Swizzle Sticks

Can we bring swizzle sticks back, please? I mean besides the fact that the term 'swizzle sticks' is pretty eff-ing cool, each one is unique, and not to mention useful.

Since adding the bar cart to the den, I have been working on displaying some cool vintage finds on it, and I've decided it needs some swizzle sticks.

I mean the plastic, kitschy kind that hotels and bars used to give out freely in every mixed drink.  My parents had them, and growing up I always liked to open the drawer where they were kept and look at the different designs and logos and colors.  I mean, they are really cool.  But, no one stocks these serviceable souvenirs anymore, do they?

Here are a few swizzle stick finds from my internet search...probably going to go digging in my parents drawer soon too.

via here

via here

via here-- I am dying over that fox!

Wouldn't it be cool if local bars and hotels and even restaurants had their own unique swizzle stick?!  According to this LA Times article from 2010, swizzle sticks are making a comeback.  This company is still making custom-molded and custom-printed swizzle sticks...so, how 'bout it Columbia businesses?  It's pretty genius marketing, if you ask me.

Wouldn't it be cool if swizzle sticks made a comeback?

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Old Furniture Memories and a Bar Cart DIY

We recently had two pieces of antique furniture recovered for our den.  This furniture has been in my house for over 5 years now, since my sweet, sweet grandmother, Mammy, passed away and left us these gems.

bad lighting, but the fabric is a gorgeous gray velvet from Forest Lake Fabrics

I love this couch because I have memories from when I was 10, and later a teenager, sleeping on it in my grandmother's condo on the river in Beaufort.  It was in her den, just steps away from the tiny kitchen where she and my grandfather always left the radio on, 24 hours a day.  It was not loud enough to be distracting, very low, but it was always on, and always on the classical station.  To this day classical music makes me think of that condo and my grandparents.

awesome blue & emerald green textured fabric that I found on ebay

I don't have any before photos of the couch and chair, but I am in love with the afters...Mr. Shannon of Shannon Upholstery in Eastover, SC is amazing.  He not only did an impeccable job refurbishing (the couch needed lots of repairs) and recovering this furniture, but he truly gets why pieces like this mean so much to people.  They don't have a website or a showroom, but he's the best of the best, take my word for it!

With the addition of these beauties into our already mid-century-modern-eclectic den, I had been feeling the need for a bar cart.  After searching Pinterest for bar carts that suited my taste, I was mostly coming up with options that were way out of our price range.  Until I found this list of DIY bar cart hacks.

We bought the IKEA BYGEL utility cart for $25:

image via here

Then, spray painted the metal pieces with this $8 can of spray paint:

And voila:

this is all the liquor that is only seldom drunk, as all the popular stuff is "out of stock" in our house...

A very affordable bar cart for our very eclectic den.

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