Random Eats II

My friend and I ate a Banoffe cake at Sweet Bella at Burgos Circle, The Fort while waiting for my other friend's birthday cake. We only ordered a small one because we were in a hurry. Hope we can go back there again and try more of their cakes and pastries. 

I am seriously turning out to be a dessert otaku.

A lot like Christmas...

I've finally finished decorating for Christmas. Shopping for it? Well, that's a different matter.

My theme this year was supposed to be handmade, but I ended up buying most of the gifts, as usual. But I did D.I.Y. some of the decorations this year.

I got the Merry Christmas bunting flags from the Ruffled blog. I just printed them out and cut little lines and threaded a measuring tape through it. I love the results, even though it doesn't look very Christmas-y.

A lot is going on in this picture. First the teacup which is from Japan Home Center. I bought it just because I loved the way it looked. Haha... The "Have a Wonderful Life" is by Papemelroti. Remember that store? When I was in high school, almost all my gifts to my classmates were from there. There's a yellow fabric ball at the right side which I made (more on that later) and the flower shaped thing is just an empty tissue roll which I pasted together. I'm still not sure what to do with it yet, but I'm leaving it as is for now. I might decide to paint it gold or whatever.

 

The pastel-colored tissue pom pom balls I made myself thanks to some tutorials I found in the internet. It's really easy to do, surprisingly. I just stuck some barbecue sticks and tied some green fabric on the base and put them on a vintage pink pitcher I had lying around. The photo props I printed, cut, and pasted are from Oh Happy Day. We turn into such photo whores during the holidays. LOL

Isn't the bunny cute? Little tip. I got this at Watsons last year. They sell stuff toys there too! But during December it's so expensive so you don't really want to buy one. But after the holidays, the prices suddenly drop! I think I got this for less than a hundred pesos! So you could say I started my Christmas shopping as soon as Christmas ended. It's so fluffy (!!!) that I wanted it for myself but I think I'm too old for this (huhu...) and stuffed toys + asthmatic kid me doesn't really mesh well. Sad.

I had a vision for this and I really don't know if I executed it well enough. It's basically four frames which contents I usually change depending on the mood (more on that later). I cut four squares of watercolor paper from my pad and painted them yellow, blue, red, and green. After that, I cut out the words using an Xacto knife (and a small Swiss army knife when I got tired) then put Christmas wrapping paper as backing. I still think it needs improvement but I'll let this one go for now and maybe improve on the design idea next year.

The coffee table. Not much happening here except where I randomly stuck some of the leftover Christmas flowers on a green glass pitcher. Yes, I have a lot of pitchers at home which I don't use for what it is actually supposed to be used for. LOL. Check out my collection! DVD box sets of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and BtVS (of course!), plus the romance novels (if you read them, then you can recognize what it is from the spines) and the remote controls! Yay! Haha... The stack of magazines are Yummy magazines (even if I don't cook) and decorating books.

Our only Christmas cushion cover. It's very glitter-y so I don't really like it much. Some of it gets stuck on you when you handle it. Oh well, it's just for a month.

Extra! I'm loving my current nail polish. Very holiday-ish. This was actually supposed to be a gift for someone but I changed my mind on what to give her and then I got bored and painted my nails. Haha...

And... ending this post with one my favorite wrapped presents for my Ninang. I love the Tiffany blue, silvery wrapper plus the red ribbon.

Now it really feels like Christmas season already. :)

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...

I love brown paper. Whenever I buy something and get a brown paper bag packaging, I try my best not to get any stain on them and hoard them like a shopaholic hoards groupons. I just knew that I would be able to use them someday.

Well, that day finally came. 

It was really a no-brainer. I needed to wrap some presents for Christmas when I came upon a weird shaped object. I was too lazy to make a paper bag (and too cheap to buy one!) for it when I spied my stack of brown paper packages. Lightbulb! I put the gift inside the ready-made bag from a certain bookstore then put a strip of paper and doily to cover the logo and voila! Instant wrapped present!

Some of the paper bags I had were too big so I cut them down flat just like I would a wrapping paper. Felt really proud because I was recycling as well as making really pretty and creative gift wrapping. I ever prefer it than regular Christmas wraps!

So before you throw away those paper bags, why don't you try making use of them? Just hoard some of those ribbons you get from past gifts or even old shoelaces, etc. and tie them up with a paper flower as a topper. It will surely end up as one of your favorite things too.

Bed Romance

This is kinda embarrassing, but I think I have one heck of a girly bedroom. It's not all pink, but it's kinda - for a lack of a term - princess-y. I would argue that it's not really my fault, because I hired an interior decorator to make my bedroom and I wasn't there the whole time to approve of everything. I wanted a relaxed, romantic, vintage-y type of room so I guess it is quite close to what I said. I still love the look that makes you feel like you're sleeping underneath a blooming cherry blossom / sakura tree... but the brass four-poster bed (shown without the matching white gauze curtains) was maybe a little too much.

 Sleeping Beauty's bed? LOL

It has its pros... For one thing, it was raised very high and there was a lot of space below for plastic storage boxes (seen on the photos) and in case of earthquakes, you can hide beneath it (hopefully I don't need to do this). I also hang a lot on the curved designs/brackets of the headboard, like ponytail holders, cloth headbands, necklaces, bags, etc. I also used to hang clothes on the bars when I take photos to sell them online.

Wall mural (yes, it's not wallpaper!)

But... I felt like the bars above gathered dust that trickled down to me. It was also a space-eater - physically and visually. You can't get from one side of the room to the other because the footboard blocked you from just vaulting over.

Work in progress... I sat on the cushion as I watched my computer monitor.

Slept like this while the bed was being done... not bad, actually.

I wanted to change it or modify it for years. I finally got around to it last month and I am absolutely loving it. Now I can see more of the mural behind the bed and I get an unobstructed view to my computer monitor from my bed - which, added to my bluetooth mouse means more laid-back viewing! Yay!

Finished product!

Now that my bed is done, my next step would be to shop for a new closet, which is harder than anticipated. And also, expensive! Sigh. Why isn't there an Ikea here in the Philippines yet?