My red carpet looks

Hey people,

How have you been? Great? Just fine? or fatabulous? I have been pretty good. But  do you know what really cheered me up today? This. The rikrak studio had a great and fun challenge, to come up with looks for the red carpet with handmade items, consisiting of only two items. And I submitted about three to four looks,don't remeber now. But here they are on the blog, shining along with some other lovely ladies :) The lovely people at Rikrak chose, not one but three of my looks to showcase. Here are those

Which one do you like best? Isn't this a really fun activity, picking out party dresses and accessories. For me, it's like the best way I could spend my time.
So.... I went ahead and had some fun time. Here are a few more looks with handmade items.

Source1: Source 2

Source1: Source2

Source1: Source2

Don't you think like they are made for each other? I just really love the whole virtual shopping thing.
I have something similar really fun planned, we'll see how it pans out. Till then, why don't you go to etsy, pick out some fun things and have a good time creating your own red carpet looks ?

Currently loving and the learning curve

Hello friends,

 I have been away for a long time. Taking stock of things and getting back to work commitments. Including a very demanding fasting day in the middle. I came back to report that I am going slowly on the learning curve, learning to sketch a basic model figure, with 9 heads. Ha Ha. It's actually a technique to draw a fashion sketch, one of the learning methods. Here is a video tutorial for the technique:




I also wanted to share a few ideas for decorating with glass vases (which look deceivingly more like fish bowls. hmmm... May be you could use old fish bowls) at Heaven And Home magazine.

I love the first one with soaked lilies the best. It is really lovely with a calm, non overpowering decorating sense to it. Also the one with dried moss is innovative.

There are some declutter your home ideas too there. Go check.

Books organised with color :) that is my kind of decorating.
What do you think of that hilarious dog? See ya people.

The world of Fashion Illustrations And an epiphany

If you follow me on Pinterest, you will see that I am on a huge 'fashion Illustrations' kick. Well, the cause for this madness can be explained with a story as follows -

 The other day I was in the mood to chill out, browse through magazines, put good music on, just because. It so happened that I went to my library and brought home a few perky magazines. This was one of them.

The January 2012 cover story showed celebrity moms and daughters wearing classic Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla Couture designs. These Indian designers are known for their traditional as well as contemporary clothing, their specialty being Indian Couture (Sarees, Chania Cholis, Ghagra Cholis, Salwar kurtas and so on). They recently completed 25 years into their career and boast of catering to most of India's stylish modern Royal households (Nawabs, Rajas and Rajkumaris along with Bollywood glitterati). Okay, I am coming to the point, just read on.

So I browsed through the cover story and felt an energy in me that I hardly feel, ever. Like there was an epiphany, a realization of sorts. I knew this all along but it dawned on me, rather forcefully that evening that I am not doing what I should with my life. I am made to design. My brain creates designs in my head like an accountant should create balance sheets. It's an inbuilt mechanism somehow. But sadly, I never gave this aspect of my life a fair chance. Even if I know how a garment should look like in my head, I have no skills to translate it into a tangible thing of beauty, even on paper. Tears came to me thinking ten years down the line, I am going to regret this, and I will always think that what if I would have studied design and made a career out of it. What if I would have been successful doing what I love. But if I don’t take any action now, I will never know what could have been of these ‘what ifs’.
So, here it comes – I decided to learn Fashion Design. I haven’t still decided if I want to do a full time course and take the plunge, leaving a job that actually pays me (and I am even doing well at that front). But nonetheless, I have decided that I will learn this art, may be step by step, investing a little time and money for every little step, but I am surely giving it a shot. This realization has made me feel powerful and passionate about something, a feeling I haven’t had in a long long time. It’s liberating of sorts. Maybe if I don’t actually learn to dress other people up, I will at least have a good designer for myself :o). Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I cried myself to sleep that night, more with excitement and realization than sadness. And I feel so GOOD. I discussed this with a dear friend and he advised me that the first step would be to learn how to draw your ideas, fashion illustrations. And there I went looking for good inspiration and tutorials and hence this board on Pinterest. There is lots of inspiration there but I found Youtube to be a helpful resource in case of tutorials. It has exceptionally good and thoughtful video tutorials for beginners. I am learning people, though my fashion figures look a little more like this right now:

But I will slowly and steadily go to this:

 I really love the first one. It's too pretty and makes me think about Audrey Hepburn somehow.

Check out the image sources here and go visit the pretty boards from which I reppined a few. Take care till next time. Have you had an epiphany similar to this in the recent times? Do you live your dream job? What would you do in a situation like this? I would love to know.

Neon Kick

Have you been witnessing the Neon Colors surge? I am and sort of loving it too. If you are not so flamboyant as to sport this daring trend, this is how you can still enjoy without looking like a traffic cop.

These Ipad cases from Incase. Get them here and here.

Striped Iphone cases via Geek sugar

DIY neon cuffs from A pair And a Spare

DIY Neon Market bag via Harper's Bazaar

Skinny Belts from J Crew and J Crew

Brian Atwood Pumps. Buy here.

Alexander Mcqueen scarf. Buy here.

 Hope you enjoy the neon trend. Have a good Sunday.

Vintage Shoot

Loving this {vintage apple orchard} shoot at Postcards and Pretties.

Store Find - LushIndia

Hello dear readers,

All you Indian girls, you have been reading about how good a 'Dry Shampoo' is and all the advantages of not washing your hair but spraying this magic potion on instead. But where do you get this damn Dry Shampoo thing. Here is the big reveal - Here's your store my dearies - Lush India.

Their Dry Shampoo is an all natural product, what can be better? Magic Potion + All Natural. I am ordering one and then letting you know if it works.
Till then check out all the lovely and yummy - looking bath products there. You will thank me for this.

Also, while you are there, check out their valentine's range. Here is how they describe their 'Love Portion'

"In days of yore, a young maiden with her eyes on a likely lad would ask the village wise woman for a love potion. These days a girl needs to take a more hands-on approach, so we’ve created this modern alternative which is sure to get you plenty of amorous attention from your special someone. Love Potion is a massage bar with a difference. As well as the soft, melty cocoa and shea butters we’ve added some cornflour to the mix, which absorbs excess oils. So when the massage is over, you’ll be left with skin that feels soft and touchable, but not greasy. Love Potion is perfumed with our best-selling Love fragrance; a light, sexy apple scent with citrusy top notes to inspire devotion."

Sounds divine, doesn't it? And yummy too :)
And I wish I could have each one of their perfumes.

P.S - This store was named in Vogue India for their all natural products.

New blog find - It's not so new though

I just stumbled upon this blog called Oh My Deer Handmades. Or you are already their stalker? And I have been living under a rock. But this was love at first sight. I have been adding to my blog list daily lately. But never before I read at least a few posts and I love what I see. But this blog love started like "Oh my God, I love that header. How did he/she do it? I want to make a header like that."

 Then I discovered that she is an artist and has a cool Etsy shop of customized paper goods and does random cool things like make these photo backdrops-

Now who can overlook (and not love) That Much Gold?
And then it was gorgeousness upon gorgeousness.

Go have a look.

Table for two at Bright Bazaar

Loving this table for two setting at Bright Bazaar.

 Black and white and amethyst (And Polka Dots!). Check out the gold chevron.

 
For more photos and tips on how to recreate this setting, visit Bright Bazaar.