So not long ago, the hubs and I celebrated our 4-year wedding anniversary and I was told that the traditional gift is usually fruit/flowers (fruit?!? Fruit. The heck.), but nowadays people gift their love with an appliance of some sort (that's more like it).
Welcome to the family, Breville the Barista Express!
To make Barry the Breville Barista feel truly welcome, I thought it was only right to set up an equally as swishy coffee bar for him to settle into. Sort of like a house-warming party. Minus the random relatives crashing your shindig, eating all the dessert and criticising your choice in furniture.
Here are some shots of the sad beginnings... you ready for some poor lighting?
Wompwomp.
I knew Barry needed some classy accompaniment so I hit up Pinterest to see if anything tickled my fancy. I found there were far too many 'shabby-chic' coffee bars and if there's one decor 'trend' that sends me sprinting in the opposite direction, it's that tired ol' granny-lacey faux-French-antique shabby-chic. No.
But there were a couple of redeeming pins I found:
 |
| Style Me Pretty |
 |
| HGTV Magazine |
 |
| Designhund |
Not many, if any. But I do really like the first image.
So, armed with the idea of metallics and sleek lines, I lurked around Ballantynes to see what they had to offer. I was frustrated when I saw things like a small glass jar with a golden top for $15. Eek! Surely... I could just paint a plain glass biscuit jar myself for half that price?
Cue a trip to The Warehouse.
Now fast-forward through the sight of me throwing snacks at my toddler to keep him occupied while I cleared a shelf in the middle of the home ware aisle as I styled together my perfect coffee bar vignette.
Here's what I came up with:
Everything was from The Warehouse minus the Maxwell & Williams cups, teaspoon 'cup', tray, art and various syrups. I painted the knobby-handley-bit (that's the technical term) of the glass jar holding the biscotti just like the one at Ballantynes - though this one only cost me $4 in comparison (the Martha Stewart gold craft paint I used was $8.50 from Make Cafe). They had that glass jar available in five different sizes but when I put a bunch of them together on that cleared Warehouse shelf to plan this all, it looked too matchy-matchy, so I added in the silver sugar tin and slightly angular glass jar for the marshmallows - the Warehouse doesn't have the sugar tin on their website, but it was around $6.50. Teaspoons and mini tongs were also from the Warehouse.
That teaspoon 'cup' is actually a tealight holder from Bed Bath 'n' Table and it was on sale for $9.95 but it's not available anymore. It's expensive for what it is, but I love the gold leaf on the inside and the dark metal outside. I put a paper towel at the bottom of it to stop the teaspoons from scratching off any gold leaf.
The tray was $10 from Kmart and the art was a find from EcoShop for $2.
I actually bought another one of those Kmart trays 'cause you can never have too many trays!! ... Aaand I wanted to try doing that sort of chevron-style pattern on it (inspired by the image I pinned earlier) using the same gold craft paint I used for the jar top. I used masking tape to make my pattern - just eyeballed it, no ruler or anything - painted it, then carefully peeled the tape away once it was dry enough.
I don't know. I'm not 100% sure about using it for the coffee bar 'cause I wish you could see more of the pattern! But it's neat that it ties the gold elements together. And I have that spare plain white tray that I can swap in, if I feel like showing off the gold tray elsewhere.
Now, as for my latte art...
One trick pony? :D
I know it's terrible but hey, at least it tastes amazeballs! Here's to you, Barry!
A.V.
No comments:
Post a Comment