Travel diaries- A nostalgic trip to my village

hi readers!

I am back with yet another blog. I hope all of you are doing well in your lives. I have been to many places which I want to tell you guys about. I have shared few travel blog posts before as well. Today, I thought why not talk about my roots and by roots I mean the place where I belong to. 

So last month I went to my village with my family and it was a fun trip like always. I went there after two years which is quite surprising because when we were kids, we used to spend entire 3 months of summer vacations there though we used to get bored because there was no internet or cable on TV . But now I miss going there often :(.

Breath-taking view near our ancestral home

On the traveling day (BTW it was a damn hot day of July), we filled our backpacks with chocolates, chips, cold water bottles and not to forget chewing gums (It is necessary for me specially when I am travelling to the mountains because I have issue of travel sickness). I was excited as a child that day.

This is a view from our ancestral home. I have heard this spot was a mini water fall hundreds of years ago

My village (Nanyah) is somewhere near Kotli Sattian. You can say it is some what near Murree. It is a refreshing place with breathtaking recreational beauty. On my way to village we pass by Nilore Atomic Factory and then by Simli Dam. 

A view of our ancestral home after rain

This place has become a picnic spot for the tourists as you guys are aware that Murree is overly crowded in summers. It has various hiking points and few rest houses for the tourists. 

Magnificent door of a room (Just look at the wall and door)

View in the rain

We stay there in our ancestral house which is about 100 years old and let me tell you it is a great piece of architecture. You will get to see all of it in the pictures. Walls of the house are made of hand designed pathar (stones) and roofs are made of wood and covered with metallic sheets just like the hotels and rest houses in Murree. 

Hiking track (This is what I call it) and grazing land for cows and goats

I remember going for hiking with my cousins in summers. There is no proper track for hiking but still it is a great spot for hiking and trekking. 

Ten years old lily plant

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Book review-Like the flowing river

Whenever I am free, I love to read books. I love reading books since I was a child. I read books regardless of their genre and author. Today, I will review my latest read that is "The Flowing River". The author of this novel is Paulo Coelho and he needs no introduction. One of my favorite novel "The Alchemist" is written by Paulo Coelho. He writes about smallest and simplest things in a beautiful manner that is mesmerizing for the readers. 

Some chapters of this novel "The Flowing River" are very short, merely a few paragraphs. When you are done reading those chapters, you may feel empty – as if a story is suddenly cut short half-way through. Yet as you let the minimal words sink in, you realise you were meant to fill in the empty spaces yourself – with your own thoughts, your own reflections, meanings and dreams.

Every story in this book has a meaning. If it is openly shown, then you will enjoy the read and take away the meaning easily. If it’s hidden, then you will enjoy the search to find it and take it away. They’re not complex  meanings, but mostly simple ones that we can try. They might not seem realistic, but they’ll give you a sense of belief. They are beautiful because of that.

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Food Corner- Cupcakes

Hello lovelies!

Today, I’ll be sharing recipe of cupcakes. Without wasting any time, let’s get started.

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 cup oil

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

Food color (orange, green, yellow)

Procedure:

Before stating, you all need to preheat your oven at 180^o C. Place the paper cups in cupcake tray. Whisk the eggs well in a bowl with the electric blender so that they become foamy. Add sugar in eggs and blend them together. Now add oil and blend the three ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda. Add egg mixture in it and mix well. Now separate the batter in 3 separate bowls. I used 3 different food colors so I used 3 bowls. You can use as much colors you like. That’s totally up to you. Take a pinch of 3 different food colors, mix them separately with one teaspoon of milk each and then pour them in their respective bowls having batter.

Now, pour the batter in the cupcake tray and pop it in the oven. Bake it for 20-25 minutes. After 20-25 minutes, check if the cupcakes are baked by inserting a match stick in it. If the match stick comes out clean, cake is ready but if it does not come out clean bake it for another 5 minutes. When cupcakes are done, take them out of the tray and let them cool down. I like them plain. But you can serve them with vanilla or chocolate toppings. Do give this recipe a try and enjoy your cupcakes with hot coffee or tea.

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Book review- The Forty Rules of Love

Hi guys! Today I will be reviewing my all-time favorite book “The Forty rules of love”. I read this book a year ago and I totally loved it.

This book is written by Elif Shafak, a French born Turkish writer. Elif Shafak is one of the most acknowledged authors and feminist in Turkey. The Forty Rules of Love is one of her best sellers of all-time. This novel consists of two parallel narratives. The contemporary narrative is about an unhappily married Jewish housewife named Ella living in Northampton, Massachusetts. Ella works for a literary agency and currently she is given a book named "Sweet Blasphemy" by Aziz Zahara. The sweet blasphemy is the second narrative of this novel. Sweet blasphemy is actually about a wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz, who is a mystic Sufi. He sees the vision of his death and he know that he should find a companion to whom he can deliver his knowledge to. For that Shams travels from Samarkand to Baghdad where he gets to know about Jalaluddin Rumi, a famous scholar of that time by a Sufi. Shams travels to Konya where Rumi lives and the story unwraps itself as to how they become friends, how drastically Rumi starts to change and how people start to hate Shams including Rumi's family. On the other hand Ella becomes acquainted with the writer of sweet blasphemy Aziz Zahara over the email after she becomes highly affected by the sweet blasphemy. Over the course of emails with Aziz Zahara she finds out she is ready to give up her life, her children, her husband for the guy on the other end of the email.

I really liked the novel and most of it is because of Shams of Tabriz, from his rules of love to his strong personality to his love and belief on god everything was mesmerizing. The forty rules of love narrated by shams will definitely change your perspective on life and on your relations and obviously on God.

I will highly recommend this book to everyone. 

DIY project- 3-D Bookmarks

Hello everybody!

How are you all? I hope all of you are doing great.

This is the second time I am writing about my DIY project. I already had told you guys that I loved arts since my childhood. I always wanted to be an artist but by some luck got into science. To keep my passion alive for arts, I keep on trying different art related stuff, whenever I get free time. DIY projects are a ‘thing’ these days. My recent DIY project was of making 3D bookmarks. I love reading books. I never buy books marks from my childhood. I make them myself. This time I made 3D bookmarks and it was quite fun activity. I made Sponge bob themed book marks.

These are very affordable bookmarks. You can use all the things from your home. This project was not very time consuming at all. Things required to make these bookmarks were:

·       Chart papers of different colors

·       Glazed papers

·       Scissors

·       Water colors of different colors

·       Poster paints of different colors

I made four bookmarks of Sponge Bob, Patric Star, Plankton and Sandy Cheeks. I draw their pictures on the chart papers, then colored them with water colors and poster paints. Different body parts were pasted like cut out to give them 3D effect.

This is how I made 3D bookmarks. It was very easy and interesting project and I loved the outcome. Do give it a try.

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Excitement for the parcel

Hello Readers!

How are you all doing? I hope everyone is doing well in their lives. I am also doing well. I was a bit busy with work and stuff at home lately so I haven’t written a blog post for quite long time. And I have not replied to your comments on the blog posts. I am sorry for that. As soon as I got free, I decided to interact with you guys.

Today, I will be sharing a product review. I got this parcel from JUNKIES with a sweet note. It was not so heavy and was nicely packed. It had a beautiful spiral notebook in it and 3 pretty badges. Spiral notebook and all three badges were packed in separate packings.

I like the cover of the notebook. The note book’s cover is of Wanderlust theme which is eye catching. Wanderlust is written on the cover. It has a camera, Eiffel tower and a huge map printed on it. Cover is of brown color. Its size is 6 × 8 inches. It is small in size than the common spiral notebook. Notebook had smooth lined pages.

Parcel contained one large badge and two small badges. ‘Free spirit’, ‘Dream’ and ‘Grateful’ is written on the pretty colorful badges. I love what is written on them. These trendy badges can be worn on the hand bags and you can also wear them on jackets which is a trend these days.

Overall I liked the gifts by Junkies.

Junkies Instagram handle : www.instagram.com/junkiescrafts

Junkies Facebook handle : www.facebook.com/craftjunkies2

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DIY Project of trendy mobile phone covers

Hello everybody!

How are you all? I hope all of you are doing great.

This is the first time I am writing about my DIY project. I love arts since my childhood. I always wanted to be an artist but got into science. I keep on trying different art related stuff, whenever I get free time. DIY projects are a ‘thing’ these days. DIY projects are easy and mostly old things which are not in use are used to create new things. You can start a DIY project with your siblings or friends or even with your mother. You can have quality time together.

Now a days, people love to carry their mobile phones in trendy phone covers. Phone covers come in wide variety from the simple transparent ones to the durable leather ones. Colorful phone covers with cartoon images, funky quotes and abstract designs are the eye catching ones. Some people also go for shimmery beads on the cover. Some people also get customized mobile phone covers with their own pictures printed on them.

Materials required

Many people, especially girls make their mobile covers themselves by DIY projects. Me and my sister made phone covers a few days back. They were very affordable. We made four mobile covers in less than 100 PKR. This project was not very time consuming at all. Things required were:

Pictures/designs (which ever you like)

Scissors

Transparent phone cover

Paper cutter

All we did was used internet to search abstract designs and colorful paintings. We selected a beautiful splatter painting, another painting with the burning fire, a colorful abstract design with the black background and a painting of colorful peacock feather. Then we got these pictures printed on the 4/6 inches glossy photographic sheet. We cut these sheets according to the shape and size of our mobile phones. We already had transparent phone covers. Then we placed those sheets/pictures in transparent phone covers in such a way that pictures were visible from back side.

The final look

This is how we made our DIY project of phone covers. It was very easy and interesting project and we loved the outcome. You should also try this to get yourselves beautiful mobile covers. 

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Paintings that will leave you stunned

Hi Guys!

How you all are doing? I hope you guys are doing quite well. I am also doing well. I hope all of you are enjoying my blog posts. If you guys have any recommendations or suggestions do share them with me and criticism is always appreciated!

My current blog post is about paintings. I had always loved arts since my childhood. I made few paintings in my early schooldays which I don’t have now. L Today, also I admire work of different artists.

Below is the collection of few stunning paints from around the world:

•       Coffee mug painting

     Did I mention my love for coffee before??? No? Actually I love coffee so I like this painting a lot! This beautiful piece of art is by ‘Ellie Smith’ from USA. Acrylic paints were used to create this piece.

Here is her instagram: @drippingpaintbucket 

•       Marine life painting

The below painting is by ‘Lauralee Davis’ form USA. This painting is such an eye catcher because of the multi colored Acrylic paints used in creating the aspects of marine life. I like the coral reef at the bottom. 

Here is her instagram: @lauraleezy1

•       Good and evil

These two paintings are very well made by ‘Shane Parker’ from USA. Both the paintings have messages for the viewers. The one with the dragon shows the battle between fire and ice. It can be interpreted as a battle of good and evil! In the second painting, wave is simply giving a peaceful view.

Follow him here on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/835910997/electrifiedart

•       Moon light painting

This moon light painting is by ‘Volodymyr Myriyevskyy’. The painter has beautifully   shown the view where two fairies are enjoying the moon light sitting by the river. 

•       Sticking to the roots

 Too much hard work is done by ‘Dawn Crosby’ to create this master piece. She used Lichtenberg technique to create this painting. She saturated the wood with baking soda & water & attached the negative and positive clamps opposite each other on the wood to create high voltage currents that electrocutes the wood the same way lightening does. She then stained them using watered down Acrylic paint. Finishing was done with a high quality furniture polishing wax.

Here is her facebook page link: www.facebook.com/BoardsABurningBaby/

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