Style Inspiration Post 3- Who Said Work Had to Be Boring??

All work wear or looks do not have to be boring. It can be fun and funky and still mean business.

A combination of dark washed skinny/ flare jeans with a white t-shirt and a nice black blazer topped of with a gorgeous red statement necklace.

Ok this might not something you could wear if you work at a bank, but maybe a good combination for Thursdays perhaps or a business dinner. 

If you like the necklace, do go to this link

Busy or Lazy or Crazy Weekend?

It really depends on which day of this part weekend to highlight whether it was busy or lazy or crazy one at that.

Two very close couple friends are leaving Dubai for good and relocating off to the UK. Yes, there was only so much heat they could manage. So, Thursday night was a full on party with my friends inviting everyone under one roof to bid adieu. I will till they are at the airport for that.

 

My contribution to the party was cupcakes- a batch of Boston Cream cupcakes and White Chocolate Ganache and Strawberry cupcakes!!! I baked after nearly a month and man as much as I love baking, washing dishes will forever remain a meh! But it was a great evening that started early and ended late. I am really going to miss them since they are by far one of the nicest couples I have ever met!!

Come Friday, it was off to visit my folks!! They stay in Al- Ain and I make it a point to visit twice a month. Thanks to a massive project at work, my past few weekends having hardly been relaxing. I was so looking forward to Friday being a day where I do nothing other than spend time with my folks and sleep. Other than a nice dinner, we also went out for a family movie night which means Bollywood for sure. Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani was a lovely movie and I think the director Ayan Mukerji is India's answer to Nora Ephron when it comes to making feel good movies.

Saturday was catching up with a good friend of mine over dinner. She is one of those people that I love hanging out with for the simple reason that we both love FOOD!!! Cream Centre in Oud Metha is super yummy and not GUILT free.  Other than the guilt laden food trip, I put in a few hours on the new venture I have started (Azula has been mentioned in all my other posts) and mind you I never realised how exhausting it would be but its a major learning experience. 

 My aim for next weekend is to laze , chill with my friends and indulge in retail therapy :)

Style Inspiration Post 2- Simple Chic

In the second post of this series of how to style your outfit with accessories (not easily availble at Azula), I decided to go with simple and chic.

A simple teal or turquoise outfit with a statement color to add a break to the whole mono flow. This with simple stud earrings and heels and you are good to go!!.

If you are interested in adding this necklace to your collection, here is the link.

Style Inspiration Post 1: Day to Night Look

If you have been following my blog as of late, you will know I recently started a new venture called Azula. An accessories   store with statement necklaces and ethnic jewelry.

I thought it would be interesting to do a series of post to provide some awesome ideas of how to wear the Azula statement necklaces. 

The first combination is a bit formal and an ode to color and summer. A black sheath dress with a yellow cardigan and accessorized with a yellow Azula statement necklace. 

Best part is this combination can go from day to night, just skip the cardigan and you have a black dress with a bright yellow necklace.

If you are interested in adding this necklace your collection, here is the link 

Introducing Azula....

After months of just discussing ideas, I finally decided that I either do this or forever hold my peace.

Azula meaning blue or blue gem stone (not the avatar ;)) encompasses my love for jewelry especially statement jewelry that makes one stands out or add the bit of um-ff needed to make an impression.

Azula covers necklaces, earrings and bangles inspired by designs that are both contemporary and traditional.

Over the next few weeks, I will posting how you can style the necklaces or bracelets. Hope you all will like them.

Please be sure to like Azula right over here. 

Happening as of late....

Its been a bit of a crazy time at work with a major project with some crazy deadlines. I have had to travel for both conference and work. Work led me to Nairobi, Kenya and can I say the city has changed a lot over the past five years. But it was monsoon and come 5pm it would be a massive downpour that would flood some of the roads making it impossible to get about. Most of my time was spent in the hotel lounge appreciating the rain.

 

 

In addition to getting into a routine and de-cluttering my place, I decided to experiment with a few recipes. With the whole Paleo  and organic buzz afoot in Dubai, I gave Go Organic a try (will review soon) and tried my hand at making some Kale Chips.  My experience was that I needed some better seasoning but not bad if you are taste buds are ok with some bitter after taste. I want to give coconut yogurt a try as a dairy free alternative to yogurt and will be checking out RipeME one of these Saturdays.

I have been working on two pet projects side by side and at times I think I am taking on a bit too much on my plate. On one side, I am getting into making cookies for msweetbakes, my small little baking biz and on the other I finally launched a new page that is about my love for jewelry- Azula!

I will need to put up a schedule if I need to keep a track of all that is happening without a burnout and most of all I need to indulge in some good clean eating habits!

Tech Files: No more Google Reader!

Unless you are live under a rock or you are not into technology, blogs or are not a Google is the savior to Microsoft fiend, you by now know that Google Reader will no longer be available post July 1 2013. In a bid for people to use more Google+. If I were them I would do away with Google plus!

I woke to this bad news a month back and despite petitions to save the feature, I think it was about time I started to look into alternatives. 

There are quite a few out there, some paid, some free, some that can integrate into your browser and some with apps for all your smart devices.

These are my picks on what I will be trying as alternatives lest Google retract their decision

Feedly: The company has already announced that they will be a major alternative to Google Reader. Interestingly enough they use Google Reader as their back-end. It can be access on phones, tablets and has an extension for Firefox and Google Play.  I use IE so I might somewhat have a challenge with this one or in the name of convenience I might just download Firefox.

The Old Reader: A very archaic looking version of Google Reader, but behaves like the interface I am used to using, so not bad at all. It looks boring! boo!

Pulse: It works with IE has a good interface but it has some serious sync issues that put me off from continuing to wanting to set it up.

Newsblur: Has a good interface but I will be honest, I need to try it out.

Flipboard: My fav app when it comes to my iPad. Feel like reading a magazine and I need to update it to add more feeds.

Finally, there is Bloglovin, as well as a way to keep a track of all that I like to read. I do have a few concerns with them despite the fact I use to them for my blog as well.

I am leaning towards Old Reader and Feedly at the moment, lets see how this goes.

There are lots of alternatives, these are a few I am leaning towards.