Things I've been doing: January/February Edition

It feels like it's been a busy month for me in January and February (I think because after nearly two weeks of hibernating and binge-eating chocolate Santas over the Christmas break, I felt very sociable!) I meant to post this a few weeks ago but got busy, so thought I'd combine January and February together!

I've been doing a lot of random things, but am hoping to catch up with some of my blog posts, and be a little more productive!

Things I did in January

Visited Dalloway's Terrace
This is a beautiful restaurant which I thought was worth a mention! The restaurant is unfortunately now closed until May for the summer greenery, but I'd recommend a visit because of how lovely the restaurant and ambience is (not to mention lovely food!)

Winter Lights Festival at Canary Wharf
I love light shows and every now and then, there's a big one around London which my sister and I always try to visit. This year it was set in Canary Wharf and did not disappoint - you can see my full post about it here!

Interview with Saira Rizwan at Tehxeeb London exhibition
I was lucky enough to meet and interview Pakistani designer Saira Rizwan, as well as look through her gorgeous bridal collection in London boutique Tehxeeb London.

Went Sale Shopping!
I didn't go too crazy this year, as I didn't really see many things I liked and also have been trying to save money for holidays for this year. I was a little more selective this year, and got a couple of dresses and scarves and some comfy shoes from the sales (the Christmas chocolate doesn't count!)

Things I did in February

World Hijab Day Pre Love event
This was a charity event sponsored by Malaysian hijab company Aidjuma, in celebration of World Hijab Day. I'll be positing more about this, but here's a little peek!

Went to Dominique Ansel Bakery
This is a famous bakery from New York named after the famous chef, and home of the famous cronut, not to mention some other seriously yummy desserts. I went here with a friend of mine who recommended it, and enjoyed every bit - we may have gone a little crazy and ordered a whole bunch of stuff!

London Modest Fashion Week
This was a modest fashion event with fashion designers from around the world, showcasing their designs on the catwalk and also exhibiting for people to buy - you can read my post about it here.

Pancake Day!
This is a little silly but I had to include it, my friends and I indulged in some pancakes and crepes with Nutella and strawberry for Pancake day, which was great fun.

I'm looking forward to the warmer weather, as I can imagine it getting a little busier, not to mention getting a chance to wear all my pretty summery stuff! Hubby and I have a few things planned over the next few months too, so here's hoping I'll have more to post about very soon!

Things I've been doing: May Edition

May is always a busy month, and this year it was busier than usual! My weekends have been pretty packed this month, and I've been pre-ocuppied with either preps for events or attending them! Having said that, May is one of my favourite months (not just because it's my birthday month!) and I love that summer is arriving and giving us a chance to shed the coats and wear our floral dresses.

Holiday to Norway
Hubster and I went to beautiful Norway a couple of weeks ago, and it was unlike any other holiday we've been to before - plenty of beautiful natural scenery, pretty towns and breathtaking views of mountains, seas, forests and snow. I'm still blogging about my adventures here, so keep an eye out for more posts!

Attended a bridal shower for a close friend
Most of my close friends are married now (and got married before me!) but there's a couple who aren't, so when one of them got married this month we made the most of it to make it special for her. I'll post about this soon, but here's a peek at the gorgeous decor!

Went to a mehndi & wedding event
This was for the same friend as the bridal shower, and it was amazing to see how beautiful the bride and all the guests looked, as well, as the decor details. I'll be posting about these too, soon!

Muslim Lifestyle Show
My sister and I attended the Muslim Lifestyle Show at the beginning of May, which was really fun because of the variety of goods for sale, and since it gave us a chance to find a lot of new brands and meet vendors - more about this soon!

A day out to the farm with family
My sister invited everyone to her end for a day out to the farm, with all of the nieces and nephews along with family, which ended up being a really fun day. There were plenty of animals to see and an entertainment section at the end for the kids (we played crazy golf!) as well as a restaurant for the kids to eat and the adults to relax. It was a really nice way to spend the bank holiday weekend, and the family ended the day with a barbequeue and cake at my sister's house!

My birthday
Like I said, May babies are the best! One of the reasons we went to Norway was partly for my birthday, but on the day I was lucky enough to get wined (the non-alcoholic variety!) and dined by the hubster!

Afternoon tea with friends
I've posted about this here, a really fun afternoon tea with some friends this week (for a long lunch!) which involved yummy sandwiches, scones, cakes and brownies. I loved the atmosphere of this tea room, and the beautiful fresh flowers and vintage floral print crockery which made a lovely, girly afternoon for us.

I'm looking forward to June, as it will be the start of a quieter month and also a time to reflect during Ramadan, which always goes by too quickly. I'll be sure to keep posting through the month, and perhaps some food ideas, so watch this space!

Things I've been doing: August Edition

July was been a little quiet for me (apart from Eid!) but I managed to keep myself busy in August! It also helped that my nieces and nephews were on summer holidays which meant we wanted to plan more stuff to do.

Had a tea party
I spent a good few weeks cutting out random things, decorating my living room and looking up random recipes for this, which meant being a lot quieter on the blogging front, but it all came together pretty well, and thankfully everyone loved it. You can see my post about this here, but the theme was the Mad Hatter's Tea Party (with added florals, pastels and book themes!) and there was a range of cakes and cold food, followed by lots of hot food (because we're Asians and it's just not a party without a few samosas!)

Been to a few weddings 
I've had a few weddings this Bank Holiday and a couple of weeks ago, which meant pulling out my pretties from my wardrobe - here's a look at some of things I wore. I'll be doing post on some of these soon, but it's nice to see lots of colours and styles together!

Went shopping!
If you've been reading this blog a while, you'll know I love my shopping and I can't resist a good bargain. I'm always on the look out for new styles and outfits, and I learned a lot from my last shopping experience looking for Eid outfits. I'm keeping an eye out for new outfits for upcoming weddings and Eids (don't worry, I've also been throwing out and selling my old outfits too!), and it's interesting to see how fast fashion is adapting.

Here's a few of the outfits I've seen in the last week or so, that I've been liking, there's a lot of pretty florals out there that I'm loving, so I'm hoping my next outfit will be a floral one!

Got a few gifts
Including a lovely keyring from Morrocco from a friend of my husband and mine - I picked the yellow drum because I thought it looked cute!

Mr Curly Fries and I have still got more things planned for the rest of this year - we have our first wedding anniversary in September (yaayy!), birthdays and we're also considering taking a holiday if possible - otherwise lots of days out!

What have you been up to?

Things I've Been Doing...A Mad Hatter Tea Party!

Sorry for being absent for a while folks, I've been caught up with organising a tea party at my house this weekend just gone, and now that it's over I can post a few pics and get back to fashion!

Here's a few snaps of the day, I tried to keep the theme as consistent as possible, and I loved how many ideas there were out there (thank you Pinterest!), as well as the random things I found around my house (the top hat was already in my wardrobe from a fancy dress party from years ago!)

I was really happy with how everything came together, and the fact that it really let my creative bug out, not to mention all the goodies and desserts I managed to make (and eat!)

You can see more pictures here about my afternoon and also some on my Instagram page as well, but it was definitely a fun day and worth all the hard work!

...I'm back!

I know I've been absent for a couple of weeks, but it's for good reason! Hubster and I decided to take a much-needed break to the Greek Islands (we both wanted to go somewhere hot and beachy) and have only just come back now - if you've been following me on my Instagram account, you will have seen all the beautiful places we've been visiting.

I won't overload this post with pictures from my trip, because I'll be doing a travelogue here, so please feel free to check this out!

In the meantime, I have lots of goodies and clothes to post about, and a few weddings happening in the next couple of weeks, so reviews and pictures coming soon!

- Curly Fries xx

Things I've been doing: February Edition

I'm a bit late with this, but thought I'd post it anyway, since it's only the beginning of March! I thought I'd do a quick catch-up post about what I've been up to, I'm starting to get out of winter hibernation mode and into spring mode right now (I just spent half this weekend soaking up the weak sun in the garden, making the most of it!)

Went to Choccywoccydoodah
My friend and I decided to treat ourselves for no reason other than we are both chocoholics, to a visit to the wonderful Choccywoccydoodah. You can see more pictures here, but it was an amazing visit to see some seriously beautiful cakes with a lot of detail. Brides-to-be, here's a place to go for inspiration for cakes - I doubt they're cheap, but there's some seriously beautiful floral cakes at the moment that I wouldn't have minded having for my wedding!

Bought some scarves and lipsticks
I've posted before about my latest haul, and I've manage to use most of the things I bought, my favourites being the scarves and the NYX lipsticks. I'm putting a hold on anything new at the moment, and looking at re-inventing styles using the things I already have (and saving up for other things for a few weeks or so!)

Met Dian Pelangi
I hopped along to a hijab styling workshop by reknowned Indonesian designer Dian Pelangi, whose designs I've followed for a while. I love how hijab friendly her designs are, and this workshop was a lovely opportunity to meet fellow bloggers, photographers and stylists, who gave a lot of advice and input into blogging and fashion.

Went to a birthday party for my niece, who turned two.
It wasn't an extravagant affair, but was full of fun, partly because of all the happy toddlers and good company, and partly because of all the beautiful decoration, cake, cupcakes and food made by the birthday girl's parents.

Celebrated World Hijab Day (well, kind of). 
I didn't do anything as such, but I did love the beautiful messages and contributions from hijabis and non-hijabis all over - I loved the fact that there were non-Muslims out there willing to try hijab in various countries to see what it was like. Overall, it was overwhelmingly positive and sweet - and a really lovely thing to see.

Went to the Brits Awards
My husband was lucky enough to be taken to the Brits Awards at the end of February by his company, guess who got to be plus one? I don't follow musicians as much as I used to, but it was great to see a lot of big names, and the atmosphere was pretty electric, making for a fun night out.

I've had a pretty eventful month, but with the warmer months coming up, I'm hoping for more (good!) stuff to happen - Mr Curly Fries and I have been talking about holidays, new places to visit, cooking and new things to try.

On another note, it's International Women's Day today, another day to celebrate! Although on that note, I'd like to emphasise that I'm all for women equality, and less for men-bashing - although I can certainly see a change in Asian women's position in today's society changing compared to the last few decades!

I'm off to watch some old movies and eat junk for now, but I'll be posting something soon enough!

Happy weekendings all xx

My Blogging Year...A Look back at 2014!

2014 was a very eventful year for me, especially as I had a lot of personal events happening in one go! I wanted to do a quick re-cap of a few things I have blogged about in my year, in case you missed some of them!

I got engaged - I was lucky enough to have my wedding fixed with my husband (at the time, to-be-husband) and started the mad flurry of wedding outfit designing, finding venues, caterers, and looking for all the various wedding things that comes up!

I had two new baby nieces born - to two of my older sisters (and both of them are now smiley little pixies!). They were both a beautiful blessing to their parents and to us, their aunties (and their cousins!), and have spent the last six months making us giggle.

I got married in a beautiful and crazy series of functions which almost passed in a blur! I had an amazing series of events, which made me feel pretty amazing and also gave me an opportunity to not behave so bridezilla-ish, and spend time with my family! Here's some of the outfits I wore during the wedding, I don't have a favourite because I loved them all!

I moved into my new house with my husband, and now have a huge wardrobe. Seriously, it actually fits all of my beautiful Asian clothes. Having said that, the look on my husband's face when he saw them all is something else.

I went on my honeymoon to the amazing Istanbul, and had some amazing food and saw some amazing sights. It's put the travel bug in me already, and I'm sure I'll be going somewhere again very soon!

There were several other things which happened this year, but these were the highlights of the year for me. I don't expect 2015 to be as stressful as 2014 was, but I do hope it's as fun! I've had plenty of dawats (dinners with family, friends' and relatives) which aren't quite done yet, and lots of opportunities to meet some lovely people, and find beautiful clothes, lipsticks and food.

Having said that, I don't really have any new year resolutions, but I am looking forward to the next year because I think it will be a new challenge, and it'll be especially fun to learn new things (like cooking!) and spend time with my husband and my family!

THE WEDDING POSTS: My Mehndi Trial

I've been finding it difficult to find the time to blog these last few days,

I mentioned earlier than I've been doing various trials for the wedding, one of them being a mehndi trial. My manager at work made fun of me about this, laughingly saying that in his day you used to just put on mehndi and make-up as it came (which your mum probably booked for you) and didn't have trials, and how 'you young girls'go overboard and need a trial and party for everything.

While I agree with his sentiments in a way, I also don't see any harm in doing a trial - the last few brides I have spoken to have done trials to make sure that they're happy with the results. Personally, I was a little fussy in who I wanted because I wanted someone reasonably price who was able to do intricate mehndi. Because my bridal outfit will have longer sleeves, I don't want the mehndi applied all the way up my arms, and would prefer the focus to be on the smaller, beautiful details. My other concern was the colour of the mehndi, which I wanted to be as dark as possible.

I've been looking at a lot of mehndi artists, both people I know who do it as amateurs as well as professionals (there were a few who had been trained by the famous Ash Kumar which caught my eye!). While I would love to save money and get a friend to do it for free, a lot of my friends don't do bridal henna to this extent, and I'll admit, I'm a little fussy - my sister confirmed my feeling that you only get married once and it's nice to get it done professionally.

My mehndi artist I ended up with was recommended to me by one of my best friends, who used her a few years ago for her own wedding. One of the biggest reasons why I opted for her was because of the colour that came out - the mehndi artist mixes her own mehndi rather than use the shop-bought ones, which I preferred because it meant that the henna mix and colour would be purer.

So I went to visit the mehndi artist at home and we discussed what patterns and styles I wanted, how much I wanted applied and she also showed me her portfolio of her work. We then finally did a trial, which was done quite quickly on both sides of my hand so I could see the differences in colour and design. I was really impressed with how neat the design was, and how it flowed - the mehndi artist explained that she couldn't go too intricate and small as it would make the mehndi mix together and ruin the pattern, and when dry the pattern would just be a red blur. I love round floral patterns as mehndi as well, so naturally asked her to draw a flower on my hand, which she obliged with! Here are the quick designs she did on my hand (I don't know why my hands look fat, they're not really!)

After the trial, the mehndi artist told me to wait for the colour to come out in the next day or two before making the decision to go with her, with I thought was helpful of her. This is the colour after nearly two days of the initial application, which I was quite happy with - the colour was quite red and the pattern was still very neat.

In the end, after the week wore off, I was happy enough with the trial that I confirmed my booking. I didn't want to do too many trials, and was happy with the price that this mehndi artist gave me, which was a lot cheaper than the other ones in area.

I'm still looking around for small mehndi artists who can do cheap mehndi on my family closer to the time, but I'm less worried about this, especially as we know friends who can do this, and my sisters are not bad either at henna patterns!

Things I've been doing: June Edition

I thought I'd do a post to show what I've been doing these last few weeks, so I don't disappear too much from blogging! Here's a list, in no order, of what I've been doing, so you can see how what I've been doing:

Making samosas
Just in time for Ramadan time! Every year my mum gets us all involved in making a big batch of samosas and spring rolls in time for Ramadan. I'm no good at making triangles, so I 'help' with all the little jobs like peeling and cutting the sheets, 'testing' the fillings and cleaning up stuff.

Mehndi trials
I did a mehndi trial yesterday with a mehndi artist who was recommended by one of my best friends, who had also used her for her own bridal mehndi.  The reason I was keen on this mehndi artist is that she was reasonably-priced, and she uses her own mehndi which she mixes herself and gives a lovely  dark colour (and I know this from seeing the bridal henna on my best friend, which came out a really deep red). I'll post more about the trial in a couple of days once I have a better idea of how the mehndi and the colour comes out, but here's me taking a quick sneaky picture half-way through the trial!

Housing Hunting
I've been spending a good few months looking at (and still looking at!) properties for myself and the hubby-to-be to move into after the wedding, which has taken up a lot of our time. It's still an ongoing, and very long process (not to mention this blog is about clothes and pretty stuff!) so I won't go into it too much, but we've been learning a lot about how to manage our wedding budget alongside our plans involving where to live. We don't have a massive budget, which is why we haven't planned a big wedding, but in hindsight, this has made our planning a little easier to do as it filters out the unrealistic and expensive stuff that would be too unaffordable for us.

My Dream House. Probably not on RightMove.com though.

Make-up Trials
Speaking of trials, a big one I did was my bridal make-up trial a while ago. I did a lot of research around bridal make-up artists in the UK, and particularly those who were based in London and their prices, looks and styles. This was important to me as well because I am someone who can be a little self-conscious with heavy make-up; and I think that you can wear amazing clothes and shoes, but the first thing people see is your face! I made a lot of enquiries and had a couple of trials, including one very successful one with my bridal MUA who I ended up booking. Again, this is a separate post that I will post very soon about as I have had a lot of queries from other brides-to-be about these.

My make-up trial with my baby niece, which went very well. Not sure I can afford her prices though.

Shopping for outfits
I know, I'm terrible, it's the first day of Ramadan and we're already shopping for Eid outfits. Any excuse to look at pretty things, right? My sisters and I have learned over the last few years that sometimes the weekends preceding Eid can get really manic, especially as people tend to hit the shops all at the same time to look for outfits. We're the type that prefer a quiet life, and would rather order something months before or just buy something while the shops are quiet. Granted, this doesn't always work because we still end up shopping last-minute, or we end up seeing something we love that is part of the newer Eid stocks two days before Eid.

Below on the left is a beautiful white and gold embroidered Sana Safinaz outfit I saw recently (a bit out of my budget for an Eid outfit, I'll admit), which I thought looked lovely, particuarly as an outfit which would suit women of all ages. The outfit on the right is a non-branded outfit from a local shop which was selling afforadable outfits. I've been hankering after a summery, simple outfit and this white embroidered one was quite pretty, particularly as it was in an angrakha or wrap-dress style, which I like. I haven't made up my mind what I want to buy yet, but this is one of the options anyway!

I'll be posting in more detail about most of these, but you can see I've been keeping busy! I'm still doing a few little things for wedding preps, and it's starting to come together nicely which is a big relief as the wedding is only two months away now. I've glad that I've got a lot of things sorted out before Ramadan started, so I can focus on fasting and not being stressed about the little things, although I'm sure there's a few little things left!