Tag: <span>artisans</span>

Some people think Carnaval is just a debaucherous four-day party in Rio de Janiero but the rest of Brazil would have to disagree. Months leading up to Fat Tuesday, even the tiny towns are constructing elaborate floats, practicing samba routines, and gearing up for this nationwide party. Beyond the grandstands of Rio (we’ll get to that after our stay this weekend), here our the look at Carnaval from the four weeks traveling the country through little beach towns to the colonial cities that started it all.

In Brazil it's all about attitude. Colors can never be too bright, clothes are never too tight, and self confidence pulls anything off. This piece of street art rules the block.
Bright pinks, blues, yellows, greens... essentially the rainbow pumped up a notch is the palette of not just Carnaval but the whole of Brazil. Everything from houses to shops are in a vibrant coat of paint so when streamers of every color hang through the streets of Olinda for Carnaval, they perfectly complement the town.
Over-the top frocks like this sweet pea dress are perfect for nights out and these Liberty of London (meets Brazil) style skirts are just the thing for a morning block party.
Carnival bead shop in brazil
Like Mardi Gras, reams of glitzy beads are essential to Carnaval style. This shop caters to the locals and can string up anything from their 100s of choices. Women wear a numb of strands around their neck and men tend to slip them through each arm to crisscross them over their chest.
carnaval shakers
For sound and flair, colorful beads slip over gourds to create every neighborhod's percussion section. Even if you never gave these a shake they would look very global chic on a console table or bookshelf.
carnaval puppets
Massive papier-mâché puppets modeled after local celebrities and political figures are the stars of the bloco. When worn on the shoulders of a puppet master as he saunters down the parade, the figure is the mark of that group's artistic talents and sense of humor.
Girls take the streets with their resounding drums, and equally loud hair and makeup. Flowers are a running theme in clothes and accessories.
carnaval bloco
Woven baskets encircled with metallic streamers become an essential prop for traditional Afro-Brazilian dances through the streets of Salvador.
salavador carnaval dance
Sassed up with head scarves, bangles and some relentless dance moves, these ladies weren't going to leave the party to the kids. Flowing linen and lace dresses make for dramatic spins and a classic look.
carnaval olinda
Classsic red blue and yellow umbrellas are a dancing essential in Pernambuco. For spins, jumps, pivots, they make every Frevo dance move more dazzling with their blur of primary colors.
carnaval bloco leader
Leading this neighborhood bloco, these intricately beaded banners command the attention they deserve.

Has anyone ever been to Carnaval in Rio or seen photos? Though spectacular (we went to the Sambadromo last night), I was amazed by  how different and incredibly charming the regional takes on the party different could be.

Places

wedding-invite-inspirationUnlike most things in the wedding process that have some sort of example to follow, creating invitations is a total free for all. They’re supposed to symbolize the couple, the wedding destination, and attempt to be pretty and unique at the same time. That’s a lot to fit on a piece of paper but here’s our attempt at the process.

wedding invitation inspirationOur design inspiration all started with a plate, our birch log table project, and a wintry Vermont forest. With this hodgepodge of photos, we went to letterpress genius Meredith Kurosko of Regas New York. In addition to being an incredibly talented graphic designer, she has the patience of a saint (a former magazine editor is no easy client) and I’d like to thank her for an amazing job.

After a passionately collaborative process, our whimsical birch forest came to life (top). From a distance, icy winter birch branches become a feathery and ethereal frame to our invitation text.

For the RSVP card, the idea is that you go deeper into that forest and find our special spot. (BTW…Check those Sunday Festivities! Going to be fun, right?)

To kick off the festivities and to help my Southern California family find the fun in cold weather, we’ve decided to make the rehearsal dinner a vintage ski costume party. This means get decked out in funny ski gear from the era of your choosing–anything from 80s neon jackets to 40s leather goggles.

wedding-envelope-designSince we had no idea what our invitations would look like when we created our Save the Dates, we tried to work backwards and give the two pieces of stationery a bit of consistency. Playing off of our original “Speckled Stones,” design we gave the envelopes a similar snowdrift but with more of a bubbly champagne effect.

We love every piece–and this is just a PDF! In silver ink and letterpress, they become the perfect invitations to our chic and quirky Vermont wedding.

Projects

vineyard design travelMike and I aren’t usually for organized travel tours but, with our friend and winemaker Ethan at the helm, we decided to give it a shot. Ethan had been studying wine in Burgundy, France for the past few years and became so passionate, so knowledgeable about oenology and the region that he decided to start William Ethan Experiential Art: An educational and culinary adventure through the vineyards, cuviers, cellars, and towns of the Côte d’Or and beyond. When we heard about this tour, we signed up on the spot.

Home Basedesign-travel to Boulliand
design-travel-chateauTogether with our good friends Matt and Hillary, we based our five-day adventure in the cliffside town of Bouilland and specifically  in this unbelievable 15th-century farmhouse.

design-travel-diningThe house had every bit of romanticized French-country charm and did not disappoint with antiques, winemaking relics, and a nice touch of contemporary details.

The Cuisinedesign-travel-chef Food is an integral part of the wine experience, so Ethan spared no expense and got a personal chef. Jean-Luc was an unbelievably talented cook and a total pleasure to be around. We’d hang out with him in this to-die-for kitchen having aperitifs as he prepared dinner (anything from beef bourguignon to moules marinieres).
picnicFor lunch, we’d usually have a picnic overlooking something breathtaking. Here we are above the Haute Côte, gazing out to a sea of vineyards, while eating jambon blanc and camembert sandwiches and sipping Beaujolais.

The Vineyardsvineyard design Burgundy is gorgeous year-round but during the fall, it’s abuzz with beauty. We arrived in the final moments of harvest and saw everything from the labor in the fields to the closing celebration in the streets.

france-wine-toursThe workers still pick grapes by hand but also typically have these wacky-looking tractors in tow. The height and width of the space between the tires is made to perfectly maneuver over and between vines without knocking a leaf! They help tend to the soil while their bins give workers a place to store the fruit.
vineyard-houses Adorable little houses called cabouttes appear in the depths of every vineyard.  Historically, they were used as a place for workers to take lunch or find warmth. We rode our bikes to this spot for the dreamiest picnic.

CuveriesBurgundy-wine-tours While biking from vineyard to vineyard, Ethan ran into a friend outside Domain de Montille. His buddy was running around like a mad scientist trying to get all the grape fermentation underway, but still found time for an impromptu cuvier tour. Massive oak barrels filled the room, all with chalk-written notes keeping track of the temperature, sugar and alcohol levels. Here, I got to take a peak  into the pit of pinot noir grapes.

Caveswinery travel Rows of wine barrels await bottling at the Domaine Boyer Martenot, where I bought the said-to-be amazing 2007 Mersault-Charmes Premier Cru. Now I just need to wait ten years before it matures to perfection…We’ll see if I can hold out.

Newfound Wine Knowledge
The better the land, the better the wine.
design-travel to wineriesGrapes
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are basically the only two types of grapes grown in Burgundy (Gamay and Aligoté are grown where the soil isn’t so rich in limestone).

Land
More than any winemaking region in the world, wine in Burgundy is all about the land. A wine’s caliber is defined by the quality of the exact patch of soil the grapes came from. A vineyard is sometimes limited to a few rows of grapes because that mix of soil,  pitch of land, and sun it receives may be so perfect that adding more rows could taint the wine.

Wine Labels
The reason why Burgundian wine labels are so complex is that you need the name of the region, estate, plot, bottling location, and winemaker to identify the wine (cute names like Red Truck or Seven Deadly Zins don’t cut it). Those who truly understand the wines of this region, know the location of the grapes and the skill of the winemaker on an intimate level.

And wine was just the beginning…Stay tuned for our tour through some of the most charming towns in French wine country.

Places

weddding-reception ideas with flower petalsThere are plenty of fantastic wedding photographers out there but the right one can be hard to find. Every photographer’s offerings, pricing, and caveats are so different, it’s easy to lose site of the goal: pretty pictures. So to make the most diplomatic decision for our Vermont wedding, Mike and I decided to do a blind test. To start, I picked ten images from our five favorite photographers (Corbin Gurkin, Orchard Cove, Birke Photography, Sabin Gratz, and Eve Event), gave each image a random number, wrote it down on my little decoder sheet, and put them in one big desktop folder. Then Mike and I each independently picked our top 20 photos from the master batch and determined the winner by seeing which photographer’s work was on our lists the most.

It was a bit of a process to orchestrate but in the end, we had a clear winner–Birke Photography. Founding photographer Caroline Bargerstock’s work is artistic without trying too hard. When you look at her photos  you see all the happiness, love, and beauty that should go into a wedding and that’s exactly what we were looking for.

Here are some of the photos that wooed us into choosing Birke Photography:
weddding-reception-ideas for barns

weddding-reception-ideas and chapel

wedding-reception-ideas-flowers

wedding-reception-ideas-cheek kiss

wedding-reception-ideas-flower-girls
wedding-reception-ideas-kiss

Etc