The Interior DIYer
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Christmas bar cart

Christmas officially arrived in full swing this week in our household and I couldn’t be happier. We prematurely decorated a couple of weeks ago for an exciting Christmas photo shoot {more on that soooon!}, but I knew if we kept the tree and decorations up that long, I’d end up getting tired of them. I love Christmas so much so I didn’t want to overdo it. So my lovely assistant husband tidied the {fully decorated} tree into our spare bedroom for a couple of weeks, and out she came on Sunday for reals.
As part of the photo shoot I had the idea to fancy up a Christmas themed bar cart. I redecorated it this week to cater to our 3 main Christmas drinks – Irish coffee, hot chocolate and mulled wine. Yes and please. I dedicated one shelf of our cart to each drink and decorated accordingly …

Husbands signature drink at Christmas is Irish coffee. He really hits the nail on the head. This year our household is rolling not one, but two Baileys deep. If you can, I would highly recommend the new Baileys Chocolat Luxe. I also included whiskey for old school Irish coffee, along with our favourite over-sized mugs ready to go. A perfect way to wind down at the end of a cold day.

The middle shelf is dedicated to hot chocolate. Mmmm. We splash out and go for Green & Black’s organic hot chocolate, which is well lush. Want to be a extra naughty? In stead of adding milk or cream to your mug of hot stuff, try a scoop of ice cream. Husband came up with that one last year, and it is heaven in your face. You will never be the same.

And last but not least, mulled wine. Husband was first introduced to mulled wine at my cousins wedding reception and loved it so much that 5 years later when we got married, we had a mulled wine reception. Every year when we decorate our Christmas tree, our tradition is to crack out a bottle of red to accompany our decorating. We do cheat and use those mulled wine tea bags with a couple extras {orange peel, brandy etc} when it’s just the two of us, but when we have guests, we go whole hog and make it from scratch. 
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of our cork collection while I was down there. Whenever we visit a new country or have a special occasion we always keep the cork, write on it and add it to our collection. There are a lot of special ones in there – our engagement cork, new years corks, our honeymoon in St. Petersburg, Russia, and ones with cheeky stories … 
So what are your favourite winter drinks? Are you old school like us, go for the usual beer or wine, or do you go for fancy cocktails? Eggnog is another one of my favourite Christmas drinks but a tier of eggs and cream wouldn’t really have looked very Christmassy on our cart. xx A

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My IKEA Family Live feature!

Heart palpitations at the ready. Back in July you may {or may not, I won’t be offended} remember I shot and submitted pictures of our apartment to IKEA after receiving some rather exciting e-mails from them asking me if I’d like to be a featured IKEA member for their IKEA Family Live online magazine. UMM, yes please with a körsbär on top. 
After some trials and tribulations {which by the way, I received a camera stand for my birthday, ha!}, I submitted all the pictures safe and sound and met my deadline. Sigh of relief. Then the waiting game went down. It wouldn’t be until November until I’d be featured {having submitted the photos in July}, but it was just enough time for the dust to settle and for me to get excited about it all over again!  

Me on the IKEA Family Live  homepage. No biggie. 

I know, slight overkill with the screenshots and whatnot, but how often do you see yourself on an IKEA website? Of course, to see the full feature, click on over here to read all about it and gawk at a couple more pictures of our apartment if you’d like 🙂 
And if you’re a fellow IKEA fiend and would like to also be a featured member, just send an e-mail on over to homes@ikeafamilylive.com with a couple of pictures and details on your home! You know you wanna. xx A
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Desk days

I’ve spent a lot of time at my desk recently. I’ve put a bit of extra effort in to make it somewhere I want to sit more than somewhere I need to sit, and for me that usually means mixing things up. I get bored if things stay in the same place too long so I rotate things around the apartment. Not so fun for husband though when he’s trying to look for something. Bless him. 

I’ve become a smidge obsessed with matches recently. I think it’s because we’re well and truly into the winter months, and candles in our home get lit on a regular basis. I found these giant match sticks in Industry‘s new pop up shop on Drury Street, and they perfectly quenched my need. So this week I was on the lookout for a special match stick holder {as you do} and spotted this perfect little red shot glass in a charity shop on Saint Michan’s Street {can’t remember its name} for €0.50. SCORE.
Candles are also a great way for me to get through the depressing Irish winter {cold, no snow, grey, grey, grey, rain and grey}. If it’s going to be dark and gross out, might as well make it fancy and cosy and light some candles. If I had a fireplace, that thing would be lit from October to March. 

And above, my most random impulse buy ever. I saw these Black is the New Black pencils from MadeByGirl, and I had to have them. They reminded me of what I almost always say when I’m out shopping – whether it’s something for our apartment, or something for me to wear … 

… that or dark purple / maroon / wine etc. The darker, the better. But that’s not really reflected in these bright pictures. I feel I should say, if we owned our apartment, it would look very different. Speaking of darker, I was a bit bold and spray painted one of my faux hydrangeas yesterday. They’re originally bright purple with pink, and because of that I noticed I didn’t have them on display as much. I gave one one of them darker a light dusting of spray paint to see what it looked like, and I think it turned out not too bad if I may be so bold. Oh, and for those of you curious about my vase, I nabbed that cheap and cheerful DIY from Bethany from Dwellings by DeVore. A girl after my own heart. 

Also featured – lamp revamp – thrifted coral – faux hydrangeas