We demand ... a Shrubbery!

So, recently I had a delicious drink that had a "shrub" in it.  What is a shrub? you ask.  Well, it's very simple.  It's a couple cups of apple cider vinegar, which has some fruit in it, you do some stuff, and two days later, you put it in a drink with some booze and some sparkling water, or, just sparkling water, if you're some kind of prude or something (j/k) and then, Oh My.  

I made a raspberry shrub and mixed it with some whiskey.  It's very refreshing.  If you like vinegar even a tiny bit, I think you're going to go completely bonkers over this.

Here's a treat

Some would even say it glows

Here are some pics of our Pink Christmas Tree* - it's FAB-u-lous!

It's hard to capture the color just right - it is really quite... something... to behold.

KTM said I should get a Barbie ornament, which, I already happen to have!  A Barbie Shoe Tree on my pink Barbie Tree?  Yes, please!

My mom had a great tradition of getting me and my brother and sister an ornament each year and writing our name and the year on it, when we left home she gave us our ornaments.  So I have a lot and some are (ahem) rather old.  M & I continue the tradition - these are our ornaments for this year.  I got him a cat because this year we were consumed with poor Kaya who was ill and thank goodness recovered, and he got me an Eiffel Tower because I love Paris.  Awwww...  We actually have so many ornaments we decided we'll just get one ornament for the family in the future.   Those snowflakes you see are wooden die-cut ornaments from my friend MZ.  They look perfect in pink.

My mom actually puts up THREE trees in her house which some may consider overboard, but... isn't that just about right?   I'm thinking about putting our green one in our bedroom, but so far have been too lazy. 

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie rosa sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie rosa sind deine Blätter!

*NOT part of the war on xmas...

Just paint it

I've been so in love with this great furniture redesigns that folks are doing lately (there are some good examples on one of my pinterest boards).  On this blog I'm addicted to, Better After? They have a lot of before-and-afters of this nasty furniture that somehow looks amazing after you just flat-out paint it a cool color.  Although, sometimes Better After drives me nuts because some people have a tendency to paint shit white and it's really boring.  And I get mad and say they should rename the blog justpaintitwhite.com. 

Anyway, it makes every trip to the Salvation Army an exercise in creative thinking, and I wish I had a big truck and a giant garage and also one of those nifty spray gun things so you can spray paint ANYTHING.  And, then, oh, man.  The stuff I would paint.

So, I was on the lookout for a little dresser with nice lines and I found one fairly quickly.  Bought this for $15 and painted it with left-over blue paint from our living room.

It looked pretty terrible before but I knew it would look really cute because it has some nice design and details.  Originally I thought I would get new handles, but the more I looked at the old ones the more I liked them. 

cute, right?

I redecorated the bedroom this year - took me ages to find the duvet cover and drapes that I wanted, but now that it's finally done I think it looks pretty fab.  Here it is before...

before

It wasn't so bad, but it was kind of boring.  I was going for like Exotic Elegance, but it never quite landed.  I think I needed to go way overboard to get that.  

Here's After - I was going for French Chateau...

After!

 I really love the duvet cover - it's from Pottery Barn and supposedly based on "A 250-year-old hand-blocked textile from Provence".  I got the pile of pillows from Pier One, and that bedside table on the right I found at a Salvo for $15 - it looked really crappy but now I think it looks really adorable.  The paint is "Revere Pewter" by Benjamin Moore.  It's just a nice, cool grey.

I LOVE the drapes - they're gold and old fashioned, but, whatevs, that's how I roll, yo. They're pintucked and have a really nice shimmer and the valence has a gorgeous trim. 

So, that is mostly it.  I still need to have framed this little print we bought in Paris last year but, for the most part, I have my Dream Bedroom.  Next up:  Dream Bathroom.  (: