This post is coming to you pre-scheduled as I am on a holiday this week with friends, one of whom is my dear friend Chantelle, who is pictured in these photos today. I decided it would be a perfect time to share these photos, which I got back in June when I visited her, as they are too special to not post at all despite the lateness of them!
It is a bit of a tradition that when my friend Chantelle and I get together, we do a photo shoot- we did this even in my pre-blogging days. (Maybe sometime I will share some of those old pictures. . .) Sometimes our photo shoots are themed, and usually the theme is some kind of vintage style, because that is what I have for “costumes”. As in, it is a costume for her, and regular clothing for me 😉 We’ve done “model”, “wedding dresses”, “1940’s” and last year we did “1950’s“. This time, we didn’t have any theme planned- and as I was traveling, I didn’t bring extras in my suitcase. However, while I was visiting, I found this great straw hat at the thrift shop and Chantelle was able to borrow this lovely blue topper, so we figured that was good enough.
The photos of both of us were taken with self timer and, as I didn’t have my tripod with me, we precariously balanced a pile of wood on top of a kitchen stool and placed the camera on top! It was a bit dangerous for the camera, and we had no way of knowing where we were in the frame, so the results were a bit interesting. Somehow we still managed to end up with these lovely shots though- and even with me running back and forth, I managed to not look too disheveled!
I’ve shown both this skirt and shirt together before, but why mess with a good thing, right? I am not above repeating an outfit if it worked out well the first time. And, I wasn’t kidding last week when I said I have worn this skirt too many times to count. I even brought it on my trip this week, so I might be wearing it as we speak 🙂 However it is nice to share my new hat, especially since I have worn it a few times now. Sometimes, like in the case of this hat, thrifting can be very rewarding. I saw a hat very similar to this one, with an asymmetrical brim, and green ribbon and accent, for sale online, but it was quite expensive. It was a justifiable price, for a handcrafted piece of millinery, but I am so glad I found this secondhand one instead!
She looks like she should be going to a Royal Wedding. 🙂
And because you can’t have any photoshoot without silly ones. . .
I didn’t realize I was so far away from Chantelle in this picture, and instead of hugging her, I am just creepily/awkwardly putting my hand on her shoulder! It doesn’t help that I have that strange expression either. . .
These expressions, above, are just too funny. . .
Do you enjoy doing photo shoots together when you meet up with friends? Have you ever been looking for something in a shop or online, only to find something similar in a thrift shop?
Blue is the colour of the season. A crisp, tailored buttoned dress is both classic and stylish, especially when accented with a pale blue platter hat and earrings. A swipe of bright blue eyeshadow, lightens the entire look, making it so very fresh and of-the-moment. Pair these summer blues with a simple black patent purse and gloves for a look that is instantly elegant. While the summer may be nearly spent, this ensemble is most certainly not.
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Here is the first cover I am sharing this month for My Vintage Cover. Depending on how things go, I will attempt to do another (who knows, maybe I will be ambitious and share one a week. . . ) Anyways, I was planning on sharing this cover next week, but after a drama where I lost the flash drive that the edited picture was on, (I found it exactly where it should have been after two days of looking. Yes, I did look in that drawer, it was just between some papers!) and then getting a sinus cold this week which prevented me from doing any other blog post for today, I have decided to share the photos today. (Just in case there was anything else going to go wrong and prevent me!)
I was originally going to do a completely different cover, because I don’t have a blue hat, but then I decided to try photoshopping one of my white hats blue. While I wouldn’t say that it looks very realistic, it’s OK, because I do think it has that distinctive hand-tinted look of old photographs. And then, after seeing Tanith’s great cover a few days ago, I decided to add text in the same fonts to make mine look more like the actual vintage Vogue cover. So there you have it. It was fun to try and recreate a cover with all the details, for a change.
I hope you are enjoying seeing the vintage covers so far. There aren’t very many participants so far, but to see the ones people have done already, you can check out the Instagram tag here.
I can’t believe we are nearing the end of July already- how did that happen? Well, with the close of July, comes the beginning of August and that means it is time for the My Vintage Cover challenge! If you missed my post about the challenge, you can find all the details here. And, seeing as how it is drawing near, today I thought I would share with you the covers I have done in the past, to give you an idea of how you might translate a vintage cover, or image, into a recreation of your own.
Your “Vintage Cover” can be as detailed or as “inspired by” as you would like. Sometimes the mood is enough, and sometimes it can be fun to get every last detail as precise as the original- you can decide how you want to recreate the vintage images.
The first Vogue recreation I ever did was part of a blog post, where I was inspired by this cover, and decided to photograph my outfit as a series of pieces. It wasn’t a reproduction per se, but it was what started me on doing these cover reproductions in the first place! I wasn’t trying to make this a precise replica- only an image inspired by the Vogue one. And getting the hands correct- and not looking like a murderer, was tricky too, by the way. 😉
The next one I did was more precise. I mimicked the outfit as best I could, and though I don’t have every detail perfect, this was pretty fun to do.
I did the cover below this past spring, in honour of “The Spring Bonnet”. It is probably the most fun of all the covers I’ve done so far, because I made that crazy hat by covering one of my straw hats in faux flowers!
Another recent one was this 1910’s cover. I just so happened to have a very similar dress, and a scarf, so a reproduction was obviously necessary!
Well, those are the covers I have done so far. I want to do many more, but the tricky part is always in getting the clothes and accessories correct!
However, there are many vintage images which don’t require very elaborate costumes to reproduce. I will be back next week with a post featuring some easier-to-copy covers, and I know that my co-host Tanith is also going to be posting some of her favourite covers this week, so make sure to check out her posts too! As this challenge draws nearer, I am getting excited to see what everyone comes up with- I can’t wait to see your recreations!
Oh! Could it be the postman at the door? I am not expecting anything, yet I can’t be sure. . .
There among the parcels, is a letter addressed to me! Folded and sealed- who is it from? What could it be?
It is poetry written in letters so fair, with sweet phrases meant only for us two to share. . .
And though he is absent, his words are so dear; I whisper them softly and he seems to be near . . .
So here among the garden hedge, only the flowers and me,
I read those secrets that will secrets remain, and remember them pleasantly.
This, dear readers is an exciting day for me, because this is the post that almost wasn’t.
I had an idea to dress up and do a themed photo shoot last month, since the lilacs were in full and glorious bloom and I wanted to take advantage of it somehow (and also I haven’t done a “dress up” post in a while). However, despite the fact that I thought we would be able to get some pretty fun photographs, everything seemed to be against me and my sister, who was helping to take the photos. We battled the sun shining where it oughtn’t to have, the attack of the killer mosquitoes, the hot day that had not yet cooled off, despite the fact that it was heading into evening, and the gale force winds that came up just as soon as we stepped outside. We conquered the elements, but once we managed to get a few photographs, my camera battery died. So, fortunately we were able to switch to using my sister’s camera, but then my memory card which has been having problems lately, started saying that it was full (when it wasn’t) and so we kept having to delete outtakes as we went along (which you are not supposed to do directly from your camera). Well, finally we managed to get our photographs, and we weren’t too mosquito bitten either!
We looked over the photographs, and I saved them off of my memory card. Then, I did a bit of research to see what was causing the problem with my card. I discovered that it probably needed to be reformatted on my computer and not just my camera. So I erased the memory card clean with the disk utility on my computer, and then reformatted it on my camera for good measure. Every step of the way, the computer and camera asked me “Are you SURE you want to delete all photos/data on this card”. I kept clicking “yes”. Well, you can probably see where I am going with this story. . .
I was visiting my friend a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to show her the photos, but when I went to pull up the lilacs photos on my external harddrive- they weren’t there. They weren’t there! That was one of those moments where your heart drops right out of your chest and settles somewhere down around your feet. I searched through everysinglefolder; even the folders from nine years ago, but the photos were not there. I looked through the folders on my computer too, in case somehow they had got dropped in a different location. I was pretty heartbroken over it (as much as you can be about photographs, I mean) but then I just had to accept that they were gone forever. Remember how I erased that memory card?
Well, once I got home, my sister suggested that I look in my iphoto folders. It didn’t make any sense that they would be there, because I don’t use iphoto all that often, and I always upload my images straight to my harddrive for safekeeping. I had already looked before, in my recent iphoto folder uploads, but they weren’t there. However, when I looked under “events”, what should appear before my eyes but the very photos I had despaired of never seeing again! I didn’t tear up when I thought I had lost the photos, but I did when I found them again! My sister can vouch for my excitement upon finding them!
So, I have no idea how those photos were mislaid and managed to find their way to the iphoto folders, but I am so glad that they did. And the moral of the story today is, don’t change up your routine and put photos in one place, when you always put them somewhere else. And, double and triple and quadruple check that you have your photographs saved, BEFORE you erase your memory card clean!
Have you ever lost photographs due to a technical error, or were you able to get them back somehow?
(ps- I don’t have a “him” in my life right now, so this is all entirely make believe, but wouldn’t it be sweet to read love letters amongst the lilacs? Also, that “letter” is a handwritten poem I found online, called “Night” written for “Miss Mary L. Jacob’s Album” by “A.G. Archer Henry”. So who knows, maybe it was a “love letter” after all?)
I do love a good Instagram community challenge! Last year I took part in Me Made May, but this year I decided not to take part. I just don’t have enough homemade pieces in my wardrobe right now to make it significantly different from last year, and though I am sure no one else would have noticed, I would have gotten fairly bored with it. Thus, I was excited to see that there was another challenge being hosted this month, called “The Vintage Fashion Challenge”. (It’s nice to see a vintage focused event on Instagram). This one is being hosted by Carla of tinyangrycrafts, jennylee.knits and iliveinmylab and these three ladies came up with different prompts for each day of May. I have not been posting every day, but have been taking part when I have something for the prompt of the day. At the beginning of the month, as I was looking through the monthly overview, I saw a couple of prompts that I would need to sew something for. One was “Me Made Style”, (which I will be sharing next week) and the other was “Movie Style: A Film Inspired Outfit”. I decided that I would combine some of the prompts with blog posts, and to finish in time, I have been doing a fair bit of sewing this month- maybe at this rate I will be able to take part in Me Made May next year after all! 😉
I was quite excited about the “Movie Style” prompt, and started brainstorming for that one, before the challenge had even started. I love old movies, (actually I love new movies too!) and one of my favourite things about movies is the costumes. Costumes can make or break a film, don’t you think? It can be a great story, but if the costumes are off, it just ruins it. Conversely, sometimes I watch movies just for the costumes- even if the storyline isn’t that good. 🙂 I always enjoy good costumes, and then dream about “someday” sewing similar pieces for myself, but rarely do I ever actually end up creating those pieces. Having a challenge to create a specific film look was great, as I knew that it would force me to actually come up with something. (If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you might sense a trend here- I need deadlines in order to finish things- otherwise I procrastinate!!!)
Before anything else, first came the hard part of deciding which film look to recreate. So many old films, feature elaborate garments which I don’t have the skill or resources to create, and I also wanted to find a look that would be a valuable addition to my wardrobe. I mean, I do love the costumes from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but where am I going to wear a sapphire blue evening gown or a leopard cape and muff. Ok, never mind- if those were in my wardrobe, I would find a reason to wear them! But, while so many costumes from movies are extremely glamorous and elegant, they aren’t very wearable for my lifestyle. Thus, I started combing through old movies, to find a film inspired look that would be both useful and versatile to wear, and reasonable to recreate. When I came across Roman Holiday, I knew I had found what I was looking for!
I haven’t seen the movie for ages, (if you haven’t seen it, I definitely recommend it) but I knew that Audrey’s Roman Holiday outfit would be perfect to recreate as all I needed was a circle skirt. The colourized photo versions of the costume show a blue skirt, but I found this image which shows a tan skirt. I believe that the original costume was tan, which for some reason was colourized to blue in the photos. Tan is a great colour for my wardrobe, so I decided to make a tan circle skirt, though I thought that if I couldn’t find any suitable tan fabric at my local shop, I would make it out of blue chambray. I did find fabric, but since I really like how this skirt turned out I might end up getting some chambray anyways. I have been wanting a circle skirt for a while and this tan circle skirt has proven to be a great addition to my wardrobe already. It goes with everything. I made it out of a tan slubbed cotton/poly fabric. I wish that it was 100% cotton, but they didn’t have any nice cotton fabric, and so I decided to just go for it anyways.
The skirt took me a few days to sew up. I sewed it in one evening, left it to hang for 24 hours, and then went to finish it two days later. Of course, despite all my meticulous measuring, I ended up having to take 1.5 inches out of the waistband. I hate having to pick things out, and it took me a while to redo it all, but I still ended up finishing this project relatively quickly. The most time absorbing part was the hand stitched hem- this is how I prefer to finish my garments, but it sure is time consuming! I hand stitched it with lace hem tape, but did it while watching movies (over two evenings), so it went relatively quickly, and at least I got to enjoy a movie at the same time 🙂 I also made a separate slip to wear underneath as the loose weave of the fabric is slightly sheer. I decided to make a separate slip, rather than just lining the skirt, so I can wear the slip with other dresses and skirts.
All in all, this turned out to be a very quick sewing project and the only part left was to style it as a Roman Holiday look. I didn’t want to take this outfit literally, and copy the shoes, the belt, the scarf etc. exactly as it was in the movie, but rather took the basic formula to create my own look.
I chose this tie front blouse, which is actually quite similar to the one Audrey wore, with the rolled sleeves and collar, because the colour of tan in the leopard print pairs perfectly with the colour of the skirt. I think that this shirt goes so well with the skirt, and as I haven’t had much to pair it with so far, I am excited about being able to wear it more often.
Next was the shoes. I have these brown shoes which used to have a zigzagged elastic which made them into a slip on shoe. However, by the end of last summer, the elastic in one of the shoes had stretched out, so I had been thinking of replacing the elastic with proper tie laces. This look is quite trendy right now, but is quite a vintage look too, as illustrated by Audrey’s look in Roman Holiday. For these photos, I used black shoe laces (that’s what I had), and tied them around my ankle for the same look. I am planning on getting some shorter brown laces, and not wearing them looped around my ankle. (I don’t think it is the best look for me, though it was fun for this outfit)
The final touch to this movie inspired Roman Holiday outfit, was adding a vintage off-white sheer scarf. In some of the pictures you can see I’m wearing it tied around my neck, while in others it is under my collar. I decided after a few photos, that it looked like a neck brace in some of the photos, and having it tucked under my collar looked better 🙂
The only thing left to do to finish my Roman Holiday outfit, was to bring out my bicycle. As I don’t have a vespa, like in the film, a bicycle will have to do for my own “Rural Holiday”. 😉
Have you seen the movie Roman Holiday? Have you ever watched a movie and then wanted all of the outfits? If you were going to recreate a movie look, which would outfit would you choose? Share in the comments, so we can all look up your favourite movie costumes. . . and then add them to our own lists too 😉
