For Ivy & Elm Co., the Sylvania Fall Festival is more than an opportunity to sell handmade goods, it’s a chance to connect with customers, showcase new creations and let festival-goers see the creativity behind the business. Ivy & Elm will be among the many vendors welcoming visitors to the Oct. 17-18 festival.
Owners Kayla Yoshino Pittenger, a 2008 Sylvania Southview High School graduate, and Alli Cousino, a Swanton native, will bring an assortment of fall and Halloween décor, Christmas pieces, everyday home décor, cutting boards and giftable items, along with new designs created specifically for the event.
“The Sylvania Fall Festival is our favorite event of the year and one of the few opportunities for customers to shop a large selection of our work in person,” Pittenger said.
This year, festival shoppers also will have an opportunity to add a personal touch to select pieces.
“We have an area where shoppers can select certain pieces and have them personalized on the spot,” Pittenger said. “We are also planning a kids’ creative area, giving younger festival visitors an opportunity to paint/decorate their own small wooden piece.”
The partnership between Pittenger and Cousino began in an unlikely place for a future creative business, on a court.
The two met while coaching volleyball. After several years of working together, the friends decided to take on a completely different adventure and launched Ivy & Elm Co. on Etsy in January 2019.
The business name reflects both their friendship and their approach to their work.
“Ivy & Elm has special meaning to us,” Pittenger said. “Ivy represents growth, connection and lasting relationships, while ELM stands for Every. Little. Moment. Together, they really capture what we love about this business.”
That philosophy has become a central part of the company’s identity.
“We get to create pieces for people through so many seasons of life, from births and first birthdays to weddings, new homes, milestone celebrations, 90th birthdays and everything in between,” she said. “Big or small, we believe every little moment is worth celebrating.”
The business experienced significant growth in 2020 as people spent more time at home and looked for ways to make their living spaces feel more personal.
Today, the Ivy & Elm partners create everything from wood signs and seasonal décor to cutting boards, personalized gifts, engraved pieces and one-of-a-kind custom projects.
Many of the pieces combine several techniques.
“With a graphic design degree, I enjoy designing each piece, while Alli is super handy with tools and cuts and builds our frames. We both engrave, paint, stain and finish pieces together depending on the project,” Pittenger said.
Custom work has become a particularly important part of the business.
“We love when someone comes to us with an idea and gives us the opportunity to turn it into something tangible,” she said.
That can mean creating pieces for weddings, housewarmings, new babies, birthdays, holidays, memorials, teachers and families, as well as everyday home décor.

The company also has expanded beyond individual pieces to tackle room-refresh and home projects, including bedrooms, bathrooms and mudrooms. Projects can incorporate painting, board-and-batten and other accent walls, furniture refinishing, custom décor and finishing touches designed to bring a room together.
For Pittenger and Cousino, however, the most rewarding part often comes after the project leaves their workshop.
“One of our favorite parts of the business is seeing finished pieces ‘in the wild’ in customers’ homes or learning that something we made was given as a meaningful gift,” Pittenger said.
Since 2019, the duo has expanded with the addition of a laser. Customers can choose from crisp engraved signs, 3D cutouts, hand-painted pieces, or a combination of these styles.
While the laser has allowed for increased production, they have resisted the idea of turning into a mass-production operation.
“The goal has remained the same: creating pieces that feel personal, useful and special enough to keep,” Pittenger said. “We don’t really want to be a mass-production business. Some of our favorite projects start with someone saying, ‘I have this idea, but I don’t know if it’s possible.’ Those are usually the projects we have the most fun figuring out.”

In many ways, that spirit of creativity is rooted in the friendship that started it all.
“We went from coaching volleyball together to running a creative business together, which probably says something about us,” Pittenger said. “We both enjoy creating, problem-solving and taking an idea from ‘What if we tried this?’ to a finished piece someone gets to take home.”
The creative partnership has earned Ivy & Elm recognition beyond its Etsy success. The business was a runner-up in the Best of Toledo 2025 DIY Business category.
And at this year’s Sylvania Fall Festival, visitors will get to see that creativity up close, with plenty of opportunities to take a little bit of Ivy & Elm home with them.