Every morning 'What Should I wear?' dilemma !

My mornings are spent at my cupboard door thinking and sighing on how I don't have anything to wear nor the space to keep my clothes. My cupboard is full of stuff that's just not right for the occasion of the day. Sometimes it's a critical meeting or a volunteer engagement or running an errand.  In last few month's it's been long backpacking trips. Everything is either too dressy, too dull or simply uncomfortable.

Each occasion calls for a different kind of clothing ranging from formals, smart casuals, traditional and sometimes just plain comfortable. Not to mention the mind-boggling co-ordination of shoes, accessories, makeup and right undergarments.  It is so frustrating! I truly and deeply admire the women who have the patience and the desire to meticulously co-ordinate all the elements and look as if they have come out of a glossy magazine.

A few years back when I was literally a shopaholic  I made a pact with myself that I will buy only if I really need and I have stuck with it (Well mostly! I have slipped on few occasion) Also every few months I clear out my cupboard and organize it. Yet my morning are depressing. So I have decided to do a 100 day no shopping resolution starting today and made a rough plan.

So here is my strategy for  not buying in the first 100 days of 2017

• Don't buy even a single piece of clothing. 
• Don't buy for occasions. This is my most impulsive purchases
• Wear all the clothes in the cupboard even if it's too dressy, looks a bit worn-out, a bit uncomfortable
• Alter clothes that don't fit
• Repair if it's mildly torn or throw it away
• Let go if it doesn't fit anymore. (Not going to loose that 1 kg from waist to wear that long skirt)
• Accessorise with existing accessories if the clothes are dull
• Borrow from friends and family. Yup! this is a new one.
• Rationing the clothes. Keep some for later use in a separate space cause I have same tops in different colours. I know I am smart shopper

Exceptions that I will make

• Will buy undergarments
• Will buy to pair with existing clothes e.g skirt that's floating without a top, white pants with no shirt to go with etc
• Stitch using existing materials(I have tons
• Except clothing as a gift. 

If you need some inspiration to do your wardrobe management. Here are some good reads which inspired me to take an active step to manage my 'what should I wear' dilemma, rather than fighting with my husband for more wardrobe space.

7 eye opening lessons I learned from buying nothing new for 200 days

Cooking theme birthday party for 9yr old (Part II)

In my last blog I wrote about food, return gifts and the dress.In this blog I am trying to cover the rest of the aspect of the birthday party. Lets start with the games.

My little girl wanted to add paper dance in her party so that became our first game by default. The second game that we planned was 'taste and tell'. As the name suggest its a game to taste and tell about the item. Simple as it may sound but playing it with 13 girls is quite a challenging task. We had prepared 2 bowls of  different food items for 2 groups including jaggery, boiled potato, tomatoes, gems, kiwi , apple, biscuits etc  We divided the girls in to two groups and one group closed their eyes while the birthday girl went and fed one participant at a time. It was received very enthusiastically by the whole group.

The last game that was the star of the show was the donut eating race.  We strung 4 donuts in a ribbon and kids were suppose to eat them, you guessed it, without touching it. Its a messy game so we had the whole floor covered with a a huge chart paper board we had created for our sons's chess party.(That post is also coming soon) Unfortunately we dont have a single photo of the games part as all the photos in the camera were blackened due to wrong camera setting. But  the first picture on this page gives a pretty good idea about the game.



The birthday party decor. In my attempt to make birthday party more engaging, more environment friendly we also made the decorations at home. It was a simple decoration using ribbon, textured paper and store bought alphabets. Kids thoroughly enjoyed cutting the circles and pasting them on the ribbons.  I colour co-ordinated the balloons and put up a bunch of 3 balloons (red,white and blue) in all the corners of the room. The room was looking very lively and ofcourse added the charm to the celebratory atmosphere.

The birthday party added to our very many fond memories of family life. Both kids look forward to their birthday celebrations at home and start counting months and days.

Cooking theme Birthday Party for 9 year old

I love birthday parties. Actually I love all the occasions that get people together for having fun. There is some really amazing of hosting a kids birthday party. The enthusiasm, happiness that kids bring to the table can never be felt in other parties.  So when my little one's have their birthday's  I start planning quite a few days before.

For my little girls birthday I organised a cooking theme party which was quite a hit among her friends. I  started out with a a quick checklist of things on the notes application on my phone  that need to be get done.

1. Invitation Card
2. Dress 
3. Return Gifts 
4. Food 
5. Decorations 
6. Games. 
7. Cake

I wanted to ensure that all the things required at the party were homemade  which means I was unreasonably enthusiastic.  Birthday parties for kids are good reason to engage them in art and craft activities. Right from making the invitation cards, decoration  and return gifts all of it had the kid's touch on it.   Most of the ideas were inspiration taken from Pinterest and other blogs, so I dont claim to be the owner of the creatives or the ideas.

For the invitation card we made this pretty apron out of card paper and polka dotted washi tape.  The outline was cut by the kids and the ribbons too were pasted by them. I did the finer details.

Dress : Buying birthday dresses are very tricky. You want your child to standout, yet you dont want to spend a lot of money as they grow out of the size so quickly. I decided to get a nice dress tailor made from Onebyten . Initially the idea was to create a princess dress but we ended but with a nice floral balloony skirt and top. She will grow out of the the top but the skirt will be reused for atleast 2 years as the waist is elastic and the length of the skirt is appropriate for long use.

Return Gifts :  I decided to make an apron and a recipe book and gave them  away with handmade newspaper bag. The bag were made with kids. We also added a paper flower made from the material of crowns of my boy's birthday. It was chess theme but that's for another day.  All the girls loved the aprons and the recipe book.

Recipe book cover designed by Hubby

Post party apron photoshoot

Food is the most cumbersome aspect of hosting a kids birthday party. No single child would have the same food preference. Nonetheless we played it safe by having pizza and fries for extremely fussy kids and made the children make their food own their own.

Here is the menu that the kids put together themselves . First one  was mini burgers. The patties were made in advance and kids assembled their burgers with buns, mayo,  cheese, tomatoes and sauce. Was quite a boost  to their confidence for cooking.
The second  treat they made were monaco biscuit bites.  Toppings of tomatoes, beans, onions etc were provided. Each one got 4 biscuits and they had to add mayo or tomato sauce and the choice of topping
The third and the last thing on the menu was  chocolate truffle. By this time I was exhausted of all my energies reserve  from giving demo's to answering questions to making material available. I tried to dissuade them saying its getting too late but everyone wanted to make their truffle so we went ahead. Marie biscuits, condensed milk and chocolate powder make the most easiest truffle in the world. It didnt come out very well but kids didnt mind it. They enjoyed getting their hands dirty.

We also decided to ditch plastic for the party to overcome the guilt of plastic waste but used plastic glasses left from the previous years birthday party. May be we will get some durable glasses for next year.

To know about the exciting games that we played at the cooking theme party come back for the next installment on my blog