Another year has passed and before we get ready to wave it goodbye in style (or not...I plan on wearing my sweatpants), I took the time to reflect on all the blog posts I wrote this year, pretty much like I did last year.

So without any further blabbering here goes my list :

January

February

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

This year is the first year since 2006 that I am yet to bake Christmas treats of any kind. How did that happen?

I'm glad you asked!

It started in late November when the fan on my microwave/convection oven failed me and caused the oven to overheat ever 10-15 minutes of it being in action.
A problem that should have been fixed very easily but thanks to Samsung and their utterly lousy customer care it took until last Wednesday to be resolved.
A saga that started with a confusion about an extended warranty from Croma and Samsung not being honest upfront about the process.
To be clear, the process is apparently to call Croma first, so that they can call Samsung who will then send a tech to check the issue and then send a report back to Croma before doing anything. When the oven failed me I stupidly called Samsung, unaware that they could not directly call Croma and sort their own business.
There was a lot of yelling, a lot of them putting the blame on me, some request cancelling, request replacing, a part that may or may not have come and Croma's struggle on getting the Samsung guys to cooperate.

But yeah! I got my oven back to business a week and a half before Christmas! It's a Holiday Miracle!

Except I got busy, then managed to get cold (I am still struggling to get my voice back) so now baking is really down low on my priority list. I'll probably get to it soon, just to mark the event, but it won't be a big cookie production like the other years.

In the meantime, I thought it would be great to round up all my holiday baking recipes posts in one place for all of you guys.

Milano Cookies

Zimtsterne (Cinnamon stars)

Brunsli

One of the question that inevitably pops in expat groups around Christmas is : "Where can I find Christmas themed gift-wrap paper in Mumbai" (or in any other Indian city).

This usually bring me back down memory lane of the first time I was fully intent on celebrating Christmas the "right" way with my back then boyfriend now husband. It was in 2005 and the struggle was so real I blogged about it.
Things got a bit better over the years but a little over a decade later, it is still not that easy to find quality gift wrap paper that doesn't shout "Happy Birthday" or come with either Mickey Mouse or the Disney Princess gang.
And to all my Indian readers, NO NO NO and a million time NO that cheap, flimsy metallic foil paper is not an option for Christmas paper.

This is something that is hard to explain because it is a cultural thing, and gift giving in India doesn't really have the same meaning it has in Europe to begin with.
And if there is one special occasion where gift giving is a MAJOR big deal in Europe it has to be Christmas. Not only must the gift inside being super meaningful and carefully chosen for the person who is going to receive it, it also has to be elegantly gift wrapped because the way you present it is as important as what's inside. It shows you really truly care about whoever you are giving it to.
Plus, unlike birthday presents, the Christmas ones usually get displayed under the tree at the start of the party.
As a kid I remember seeing our gifts under the tree a day before we actually got to open them, there was a kind of anticipation about it. And when you think about it, displaying gifts under the tree makes plenty of sense in the old Winter Solstice concept of building up momentum to celebrate the return of yet to bee seen light and goodness.



Anyhow, that is why the question of gift-wrap paper pops in expat groups, you never hear it about birthday, we all happily ask the shop to wrap our less exceptional gifts in flimsy sheets then.
But come the Holiday season and we are all on the hunt for special paper.

Last year I got lucky and found actual Christmas themed  paper at my local stationery shop, this year though they didn't have anything marketed as such. Which is why I used white, gold and silver paper, it's still festive, even if it is less traditional.

Gift-wrap paper in India tips and tricks: 

- The best place to start looking for gift-wrap paper is at your local stationery store or gift shop.

- Gift-wrap paper is commonly sold per sheet rather than per roll. This means you better stock up on enough sheets as bigger gifts might require more than one sheet.

- There are some stores that will sell rolls of paper, BUT be aware of the fact that there might not be more than 2-3 sheets worth of paper on the roll, and it will often cost you way more than said sheets.
Some shops, including mine also doesn't seem to understand the difference between adhesive glitter contact paper rolls and gift-wrap. I made that discovery the hard way one year.

- Bows and ribbons to decorate gifts is quite hard to find too. I have done without them for quite sometime. It's not worth the hassle or the price, you can decorate your gifts without those.

-Whenever you see a gift-wrap paper that is nice looking, buy it. Even if you are weeks if not months away from Christmas. Create your own stash of paper over time, it will replace the gift-wrap paper roll thing you were used to all your life.

Ways to get festive looking gifts WITHOUT a Christmassy paper wrap: 

12 days left until Christmas folks!

One of the thing I do not miss one bit about the Holiday from back in Geneva is the pressure of having to complete all your gift shopping early to avoid the rush and the crowd. I also have way less gifts to come up with which is an added bonus if you ask me.

If you are planning on celebrating Christmas the very traditional way in India, chances are you are on the lookout for gifts ideas and roaming around in malls and markets trying to figuring out what to give to your loved ones.

I decided to put a bigger gift guides together this year (last year I did one just for tea lovers, and yes the links still work).
This year I give you my pick of gifts for Homebodies, Kids, Artists and Budding chefs. It goes without saying that this is an Affiliate post, if you click any of the links below and buy anything I get paid at no extra cost to you.

So without any further chit chat, let's dive in!

Gifts for the (Quirky) Homebody

Gifts for kids

Gifts for the budding chef

I am officially releasing the 2017 Edition of the Printable calendar today. Consider it my St Nicolas present to you all. Ishita woke up to a bunch of candies, you guys get to start planning your year 2017 in style.

As usual I spent a lot of time deciding the look I wanted to go for, and even more time to turn each of my doodles into actual calendar pages.

I started the thought process in July, put together my first page by September and finished the whole thing by the end of November, but only after a sudden bout of panic that prompted me to say : "Holy crap! We are running out of November faster than I thought".

This year there are quite a couple of changes compared to the 2016 or even the 2015 edition. First this is the first edition I designed using Photoshop, the two previous years I was working with a very old version of Paint Shop Pro. This isn't the change you will notice as it is a backstage thing, but it's still worth pointing it out.

You probably got a sneak peak of the look I went for when I posted a picture of my January page on last month's "Bulk Tasking" post. It looked like this:



As you can notice, the biggest change this year is my moving away from the traditional square boxes for the days. I replaced them with a hexagonal boxes instead, and decided to colour their outline to match the image I painted for each month. You'll have to download the calendar to know what I am talking about as I also decided to not give you an entire sneak peak in this post, nothing like a little curiosity in this world.

For both 2015 and 2016, I went with an Indian season and festivals theme for my graphics. This is not going to be the feature of this calendar. Nothing wrong with it, it's just that I wanted to try something new. That means that the header for each month is a watercolour painting with geometrical -ish doodles.

Another big change is that the Month name is NOT typed with a fancy font. This is my ACTUAL handwriting. I wrote each month in cursive with a calligraphy brush pen, scanned it, edited it to look nice and dark and added it to my calendar page as a separate element from the background image (so that I can re-use it in other graphics).


The few things that didn't change are:

- I spent hours working on that calendar, like I did the two previous years and I all I ask in return for this hard work is that you DO NOT claim it as your own, redistribute it as such, or take my work apart to create your own. I watermarked each of my watercolour designs to discourage this kind of behaviour.
If you love my work, re-share my blog post, or write about it in a blog post and link back to me.

- I will repeat what I did all this past year and offer each individual page for download on the 1st of each month for those of you who cannot download the whole calendar at once (it's a big file).

- As usual, a comment to say thank you is always going to be appreciated, we all love warm fuzzies, and it is a good habit to be grateful in life.

Wishing you all the best for the end of this year (I'm not going to disappear of the blog) and the next Calendar post will be due on January 1st.

So what are you waiting for? Go download it already!

A big huge Christmas tree, as festive and important as it is in my world, may not really be something everybody would go after.

There could be space constraints, cost constraints (let's face it the big ones aren't really cheap), personal taste, or even personal beliefs coming in the way.

If for any reason you can't just commit to a big Christmas tree in your house (or workplace) but still really really need to have a tree, here is a solution :

A small Pom Pom Christmas tree

Your pom pom tree is ready to decorate

My oven had the nerve to break last weekend leaving us in a Christmas cookie crunch. Fortunately it is not a big damage, it is still under warranty and it should be fixed in a day or two.

In the meantime, Ishita and I needed another project to keep ourselves busy. I tapped into my "idea tank" and fished out a project I have been meaning to do for a couple of years.
You see, comes Christmas and the market here in India is flooded with either cheap and tacky decorations, or really nice ones that are way way overpriced. There is an emerging middle ground as of now, but not for everything.
A couple of years back I saw a whole bunch of Christmas themed plates for sale in a home decorating store and I always thought I should make my own one day.

The plates in the picture above pretty much looked like this before I got started on them:

If you live in India or are familiar with India at all you know that these are good old regular stainless steel plates normally used to eat everyday food.
The type of plate that always made me think of a camping trip and only really use as baking trays nowadays (don't judge).

This type of plate is super easy to find in India, and super affordable too. I just headed to my local D'Mart and bought two new ones last weekend (the one in the picture above is one of my "baking trays".
If you can't find a steel plate or tray, I am sure you can do it with a ceramic plate or even a plastic one.


The first need you will need to do with your plate is spray paint them in a well ventilated area (seriously spray paint fumes are nasty). For this project I used "Silver Red" paint from the brand Bosny, which I luckily found at my local arts and craft supply shop but can be bought on Amazon as well.

I sprayed two layers on the inside, and the outside of the plate and allowed a whole day for them to dry properly.


Once completely dry and oh so glossy, I first used one as a prop for my Advent Calendar paper cone gift wrap post.
Then, I handed one over to Ishita and kept the other to myself. We took some of my acrylic paint out, along with my beloved 3D liner glitter glue (because it's me and Christmas is pretty much the peak of glitter glue season!).

Ishita painted the Christmas tree plate in the picture above, all by herself might I add. It now resides as a centrepiece on our coffee table.

As for myself, I painted a snowflake plate:

It currently grace the centre of our dinning table. It goes without saying that these plates are DECORATIVE, I highly doubt the spray paint is food grade. So if you decide to create a few pretty plates of your own, do not use them to serve hot food unless you managed to get a food grade paint to do the work.
I think at the most, these two plates above can hold a few cookies, or serve as a tray to display snack bowls. In any case, I would not want food grease and dish soap to destroy my art work.

This could be the perfect way to make lasting family memories with your kids, letting them each paint a Holiday plate and then display it year after years as soon as December comes around. If you have enough space, you could even make it a family tradition to paint a plate a year and display them all around your home.




This post contains affiliate links, this means that if you buy anything I get paid a commission. 

That's it! We are now in the final stretch toward 2017.

I don't know why, but for some reason this year has been both long and passing too quickly at the same time. Not that I miss the sluggish bits, and am happy to see them in the past where they belong, but it seems it was only yesterday I was sharing the whole 2016 edition of that calendar.
Yet, here we are in December and my 2017 calendar is just about ready to go (stay tune the whole 12 months of it will be up for download later this month).

But before we get all worked up about January, the new year resolutions and yes my new calendar, let's just take the time to enjoy the season, spend time with family and friends and give 2016 a proper goodbye.
This months Calendar page, is Christmas themed and celebrates the joy of giving and celebrating. You can go download this last month of the year's page here.

This month I'll be indulging in baking goodies, crafting and spending time with my friends, December business as usual. I think it is nice to have a whole month to celebrate those bonds and be grateful about what and who we have in our lives. 

The countdown to the end of the year and the arrival of Santa is starting tomorrow, and true to the family tradition, I did put together an Advent calendar for Ishita.

This year I am re-using the one I made in 2014 for the 3rd time. Those little paper cups are still looking good and it would have been a shame to throw them away. Waste not want not has been the theme of this entire festive season for me. After all, I already did upcycle some of my Diwali decorations this year.
The great thing about these paper cups, is that all I am left to figure out is how to gift wrap the Advent calendar presents. Last year (and the year before that) I went for green "kite paper". This year, I decided to not spend money on something that will end up in the trash before the end of December, so I came up with this:

Yes, you are seeing things right. I made little paper cones out of newspaper for this year's Advent calendar.
To make them a bit more festive looking I added little "Christmas tree" tags to each of them.

To make those tags I used two paper punchers, some red paper and a gold marker. First I punched holes with the Christmas tree puncher and then used my circle puncher to frame the christmas tree.
If you are going to do a lot of paper craft projects and/or scrapbooking, I can only recommend that you build yourself a collection of these cute paper puncher.
You can find them in most stationery and art supplies stores these days, and if all fail, Amazon comes to the rescue with a big range of paper puncher fitting all budgets. You can get a Christmas tree shaped one similar to mine for a hundred rupees, that is how affordable they can be.
The metallic marker I used is from Staedtler, which I treated myself to last month and is part of a set.

To make the little paper cone all you need to do is cut out squares in an old newspaper. For this project I used 16 cm by 16 cm squares, if you need them to be bigger or smaller, you know what to do.
To fold them into a cone, place the square in front of you so that it looks like a diamond shape. Then, fold the left bottom edge to the middle of the paper (on the vertical axis).
Put some glue on that folder part and then fold the bottom right edge over on the glued surface and press down.

At this point, you may have to let the glue dry a little if you didn't use a glue stick. Once the glue is dry, or holding its own, stuff your little cones with goodies. This year I kept it simple and stuck with chocolates and candies.
Then fold the top flap of paper over and secure with a bit of tape.
Last but not least, take one of your cute Christmas tree cutout tags and paste it on the folded flap.

If you are doing an advent calendar, repeat the process 24 times.

I placed one cone in each of the 24 cups of my Advent calendar. If you don't have that kind of set up, you can still make an Advent calendar in a jiffy by simply hanging them all on a string using clothes pins and assign a number to each of them.
Or, you could display them all in a basket or on a pretty tray you leave on the table, again with each cone bearing a number from 1 to 24.

Making the cones and stuffing them took me less than an hour. If you bypass the slightly more time consuming paper punching phase and simply use number stickers on your cone, you still have time to pull this one off today itself.





This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you buy anything on Amazon after clicking those links, I get paid a commission. 

You may have noticed I haven't been as productive as before on the blog front. The truth is, I found myself in a pickle with a productivity issue.

We have reached that time of the year when too much happens at the same time (hello festive season!)
I also had quite a few changes in routine happening all year long which had me wondering on which foot to hop more than once.
Blame it on the previous school inconsistent schedule, followed by a long  109 days Summer break, a new school, health issues that needed to be addressed and before you know it Diwali comes looming and leaves you in a daze.
It's almost the end of November, the end of 2016, the start of the Christmas season is upon us, and just yesterday I realised I still had too much left to do before we kiss this year goodbye and ring in the new.

Namely it was my unfinished 2017 Calendar project that was nagging me still as of yesterday!
And yes the picture above is giving you  preview of what is to come.

Productivity is something I find myself very often struggling with. Mostly because my brain tend to pull me in about 3000 directions all at once, the joy of being a creative thinker!
To get to do any serious dent in my daily to-do list I often need to just disconnect myself from any digital distraction and force myself to stay on task or at the most, finish a task before starting a new one.

What I recently discovered though, is that it is WAY easier for me to stay on track if all the tasks of the day follow a close theme. I call this bulk tasking. This means instead of first doing a blog post, then trying a new craft project, then squeeze in  little social media and add a dash of art and doodling before skipping to the less glamorous household chores I can't ignore anymore, I make sure my day is filled with similar tasks.

For example, yesterday I filled my to-do list with finishing my 2017 Calendar, and editing a few pictures I already had for coming blog posts. There was nothing else on that list that would take me to another room or distraction, and guess what? I did finish my calendar and other graphic work, it is all done!
Today my to-do list was all about things household related: cleaning, ironing a few clothes, grocery shopping, decluttering. It is 2.45pm as I type these words, and my household chores have been all done for over an hour, I even managed to squeeze in meeting friends for a quick cup of coffee.

Tomorrow my list will be pretty much all about planning and scheduling blog posts in order to find my blog groove back.

Bulk planning and tasking turns out to be a big time saver too, and at the end of the day I feel a bit less exhausted too. With less interruption in my flow, and less running around I get the satisfaction of a day well spent comes the evening. This helps me feel more relaxed and promote a better night's sleep.
So yeah, November has been a very slow month on the blog, but it is only because I am gearing up for a more productive time ahead.

How do you ensure you get things done in your day? 

My apologies for the lack of blog updates. I am in that "in-between festivals" mode right now. I already let you know I am starting to think about Christmas at the moment.
But I also found myself occupied with some school holidays, a bunch of playdates, some outings, and the fact the weather is really starting to feel really nice in Mumbai.

Inspired by that really lovely weather and the promise of a cool to slightly cold Winter to come, I came up with a Fall inspired shopping spread this month.
We don't really get much of an Autumn season over here, pretty much everything stays in evergreen mode, and the only really palpable change comes in a drop in humidity levels and a slight drop in night temperatures.
If there is one season that makes me homesick it has to be Fall and its stunning display of red, gold and rust tones. It's that time of the year when my friends picture of nature walks and cosy fall themed home decor make my heart skip a few beats.

But, while Mother Nature puts less of a colourful show over here, there is no denying that there are some activities that we only get to really indulge in until this time of the year comes around.
A mix of spending time outdoors during the day and blissfuly cosy at home in the evenings.

Home decor might not really be about Autumn leaves, and pumpkins, but it can really be about warmth tones and feeling cosy.

Like I do every month, I browsed Amazon and put together my picks of the moment in a spread. Like every months, this is an affiliate post. If you click the links below and by anything on Amazon, I get paid.

Without any further ado, here is my selection for your home and wellbeing this November:


1) When I was browsing Amazon for this month's spread, I found myself looking at natural brown tones, wood and wicker. Those ethnic looking wooden serving spoons really stood out with their warm inviting painted detail.

2) The one thing I look forward every year in Mumbai is that time of the year when you no longer really need the ceiling fans as much, if at all.
When they go off, it means you can burn a few scented candles again (try lighting a candle under a fan...TRY!)
This time of the year also makes me long for warm scents, this vanilla candle in a jar is just what the season requires.

3) Fall is also that time of the year to just spend your cooler evenings home with a good book. This year, don't just dog ear your book's pages or use a blah piece of paper to mark your page before bedtime. Use a cute bookmark instead, and this adorable beaded beauty just goes with the season of warmth and cosiness.

4) Nothing conjures memories of Fall better than a wicker basket filled with apples or nuts in my book. Stash your favourite munchies in this round cane basket. It's marketed as a "roti basket" on Amazon, and this could even be an excuse to throw a fun dinner for your friends at home and serve, chapati, naans or paratha in style, and there is no arguing it looks a million time better than your standard insulated Milton roti box.

5) I am a tea lover, and November is the time of the year to drink more tea (well at least for me). And while it probably would take an entire blog post to list ALL my favourite teas, I can at least start by recommending a "starter kit".
As far as tea bags go, the brand Goodwyn has some really good quality brew. Their "Assorted Collection" tin is a great way to discover the brand's classics.
This is one box I purchased more than once (I am on my 3rd one!) and my absolute favourites in the box are their warm "Kasmiri khawa" blend, Jasmine green tea and Darjeeling. If you don't like tea bags, they also sell a lot of their variants in loose leaves tins. Once those tins are empty they make for great home decor props.

This is a dilemma we Western culture people think about a lot, wether we are in India, or in our homeland and before you judge it, let me tell you, it is a valid one:

When is it ok to start planning for Christmas? 

So, really when do you really need to start thinking about Christmas?

As early as you need to in order to feel happy and non-stressed in December. 

Diwali has come and gone, and just this morning I was sweeping away the rangoli and flowers from the hallway.
Now that we are in November, I am going to be moving toward Christmas themed posts pretty soon as I don't want to find myself stressing out in December instead of actually enjoying the month that marks the most special festival my culture has to offer.

But before I do, I want to share one last post about Diwali with you. As you know, I decided to recycle most of my last year decorations. I turned two lanterns into new fresh looking ones, we re-used all the Diwali lights we bought over the years, and the Diyas we've been using are the ones we bought in 2012. We can't bring ourselves to just mindlessly buy more stuff when we already have things that are still looking good.
Our Diwali shopping this year consisted of a few sparklers, our favourite sweets, flower and powder to make a rangoli and a couple of Diyas bought at Ishita's school sale (goes toward a good cause).

So how did our home look like?

Here are a few pictures I have to share with you all:

If you follow me on Instagram (and you totally should!) you already saw a version of that picture. This pretty wooden tray is nothing more than the infamous tray that has had 3 lives already. It currently sits in our hallway, on top of the shoe rack, right by the door.
This Diwali I gave it a festive makeover by filling it with fresh flowers (left over from the rangoli) and placed one of the gel candle purchased at Ishita's school sale in the middle.

Speaking of rangoli, the 2016 edition looked like this. Ishita wanted to get some of these rangoli stencils, I wanted to keep doing it with flowers, so we combined the two.
This is the first year we do a rangoli by our own door, all the previous years there was a toddler bicycle taking that very space in the picture above.

This is the bigger picture. Our hallway is narrow and the flat next to us has been empty for years (whoever was in it moved out around the same time we moved in). I took advantage of it and decorated our whole half of the hallway with orange and yellow marigold, and even threw in some blue glitter in the mix to give it some extra oomph.

If you've been wondering how my "flowing ribbons lantern" looked like all lit, there it is! Sorry though, I don't have anything else to share about the "Fish scale lamp". I spent most of last Saturday evening trying to figure out how to get all my power cords and multiplugs to connect everything and every combination was either too short to reach that lamp, or too dangerous considering our lovely upstairs neighbours still haven't fixed their bloody AC that nearly killed me last February and a new drip has shown on the balcony, in the direct path of the power cord!

Safety over an extra light it was for us, and the fish scale lamp stayed off.

This is pretty much it, we had a simple Diwali, just us with minimal crackers and just family time. 

Geesh! Here we are just 2 months away from kissing 2016 goodbye!

I don't know about you but I find myself feeling a bit edgy. I have the 2017 Calendar to finish creating and December and the Christmas season is approaching very quickly.

In fact, it's not until this morning when I replaced the October calendar page, with the November one that I realised I didn't schedule this very blog post!
We ran out of October before I got the time to get to it. I got completely consumed by Diwali (I'll get into that in my next blog post).

So, what's going on in November over here? Not much this year, Diwali happened on October 30th and people are likely to spend the next few day in a food and sweets semi-coma or traveling back to their home after a family visit, glad to finally get some rest.
The post Diwali period in India marks the end of the festive season for many, and a much deserved breather for those who are going to celebrate Christmas and the Advent in December.

November is also the start of the Strawberry season in India, a fruit that has gained a slow but steady popularity over the past few years. Their reputation as a super food and the fact that they are a diabetic friendly snack has made the Strawberry season something to look forward to. Especially when they grow not far away from Mumbai in the Western Ghats.

This is exactly why I chose to illustrate this month's calendar page with a cute strawberry.

2016 has come and gone, and I removed the links to the files. If you are looking for a calendar printable know that my 2017 edition is up for download, find it out in this blog post.

With Diwali fast approaching, the time has come with me to share another DIY project that involve turning something old into something new and fresh.

As stated in my previous post, I decided not to buy any lanterns and lights this Diwali, preferring to re-use what I have.

This pretty "fish scale" lampshade started as a faded paper thing we bought last year and didn't pass the test of time and the elements very gracefully (no surprise there):


Once upon a time, it was hot pink and went with our whole pink Diwali balcony decor. A year later and the paper is brittle and washed out, but the structure of the lampshade was still good.

A little Pinterest inspiration later and I was cutting little circles in blue paper and gluing them away.

I used what is commonly called "Kite paper" in India, aka the super thin almost tissue like paper I knew as "silk paper" growing up.

For this project I bought 10 big sheets of blue kite paper, but have some leftovers so I guess I could have done it with 8 sheets.
I cut strips of paper across all 10 sheets and secured them with a binder clip. Then, I used a drinking glass to draw circles on the top sheet and cut them all in one go.

Starting at the bottom of the lampshade, I applied regular white glue (Fevicol MR) along the wire that ran all around the lampshade and applied my circles of paper on the glue.

The wire goes in a spiral from top to bottom, you simply keep following it as you go. By the end of it, your entire lampshade will be covered in blue overlapping circles of paper giving it a fish scale appearance. Don't worry too much about the glue dripping a little, it's fine, each overlapping layer will cover the drips, just make sure it doesn't reach the unglued tip of your "scale".

To complete this project I took 2 hours, including the paper cutting and pasting.

That lampshade went back in the exact same spot it was in before and is ready to be lit this Diwali. And since it will probably stay there long after the festivities are over, the blue hue will make it match my decor.