar Cookies, has seriously mastered the art of a crispy edged cookie with a ridiculously chewy, melt-in-your-mouth center.  If you live in Los Angeles I highly recommend that you stop by IMMEDIATELY and try a few for yourself.  

As the night was coming to a close, Mariah Carey’s Christmas album (the best Christmas album, in my opinion) was blasting and, naturally, a full-blown dance party and lip-synch followed suit. 

It was so great to finally meet Courtney and her husband Adam, who own Milk Jar Cookies, and talk to them about starting their dream business.  You can feel the amount of love and passion that they have put into their shop, from the details of the decor to the deliciousness of their cookies.  Also, their staff (who were leading the Mariah-dance-party) are a group of amazingly positive gems that genuinely love to work there. 

As if the night wasn't already the greatest ever, we were all lucky enough to leave with our own boxes of take-home cookies, the cutest hair ties from Emi Jay and a Mason jar tumbler from the Mason Bar Company!

Thank you Zooey Magazine and Milk Jar Cookies for inviting us to such a fun, festive party.