Wedding Planning: Invitations

We are just three short months from our New England wedding! Time has absolutely flown by and wedding planning has taken a backseat to our performing. Jerron and I both opened showed and closed shows in May and June and now we are preparing for our European adventure next week! In the meantime we are busy digging into the details of our wedding.

Jerron and I are on the tightest of budgets for our wedding so by necessity it has become a DIY wedding and I wouldn't have it any other way! Since we have found that our lives have been filled with travel, we've decided to make our wedding vintage travel themed. Here is our Save the Date video that Jerron made for all of our out of town guests.

Tonight we finally  finished our invitations! A bottle of wine and a little jazz can really get you through almost anything! 

I am so in love with the invitations Jerron designed for us! 

Up next...Cocktail Party Etiquette 101!

Salut-

The Vintage Chanteuse

A Lovely Weekend for a Wedding Shower

 ~~~~~~ This post is best enjoyed with "Only a Paper Moon" by Ella Fitzgerald ~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a lovely weekend full of family, friends, vintage frocks, thrifting, and celebrating love!  Here's a peak at Yesterday's Lady 's trip to New England! 

We managed to find a bit of Nebraska in New England.

The best weekends begin with a bit of bubble and vintage pocket squares!

 Miss Eleanor wore the sweetest vintage pink dress with ruffled bottoms.

We had the most beautiful wedding shower with vintage dresses, cherished advice, and decadent food!

 Even Miss Eleanor wore her best vintage dress to the affair!

It doesn't matter where you're going 

it's who you have beside you.

Up next....A very vintage wedding!

Salut!

Gallery Wall

We've moved...and created our first gallery wall! Ever since I spied this awesome gallery wall on ABM years ago, I have been collecting fun prints and frames just waiting for the perfect space!  Here's everything you need to know about creating your own gallery wall.

I was a bit overwhelmed when we first started to lay out our photos and prints, but as I began to style this small corner of our new apartment I found it to be so much fun! It quickly became my favorite corner, housing the liquor and motivation quotes!

Our first step was to lay out all of our prints on the floor and tinker with their placement until we found an arrangement that we felt was perfect. One of the most important aspects of a gallery wall is to make sure every piece is spaced equally across the whole wall. You can measure it precisely, but we found it was much easier to find a small object to use a spacer and stick with it. For this, we used our Apple TV remote!

After settling on a layout, we flipped every item over and cut paper precisely to fit the size of each piece. Once the paper was cut, we poked a whole where the nail was supposed to be placed, and then replaced the picture with the newly cut piece of paper.

After each piece was complete, began with the biggest central piece as an "anchor" and taped each piece of paper to the wall precisely where we wanted it. After the whole wall was assembled, we drived the nails into the proper places, tore down the pieces of paper, and replaced them with the real frames!

You may notice that we changed our mind on one of the pieces once we got it on the wall. It's important to remember that you do not need to stick to your original plan if you don't want to. Anything goes!

This project's theme song is Michael Kiwanuka's Home Again.

Salut!

-The Vintage Chanteuse

 

December in Snapshots

December is almost over and it was a whirlwind! From operas to recitals to concerts and church services, December is the month of music. Something magical happens in December: music drifts out from schools and churches onto busy street corners, white twinkling lights glow from the windows, and greet cards fill our mailboxes.

Here's a look at The Vintage Chanteuse's December snapshots.













Christmas isn't complete without a trip into the City!

My fiancé and I sang 8 concerts and 12 church services! Tis' the season!

I said goodbye to Marianne as I closed Der Rosenkavalier with Connecticut Lyric Opera.

You know what they say: "Behind every successful woman is a coffee!"

We celebrated my birthday by taking a painting class together! It was terrifying and a really great time!

This year marks my first year with a real Christmas tree and it was pretty spectacular. I can't bring myself to take it down. Maybe next week....

Salut!

The Vintage Chanteuse

A Very Retro New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is one of my favorite evenings out of the year!  I love the traditions, the glamour, the memories shared with friends and family, a promise to live the next year as fully alive as possible. It is pretty incredible to think of the happiness and love that fills the air as one year ends and the next begins. In honor of this coming eve, here is The Vintage Chanteuse's list of musts for a very retro NYE:

1. Auld Lang Syne

2. Red Lipstick

 3. Vintage Costume Jewelry

4. Champagne in vintage glasses

5. The perfect cocktail dress

6. Resolutions

 7. Kiss at Midnight

8. A Date (even if it is just a bottle of champagne)

9. Streamers and Confetti

 10. An excellent watch for the count down to midnight

And now, the final question....

Happy New Year!

Salut,

The Vintage Chanteuse

Remembrance Jar

As I prepare to ring in the new year, I am faced with the sobering memory of last year's uncompleted resolutions. Ugh! Depressing. Then I remembered all of the amazing things I did do in the last year and it made me so excited for year ahead!  So I thought, why not create a jar to keep all of my wonderful memories, accomplishments, and happy moments to help reminisce and celebrate the end of 2015 instead of creating unrealistic resolutions that leave me feeling uninspired and unfulfilled?

This is the simplest little project and will only take 5-10 min to create but will deliver very special mementos for 2015.
Supplies:

• Vintage or repurposed Jar
• Pretty Paper
• Scissors
• Double Stick Sheets
• String

Simply print a special photo, quote, drawing or image on a 4x6 photo paper or print it up at you local photo printer. I love my canon printer for these small projects!  Think of vintage family photos or quotes like this one by Dr. Seuss.

I then simply used double sided tacky paper -- you can get it here -- to adhere your print to the jar. Just be sure to measure your paper to be sure it will fit your jar.

To add a little extra color to my jar I added vintage blue baker's twine I picked up from a local flea market. Feel free to use a vintage ribbon, hanky, or scarf. Whatever makes you happy!

And that's that! It is just as easy as I promised. I put my first memory in a bit early....

Here's to another new year! This time my resolution is to celebrate life's small accomplishments.

Until next time!

Salut!

The Vintage Chanteuse

My week in snapshots

Hello, Vintage-istas! I've missed you all so much :-) Here's what I have been up to this week....

 

It's time to let my summer blonde turn to a warm autumnal glow. 

 

"And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, of best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that." --Serafina Pekkala (Northern Lights, by Phillip Pullman)

 

My happy place. 

 "The end is nothing; the road is all." 

--Willa Cather

 

Ludwig's Halloween costume! I have to say, it is the perfect costume for a wiener dog! 

 

We've started wedding planning! The theme is I'll follow you anywhere... 

  

Staging. staging. staging. Lots and lots of staging rehearsals!