KAPRAY SHAPRAY: A Mehndi Outfit by Kamiar Rokni

I love this outfit by Kamiar Rokni, it's colourful, striking and I love the shade of purple this is in. I think this would make an amazing choice for a mehndi outfit, rather than the traditional yellow-and-green that I've seen a lot of. That's not to say I don't love the yellows and greens, but it's nice to see a different pop of colour, and I think the embroidery and stitching on this finishes off this outfit perfectly.

I also like the fact that there are a few mirrors on her dress too - it's been years since I've seen mirrors on clothes like these! (I also like the fact that she's holding boxes of jalebi or whatever it could be, makes a nice touch!)

Image from House of Kamiar Rokni Facebook page

A Flowery Eid Party...!

Last weekend, the sisters and I held our annual Eid Party, which is mostly an excuse for kids to be rowdy, for us all to dress up, and to of course, eat lots of scrumptious food!

This year, we went with a flowery, spring theme (with some rainbows!), which we thought would look simple but effective. Initially we threw a few ideas around, and wanted to go with a nice peachy-and-mint theme with a vintage feel, but we thought that this would get trashed in about three minutes after all the rabble turned up, so we changed the theme to something a bit easier to do and which looked pretty (and girly!) too.

Here's some of our decor, we spent a few hours the night before cutting out flowers and decorating the walls, with my nephews commenting every so often "Urrrgggh! It's so girly!!!" Nevertheless, we had great fun doing this, and it was quite easy to do (even if we did feel a bit like we were in a classroom at the end of it!)

Our parties are nothing without our food and candy bars, and this year was no exception. We didn't go overboard with sweets this year, as we didn't want to overload everyone with sugar, so my sister made our popular rainbow fruit kebabs, and my eldest sister made the bulk of the food we had spread out. A lot of our lovely guests also bought a dish with them, so we all had plenty to eat and took our time to enjoy the food!

To finish off, here is some of the dessert that we had, plenty of mithai and nuts, a few cakes, some cupcakes and of course, whatever was left of the candy bar and soft drinks!

All in all, we had a nice, relaxed evening, the kids made enough noise to show that they enjoyed ourselves, and we all had fun dressing up and talking to friends. I spent most of the evening tottering on my high heels but I still did feel glamorous in them!

HIGH STREET DESIGNS: Yellow Flowers and Paisleys

This is something I saw in the Green Street branch of Henna-Mehndi yesterday, a pretty yellow and beige anarkali embroidered with flowers and paisleys all over. I've seen a lot of fully embroidered dresses and anarkalis, both in the shops and on a lot of celebrities, and I can certainly see the appeal in them.

I really liked how feminine this dress looks, even though it is embroidered all over, it doesn't feel too jazzy or heavy, and it doesn't need much dressed up because of all of the work on it. I think this would look great for a summer party or a mehndi, although not everyone may be brave enough to wear a bold yellow like this one!

MAKE UP REVIEW: Ben Nye Banana Powder

I won't make this a long post, because I'm not a beauty/make-up expert, but this is something I've seen a lot of beauty bloggers and make-up artists using lately - Ben Nye banana powder. Made famous by Kim Kardashian (who does have, I admit, some amazing make-up on her), this is ideal for yellow-based skin, particularly Asians.

I bought this after my sister began using it, and it made her look quite glowy and golden, so I thought I'd give it a shot as well. I haven't used it properly yet, as I've only been testing it, but will post a review after I've used it properly a few times to see if I like it. So far from reviews, I can see that it would be best used as a setting powder for foundation, but I'm curious about whether it blends well, or whether it can even be used as a highlighter or eye brightener a la Kim Kardashian style. I'm still watching Youtube tutorials to see different results, but so far I have high hopes!

DESIGNER MODE: Beautiful Gypsy Skirts by Nomad

I love clothes which are slightly boho, out-of-the-ordinary, playful and colourful, and Nomad is a company which seems to be all of these - in their own words, "Nomad is the modern expression of rural fashion", which I think sums them up amazingly.

Nomad designs and creates beautiful and colourful gypsy (or 'banjaran') style skirts, layering in colour, floral prints and using all sorts of fabrics which reminds me of various Rajasthani and tribal clothes in India - and indeed this is the look they're aiming for.

I love how feminine and beautiful these skirts look - they're simple, striking, and look easy to pair with an Asian wardrobe or with everyday Western wear. I can especially imagine these being worn to a mehndi ceremony, or even to a summer wedding, and I think they would definitely look different to the styles I'm used to!

Nomad skirts are available to buy here, otherwise you can email/call them for enquiries. I particularly love this design, but I'm not sure whether I would shell out £75 for a skirt!

What do you think of these - would these be something you'd like to wear?

 All images belong to Nomad

My Eid...! Day #2

Eid day was a colourful affair for us, we didn't go completely all out, but we still dressed up in our glad rags and invited family around for my mum's yummy food and some presents for the little bebbles in the family! It was a nice relaxing day, which was nice as we managed to see most of the extended family in one day!

This is what I wore, a tealy green long dress which is a Widyaan design by Shahid Afridi (yes, the Pakistani cricketer!) - here's is the design I wore, although I didn't wear it as glamorously as the model did!

Here's me wearing it, which I had to take sneaky pictures of all day to get a good image!

We had plenty of food for lunch and for dinner, although I forgot to take pictures of all of the food! (And we had cake afterwards, of course!)

The girls in the family were also beautifully dressed on both Eid days, here's a few pictures of their outfits (I loved my sister's blue dip-dye dress most, more on this later!)

 

All in all it was a lovely Eid (and one which we all stuffed our faces on!) - it was good to get together and celebrate, and we even managed to hand out our qurbani meat to the neighbours in our glad rags!

How was your Eid? What did you wear?

My Eid...! Day #1

This Eid was was a fairly quiet one, spent with family, with all of us eating a lot of good food, taking silly photographs, playing with the babies in the family and generally having a good evening. The night before Eid (on Chand Raat), we were invited for dinner at my sister's house, which meant a good start to the Eid celebrations  (not to mention some yummy food!).

Here's what I wore, a deep bluey-indigo Threads and Motif outfit that I got stitched a few months ago (I looked for something new to wear in the shops before Eid, but didn't see anuthing I liked, so ended up with this instead!). I paired this with sparkly heels and some gold jewellery, but otherwise kept it fairly simple as I didn't want a fussy look.

Here's me wearing the outfit, which you can see was a simple, long kameez with straight, raw silk trousers for a very comfy, simple look (sorry for the grainy pictures, I didn't manage to get very many good images!) I love the embroidery on this outfit, which looked really pretty and neatly done, and didn't catch on anything the way metal-work does!

And here's some of the things that we did (and ate!) on the evening, which was also on my niece's first birthday, so we had plenty of pretty cupcakes and presents - not to mention some ooh-ing and aahh-ing at everyone's outfits, least of all my sister's beautiful Choos!