SO jQuery Fiddle

Test Fiddle mainly for SO Questions jQuery 1.4.3, UI 1.8.5

by Nick Craver

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.5/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css">
<span class="article_item"><img src="images/container_item.jpg" /><h2><a href="">Nokia Connecting N97</a></h2><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer eu mattis lectus.</p></span>

<span class="article_item"><img src="images/container_item.jpg" /><h2><a href="">Nokia Connecting N97</a></h2><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer eu mattis lectus.</p></span>

<span class="article_item"><img src="images/container_item.jpg" /><h2><a href="">Nokia Connecting N97</a></h2><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer eu mattis lectus.</p></span>

<span class="article_item"><img src="images/container_item.jpg" /><h2><a href="">Nokia Connecting N97</a></h2><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer eu mattis lectus.</p></span>

CSS

li { border: solid 1px #ddd; padding: 20px; }

JavaScript

var spans = $("span.article_item");
for(var i = 0; i < spans.length; i+=2) {
  spans.slice(i, i+2).wrapAll("<li />");
}

$("li").wrapAll("<ul />");