Vintage suitcase turned portable suitcase bar

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I'm not all that unfamiliar with Jamie bringing home seemingly random items and making them into much cooler random items. It's a big part of his charm. But turning this old suitcase into a suitcase bar was like a whole new level of #myridiculoushusband-ness, and I couldn't be happier.

Clickbait title: He found an old suitcase at a yard sale. What happened next will blow your mind!

He presented it to me as shown above, as my super romantic Valentine's Day present this year. (Don't say the romance is dead at year 13, folks!)

I was then shooed back into the house for the afternoon, hearing only power tools and the noise of Jamie making a mess sawdust and art.

He called me out in the early evening to see what he'd been up to, and now I can share it with you. I helped with some finishing touches and with some of the little decisions that had to be made, but the idea and execution were all him. (I'm basically brought in for all things Silhouette or Mod Podge.)

He turned this plain suitcase into a portable bar, for picnicking, camping, music festivals, any time you wish that you had the ability to mix up a variety of cocktails on the go.

Contents in the suitcase bar front panel:

Mixing spoon, muddler, zester, tongs, toothpicks, sugar cubes, vermouth, Cointreau, Rose's Lime, absinthe, bitters, 2 jars for citrus, and there's a wine opener tucked over on the right side.

Contents in the main compartment:

Vodka, whiskey, gin, cocktail shaker, 2 rocks glasses, olives, cherries, jigger

The front panel tucks on top of the main compartment to hold everything snug for transportation and to keep anything from rattling around while on the move.

The inside of the suitcase lid and the back of the panel are covered with wallpaper that we found at Graham & Brown. They sell samples that turned out to be *exactly* the size we needed, so we paid $4 each for 2 samples. I used Mod Podge to adhere and seal the wallpaper.

For the bottles, we ordered the small ones on the front panel from Specialty Bottle, a resource I found on Pinterest. The booze bottles are all probably pretty recognizable brands. We'll keep them long-term and refill them from our home bar with the brands we really love. (Read this post for tips on removing the vodka bottle label)

We took the labels off and I created our custom labels using my Silhouette and this cool Heavy Metal Adhesive Vinyl I found. (Affiliate links) Fonts: Chopin Script and UltraCondensedSansSerif

And there you have it, we're ready to bring the party wherever we are!

Think we're missing any vital ingredients? What's your favorite cocktail that we could make here?

Cheers!