5 easy manicures to do this week

The weekend beckons with its siren call of shopping, luncheons, soirees and night outs .One needs to put their best foot forward in terms of style to dazzle at these events. We always dress up to the nines with our clothes and matching accessories but we tend to neglect our nails. Nails can actually lend that extra edge or x- factor and snazzy nails can make you the talk of the town.

Here we are enumerating 5 easy designs that will add a spring to your style

• Fizzy Fun/ Dots – The concept and execution is simple A nice shade as a base coat and once dry use nail tools or even toothpicks to make dots. Seal with a top coat. This link makes clever use of a common office staple. Try it ….

(Image courtesy http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/09/new-favorite-2/)

•  Half Moon nails – An easy and snazzy manicure .The possibilities are endless and you can make it as glittery or as sedate as you want .All you need is a base coat and using some reinforcement stickers paint a darker shade in a half moon shape. This is an excellent tutorial.

(Image courtesy http://the-coveted.com/blog/2011/07/19/easy-diy-half-moon-manicures/)

• French Manicure but not the same old white tipped – The beauty world is awash with the endless possibilities of a different tipped manicure. All you need is a bright shade as a base coat and an even more eye-popping shade for the nail tip. You can use stickers or paper cutouts to achieve perfect tips. This link has a step by step tutorial

(Image courtesy http://www.studs-and-pearls.com/2011/12/diy-manicure-easy-french-manicure.html)

• Striped Nails – They looks complex but are relatively simple to pull off if you use nail tapes or even French manicure strips. The key is to cut the strips cleanly and seal with a top coat. This is an excellent tutorial

(Image courtesy http://thebeautydepartment.com/2012/01/mani-monday/)

• Caviar Manicure – This is the newest and the hottest trend right now. Very impractical but so jazzy for a night out. All you need is a base coat and then use micro-beads. You need to pour the beads on to the still wet base coat. Better be prepared with a container to catch the flow of beads .Clean-up is also easy. This is an excellent tutorial

(Image courtesy http://www.thepolishaholic.com/2012/03/look-for-less-ciates-caviar-manicure.html)

This is a post for www.stylekarma.com.

 The link for the original post is  http://www.stylekarma.com/blog/?p=67

I wanna wawa

I'm a total snob wrt COFFEE that I drink from the cafes... Its Starbucks all the way for me ... even when its  bleeding 4.5 bucks a pop...:-)  So to my amazement mybtastebuds have embraced Wawa iced Lattes so much so that I'm probably extruding vanilla chair Latter.. Iced ...Yes trust me Its as Good even better that Starbucks and its poor insipid cousin Dunkin.. Though I do love me a munchkin.. More on that later...So as an Update I Love the Iced Vanilla Chair Latter.. the Vanilla is better than the plain Chair Latter.. and the Chocolate Caramel Rocks my World.... My Babe also loves it soon much... I'll have to put up a snap of her snacking on the whipped cream.. Good that it rids me of the excess calories.. so while the weather is AMAZING.. Here's what I'm reading
desperado - Diana Palmer ...Iffy at best .. 1 out of 5 ..Avoid
I also Watched Leap Year ... I adored it thinking all the while it reminded me of Hindi Films...you know what it actually is inspired by Jab we met Yay....

(Image courtesy wawa.com)

In search of comfort on Rainy Days

Here is what is on everyone's bucket list when the weather is even a tiny bit rainy..

1. Chai - Tea with Milk and some flavoring ... my aplologies mrs gupta ..I know you prefer it straight up without any falvorings
2. Pakode...

But when one is on a perennial diet Always and I mean Always... Drat my weighing machine and my dietitian ... close your eyes Vibha what to do so soak up on the craving....

Gummies... oops distracted...My little one is always on a sugar kick..n is"chhoosing" aka sucking in hindi on the gummy n calling it chingum... her words not mine.BTW this is 

$4.74 for 60 .Nice and chewy and shaped liked princesses.. I sneaked a few also ..They are Delish... Thet provide the pedeatriacian recommended vitamin D and the remaining Vitamins.With the nutrition less food we have these days this is a must 

Anyhooo.. Back to Chai ..Here is the recipe for 2 cups of Ginger Tea.. Bliss

1. Put 2 cups water to boil (start with cold water)

2. Grate in 1 square inch of fresh ginger.Bring to boil and add 1 tbsp of Tea leaves( Brook bond, Tata tea)

3.Let the tea infuse the colour

4.Add 1/4 cup of milk and boil .

5.Cool and Add sugar as taste 

Its the long weekend Again

The long weekend looms its ugly head once again and like all desis in Amreeka we're all a flutter to plan out the memorial day weekend

Lets kickoff by saying I made a caramel custard... which took me an hour to steam in a wok...I made it in a cake tin.... Covered it in foil and put it on a grid in a wok and covered the wok...

Here's the link...

The only changes here are

1. Added 2.5 tbsp of custard

2. I steamed it for an Hour

3. I added some lemon rind

4.Added more Vanilla Essence

Tips..

1. Make the custard with the custard powder

2. Coooooolllll the Mix and then mix it with the eggs spoon by spoon else ull have scrambled eggs

3.Grease your tin with non stick spray ... Itll mould off easily

4. Dont touch Hot caramel...- Pretty obvious... but I scalded my finger and my tongue... Note to self... dont try it to eat hot caramel... heheheheh

Spa day at Home

Aahhh!!! , the rigors of life are all consuming and we start dreading the days as there is nothing new. Hold on Hold on … there is some relief on the way .When you are pressed for time yet still require some r and r – at least  more r and r than snoozing , why not got for a spa day at home. The requirements are limited only to ingredients and a zen space .For me relaxation starts with soothing silence without any demands of this and that .You can even enlist your girlfriends and make it a social event. If you are inviting your friends..the more the merrier. You can take turns – Gossip , chit chats , snacks and take turns doing massages ,applying face packs and even pedicures. The sky is the limit. You can do henna, hair braiding and temporary tattoos etc

                                                 ( Image courtesy www.thepartydress.net )

Here’s how to a stress free and easy spa day

1.      Silence and peaceful environment- Banish the kids or any other disturbing elements including your laptop and iPod and put on some nice soothing music.

2.      Practice Pranayama –Follow the do’s and don’ts of yoga – no yoga on full stomach etc and practice meditation for 5 minutes sitting in a comfortable position.

3.      Face Mask- Apply a soothing face mask which tones, tightens and refreshes. Many face masks are available .You can even try DIY’s but test for possible allergies by doing a patch test.

4.      Hair Mask /Hot oil treatment – Do a self hair massage .Hair is often neglected and does not get adequate nutrition.

5.      Soak your tired achy , smelly feet – Soak your feet in warm water with fragrant Epsom salts and your worries will literally melt away.

6.      Relax with a cool beverage – Drink up your cool beverage , tea and just chill chill just chill.

7.      Refreshing bath with aromatic products – This will wash away all the aches , pains and stress and will leave you feeling refreshed. Fragrant products make you smell good and feel good.

The entire process will take no more than 30-40 minutes. What are you waiting for ? You deserve this and who doesn’t want to end up smelling good…? Cheers.

This post is a part of stylekarma.com blog .The original link to the post is http://www.stylekarma.com/blog/?p=62

Friends are Yum oops Good !!!!!!

Friendship isn’t about whom you have known the longest… It’s about who came, and never left your side…

Friends are like a warm chocolate cake drizzled with fudge sauce , the feeling of contentment after reading pride and prejudice for the umpteenth time and the knowing who the murderer is before the end of a cozy murder mystery.They all make you feel good ........

Friends may come and friends may go but good friends are always here to last. This is the story of Sanskriti and Sneha, of Maggi and chocolate cupcakes and of a matchmaking effort actually going right .
Sanskriti was all excited to head off to the US of A after securing a scholarship to study for her MBA.She was a little scared and sad to leave all her best friends behind ,she consoled herself with the though of vonage and skype.She applied for a room-mate and selected what seemed to be the best fit for her - Sneha.And it was that day when she entered the student lodging at the U.It was a big single family home in the Uni area let out to 16 tenants at once with 2 students sharing a room and the kitchens being common. She stepped into the cavernous and dark home only to be greeted by the most comforting smell of it all -Maggi and there dressed all in purple was Sneha,  a lissom sylph sheathed in purple..that's what clinched it as sanskriti's favorite color was purple and any girl wearing purple eyeliner and shadow was a girl after her own heart .Here was her newest and probably best est friend Sneha.She was kind,understanding and lent a shoulder to cry  on when sanskriti missed her mom and her mom's chocolate cupcakes .They bonded best on cooking or lack of it on Sneha's side.Maggi was the be all and end all of Sneha's culinary talents .And one fine day Sneha's cousin Nitin was to come and visit her, sneha was all of a tizzy and Sanskriti came to the rescue with her one pot cupcakes - hey its america and they had to wash their own dishes.Hurried applications of mascara and lipsticks later , Nitin arrived to delicious smells wafting about and the tall, dark and handsome hottie locked eyes with Sanskriti and locked lips with her cupcakes.It was love at first bite and look.

Fast forward 10 years and Sneha held court amongst all of Sanskriti's best friends in her wedding to "you guessed it "- Nitin...Matchmaking does bear fruits cause Sanskriti's cousin Upamanyu fell like a ton of bricks (yup ,even though he tried Sneha's brick hard cookies ) for Sneha... Their love story is  to be continued

If you want the recipe for those love inducing cupcakes - here is the link 
Here is the proof of the pudding....

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

My First Blog adda post - First WOW Post

Yay!!!!!!.The title of the post was "to forget is to be human and enjoy it"
The first post I wrote for WOW blogadda.com has been selected as a WOW post.It was a lot of fun writing it and I was so happy to be selected.Here is the link to the post.