Friends Season - Nail Art Love by Mukta Hariani

Today is the last day of our ‘Friends Season’. I hope you enjoyed this series of posts by friends. In the process, I learned a lot from them and this will keep me motivated for next couple of months for sure J Today’s post is about my lost love for nail art. There was a time when I used to do nail art almost every weekend. But, then I got married J and didn’t get time for this. I kept getting busy with settling down and travelling with him J Today’s post is definitely giving me a lot of inspiration to get back to my lost love!

Let me introduce you to today’s blogger – Mukta Hariani. She is also my cousin-in-law. I have known her for a little over 2 years. Although we have hardly met in person, I can tell from her instagram pictures that she is an unbelievably crazy shopper and a big time make-up junkie. The first gift that I received from her was a set of Maybelline lip-glosses and eye-shadow. The only thing she wants me to get from US is a bunch of Maybelline products not easily available in India. She is a lover of Bath and Body Works products. You have to follow her on instagram to see her excellent nail-art almost every other day. She super impresses me as she is a mom to a 1 year old son and manages to get time to do the nail art regularly. I feel she is a super mom!!! Hats off to you Mukta Di.

"Cutest photobomb ever"

Over to you -

I have been fascinated since my college days about painting my nails. It began with pearl white and baby pink to the hues of purple. We girls love to paint our nails irrespective of the length of the nails. Don't we?

Slowly my love for colors went on growing and so was the number of nail paints. While getting ready for work, having well-shaped and colored nails was a ritual so was for outings. I honestly confess I have been a hoarder. And pink being my weakness; I have all possible shades of it. During all these years, I have realized it's not just the color of the paint that one is picking, they all come in different variations. From glossy to matt, shimmer to glitters, tons of variants are available. And of course there are so many brands to choose from. So my nail bar grew bigger and bigger.

But there was more than just collecting these paints. Apart from having a matching nail paint or a contrast nail paint, nails can be decorated as well. And that's what got my interest – ‘The Nail Art’. From applying ready made nail stickers to making a design on the nail. Loads of stuff can be done. I couldn't paint my nails for 2 years while I was pregnant and after that got busy with the baby. Now since my little muchkin is grown a little bit I am all excited and geared up. I got my nail art accessories like stamps, dotting tool, nail art pen, glitters, top coats etc from ebay and amazon.

These days the nail paint brands have launched their paints especially for nail art. I am an amateur but learning is fun. Thanks to the internet !!! Its time consuming and needs a lot of concentration and patience. So when my darling Kiyan is sleeping, I get my hands on it. Best is when my friends and family appreciate my work on instagram J So while I learn more and post more, you guys have a great time. Shopping is fun so keep shopping and trying new stuff J

Beautiful designs!

More Nail art!

Friends Season - Work out, Stay Fit and Enjoy Life by Shubhi Jain

Today is day-four of our ‘Friends Season’ and I hope you are enjoying reading the interesting topics that my friends have come up with! Today is about another exciting thing that most of us are not really motivated for. It’s about fitness! I was never a person who would care a bit about exercising regularly or eating healthy or staying fit. Once in a while I would take resolutions to stay fit but I would break it within a week. Nothing ever lasted longer than a week! Although I have been surrounded by people going to the gym regularly, doing half marathons, full marathons, trialothons etc. but nothing ignited the spark in me! I always thought, it was not for me. But recently I joined WalmartLabs and saw more and more motivated people following their fitness regime religiously.  And that’s when I decided to do something about it and things changed gradually and as a result I ran a half marathon recently. That has been one of my biggest achievements of 2015. Read more about my half marathon experience here.

Let me introduce you to today’s blogger – Shubhi Jain – who is one of the motivations I got, after working at Labs. I have known Shubhi for little over 6 months now. She is very smart, energetic and an outgoing personality. She is a happy-go-lucky person who likes to shop and explore new places. She is not a kind of person who can sit and do nothing. She always keeps finding interesting things to keep herself busy during her pastime.

Shubhi exploring the City!

Over to you, Shubhi -

Well going to the gym or working out to be fit was never my thing, as I always had a body which never used to gain weight until I was 24 :P But things changed.. I completed my graduation, had an offer from WalmartLabs and went happily to India and there it started… gaining weight - may be because I was too happy with my accomplishments, so ate a lot or may be that is the age when your body have some changes I am not sure.  I started realizing that I am getting bit fat, my clothes are getting tight and I asked my mother that Indian food started hitting me, but like all moms my mom also said no you are not getting fat you are getting healthy :P. For an Indian, the love for food is more important than love for body :P so I didn't care too much about it.

After I came back and started my new job and with the good earning after almost two years I started spending on shopping, eating and whatever I like. I started getting bored with my daily routine.. Get up.. go to work.. come back.. pass time on facebook.. cook and then sleep late. After a few days I thought, let me start with something new on a regular basis and the first thing which struck my mind is starting gym and get fit. So after office, I started to make a routine of going to the gym in my apartment and without much knowledge about the equipment and workouts I just started with walking on treadmill and cycling for some 30 minutes each. I was feeling good after a few days as I started something new in my routine and following it regularly, though might not be intense enough for reducing fat. Then, I had a good discussion about gym and workout with one of my friends and he suggested me few workout routines from youtube videos to make it more intense and I started following it.  It started getting better with more soreness in the body and I started getting very nice sleep because of tiredness.

Then, just one day we were talking about dancing class at work while having lunch. Jaya was interested to join so to just start we went for cardio dance at Dance Identity and it was amazing, full of energy and awesome workout for one and half hour just dancing. I got a thought that even dancing is an amazing fat burn workout and I should make it a regular practice. I asked few other friends for company and then I found one of my school friends Apoorva, who was also interested to join. So we both started regular Bollywood Fuze class every Monday and believe me that change in my regular routine made me more inclined towards fitness.

I was interested in dancing since childhood so always participated in school, college and that interest even gave me a chance to perform at Walmart labs Diwali event. It was amazing experience to practice for hours taking time out of work and coordinating performance of all three of us. Everyone appreciated it. We received so many compliments for our performance. After the event, I continued my regular workout routine and added few more fitness classes in my schedule offered at my office like power shred, Bombay jam, crossfit and I feel much better now about my stamina and fitness level. I will surely continue this and moreover now I feel very happy about my routine. I would like to thank Jaya who told me to write few words about some topic and after so many confusions this topic came to my mind and I had so much to write about my inclination towards fitness.

  

Here are few pictures - 

Working out in office!

Dance performance!

Here's the video from the diwali celebration:

Friends Season - Love for Cooking by Heena Khiani

Today is day-three of our Friends season and its all about the most important thing in life. Yes, today is all about food J Who doesn’t get a craving for the best Chicken Biryani in town? Who doesn’t feel eating McAloo Tikki Burger at Mc Donald’s is heavenly? Who hasn’t gone to the closest pav-bhaji laari outside nukkad of the society very often? Who doesn’t want to cook dal-chawal after a week long trip eating outside? Well, it was me once upon a time but I am no longer the same ;) After coming to US, I started trying new cuisines and started cooking and since then there is no looking back J As it is truly said - necessity became the mother of invention ;) I am glad I came to US which taught me to love Food and most importantly love to cook J Enough of talking about me. 

Let me introduce you to today’s blogger – Heena Khiani - who loves to cook food as much as she loves to eat. This is her first ever blog post and I purposely asked her to write for ‘Friends Season’ as I wanted some diversity J And guess what – she did a great job by expressing her love for cooking with lots of delightful pictures. I have known her for more than two years now. She is my cousin-in-law, my wedding planner and above all my friend. She is an event planner by profession and did a magnificent job on planning my wedding. Although her name is Heena, we call her Honey as she is as sweet as honey. Thanks a lot honey for planning our dream-wedding and for this lovely blog post. I definitely want to try all these in our next India trip J

Honey is sweet, adventurous stylist, all rounder!

Over to you, Honey -

This is my first blog post ever! I would not be here writing about my cooking addiction if it were not for you Jaya. She asked me if I can write a blogpost for her where she is planning to feature few of her friends and suggested to write about “Anything that I like to do, shopping, travelling, recent adventures or any thing”. Though I am an event manager by profession and organize weddings, birthday parties, conferences etc and yeah I like doing that a lot but then I thought this time I would give a preference to my another creative passion - that’s COOKING!  Every once in a while after she asked me to write for her blog, I would sit in front of the computer and my brain would literally be empty! Zero words, zero thoughts.

It was back in 2005 when I tried my hands on cooking and that was because I had come to Pune for my higher education and got bored of eating at the restaurants and also the food that was made by the cook. So jotted down few simple recipes (dictated by MOM!) so that I get a homely feeling and yes of-course this passion for cooking is in my blood because my MOM is an awesome chef J. And the passion goes on....

To begin with the appetizers:

Chicken Kababs

Oven Grilled Garlic Chicken - Before and After

From the Chaat section,

Dahi Sev Puri

Invited my friends over for Pasta-Garlic bread and they suggested me to open up a restaurant. Hehe!

Pasta Garlic Bread

Time for some main course: Schezwan rice with tofu in soya, Chicken Biryani, Veg tawa and buttered corn rice with chicken chilly. This made my friends and relatives name me as MASTERCHEF.

Schezwan rice with Tofu, Chicken Biryani, Veg Tawa and Buttered corn with Chicken Chilly

So the readers of this blog post might be wondering why there wasn’t a single recipe mentioned, the reason is that I never follow a single recipe! Every single time I would cook something, it would be different than I cooked previously. Thats my recipe! Here I end my blog post with a sweet note J

Assorted chocolates

White Forest Cake (Father's Day Special)

Friends Season - Science behind Earrings by Dena Madhwani

Today is day-two of our Friends Season :) 'Friends Season' is a great opportunity for me to realize how creative people get when they are not given a topic to write and they come up with brilliant content and that too on a short notice. The purpose of this season is to learn this creativity from friends and imbibe that into my thoughts for the future posts of beingdhriti!

Have you ever wondered if there is a science behind what nail color you should wear or which dress might suit you? I have never and I am sure most of you haven't. But here is my curious friend Dena transforming her dislike for earrings to something that has become the most important part of her outfit by studying the science behind what will suit her face. I know her since more than two years now. She is very innocent, beautiful and energetic. She is a fun-loving person who loves to travel and take lots of pictures :)

Beautiful, Cute, Fashionista Dena with her Dashing Hubby Pankaj!

Over to you, Dena -

Jaya asked me to write a guest post for her blog. Now the big question was on which topic should I write? Jaya told me I can write about anything, any topic in this world. It made things easy :) I had arranged my wardrobe few days back and so the thing which was on the top of my mind was my earrings collection. So I thought it will be a good idea to share my story about earrings love!

Earlier I used to think big artificial earrings were not for me. It will never suit me. So I never tried them. Then I tried some times but never liked it. Then my very dear cousin Vaishali gave me some beautiful earrings as gift. I tried them and my thinking started changing. I started loving artificial earrings. Today I am in full love with my earrings. I feel like my any dress-up is incomplete without earrings! When I get perfect matching earring with my dress from my collection, I feel like THIS IS IT! :)

As I explored more about earrings, I found there is science behind it that which earring suits which type of face cut. With some research and trial and error you can find perfect shape of earrings, which suits your face cut.

My face-cut is round. So chandelier shaped earrings or any earrings that give my face more height and width are perfect for my face.

Butterfly earrings!

I should not wear round shaped earrings. It makes round face more round. And studs are also not very good option for my face cut. But I like studs also. So when I wear studs I make sure to give good colors to my eyes. Because when we try small earrings focus will be on our eyes and when we use long earrings focus will be on our lips.

After I started liking earrings. Wherever I visit, I started buying earrings. So I had many earrings collected from different places. But then there are many earrings and if you don't take care of it nicely then it may break or you may loose some. So arranging them nicely become very important part.

I use hanging jewelry organizer for my earrings. You can easily find it online or at stores like Marshalls or Ross. There are many earring organizers available like earring trays, earring holder stand, Wall mounted earring holders, Stylish hand or tree to hold earrings. You can arrange it by size, color, style. I have arranged it by color, so I can easily find it whenever I need and I can easily put it back.  If you are traveling then you can pack your matching earrings in small packing bags or small plastic box with hard surface so that it does not break.

I am a baby blogger who started writing by getting inspired by Jaya's very interesting, perfect and very lively blogs. I am very happy to write this small post for Jaya's blog. I hope you enjoyed my earrings story.