Independence Day Nail Art

Hello all you beautiful girls. First of all I wish you all a very Happy Independence day. Today on the occasion of India’s 67^th Independence Day I have an Indian Tricolour themed nail art. So let’s get started.

You will need:

1. Base coat (to protect your natural nails)

2. Saffron nail polish (Maybelline colorshow 214 Orange Fix)

3. White nail polish (Maybelline colorshow 102 Porcelain Party)

4. Green nail polish (Maybelline colorshow 301 Tenacious Teal)

5. Blue nail polish & a tooth pick OR Blue dotting tool

6. Cello tape & pair of scissors

7. Transparent top coat (optional)

Procedure:

1. Apply base coat to protect your natural nails.

2. Apply an opaque coat of white nail polish. Let it dry completely. This may take 10-15 minutes.

3. Cut a small piece of cello tape equal to one-third of your nail. Apply it on the middle portion of your nail.

4. On the top portion apply saffron nail polish & immediately apply green nail polish.

5. Remove the cello tape as soon as you finish applying both the polishes.

6. Apply a small dot of blue nail polish in the middle & there you go you have the Indian tricolour on your nails.

7. Clean the nail polish around the nails.

8. Let all the polished dry completely and then apply a coat of transparent nail polish.

So friends I hope you like this simple DIY nail art. If you give it a try, please post a picture of your recreation on my facebook page. Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2). If you have any suggestions or questions, please do comment down below.

OMG On Spot Beauty!!!!!

Hello happy people. I hope you all are doing great. Today I am going to share with you my experience about the most dreaded thing in this world (not really) PIMPLES & its scars (scream!!!!!!). It’s not really about pimples or its scars, but it is about people and their reaction to a girl with not so perfect face. So here I go.

My skin was perfectly normal until these little monsters started popping up on my face. They tried their best to make my life miserable, but could they????? Read on to find out ;) . When the pimples started appearing on my face, the people around me were little shocked. Then, the number of pimples started increasing and everybody was like “OMG what happened?? Are you okay???” Some comments that I received included “What did you do to your face??? It looks bad (Read: You look ugly)” That happens a lot when you are a student of all girl’s college :P . And then everyone around you becomes a Skin Specialist/Beauty Guru and they think that it is their fundamental right to suggest me some cure for my problem.

My experience at shops and malls was even better. Every salesgirl was trying to sell me some so called anti-acne products. I don’t buy such products because I know my skin and I know that it loves just natural products. I would like to narrate one such incident that happened while I was doing my regular beauty products shopping.

Salesgirl: Ma’am are you buying that facewash??

Me: Yes. I buy it every time. It kinda suits my skin.

Salesgirl: You have acne on your skin. Why don’t you try this facewash by so & so brand.

Me: No I am on medication for my acne and I can’t really try something new.

Salesgirl: You are taking medicines??? But it doesn’t look like that. I mean your face has sooooo many pimples. Try this facewash and they will disappear in a week or so.

Me: Sigh. I can’t really buy it. Thanks for your suggestion.

Why would I buy an overly priced (priced around 200 rupees) product from a so called famous company when my trusted friend Multani Mitti priced at 20 rupees does a better job??

I am not against people suggesting me cure for my problem. I am just against people constantly reminding me that my skin looks terrible. Who likes a face full of pimples??? No one. That includes me as well. But somehow due to some problems my skin doesn’t look perfect. And the best part is I am totally okay with it. The reason behind it is ‘Nothing lasts forever’ (definitely not my pimples). They are just there and I am trying my best to get rid of those. Even my doctor has advised me to use just natural products and of course her prescribed medicines.

The pimples won’t go away in a day or two. They need time to heal. Until that I just expect little co-operation from the people around me. I can’t really expect the salesgirls to stop selling me the products. But I can expect just a teeny-tiny bit of co-operation from the people around me. But then I forgot that we live in a society where outer beauty is everything. What people fail to realize is that being beautiful is all about having a beautiful heart and not just a beautiful face. I have experienced this about pimples, many of you might have experienced something like this about some other imperfections within you. But I genuinely feel that nobody is perfect and as Marilyn Monroe has perfectly said “Imperfection is Beauty”. So, my funda is “Put a smile and ignore the negatives”. I would like to conclude by saying “Yes I have pimples and I am pretty much okay with it” #Confidence

So friends I hope you liked this article and if you did, do comment below. But before doing that please try to change your outlook because if we need a big change, we need to start with yourself. Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you on Tuesday with beauty article. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2). If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.

P.S.: If you have experienced anything like this, do share your experiences in the comments below. 

Tofu Rice

Hello all my healthy readers. I hope you all are doing great. Today I am going to share with you a very simple healthy recipe. I am not really a Rice person but I somehow like this dish. Using brown rice instead of normal rice puts this recipe in the healthy category. So without further ado, let’s get started.

Ingredients:

1. ½ cup brown rice

2. ½ cup tofu (You can also use low-fat paneer)

3. ½ cup onions

4. 1/3 cup capsicum

5. 1 cup water

6. 1 tsp. oil

7. 2 chilies

8. 3-4 cloves of garlic

9. Little bit of ginger

10. ¼ tbsp Cumin seeds (jeera)

11. ¼ tbsp kasoori methi (optional)

12. A pinch of cinnamon

13. 1 Bay leaf (Tej patta)

14. 1 Cardamom (badi elaichi)

15. 2-3 Pepper

16. 2-3 Cloves

Procedure:

1. Wash the rice & then cook it with 1 cup water for 10-12 minutes.

2. Grind chilies, garlic & ginger. You can also grind jeera along with it.

3. Soak the tofu in slightly warm water for 5 minutes. Drain the water & leave it to dry.

4. Add ½ tsp. oil in a non-stick pan & roast the tofu until golden brown.

5. Grind the cloves & pepper in mortar-pestle.

6. Add ½ tsp. oil in the pan. Add the chili-garlic-ginger paste.

    

7. Add onions & capsicum & cook it for 5 minutes on medium flame.

8. Add remaining spices along with salt. Let it all cook.

9. Add the rice & tofu and cook for 5 minutes. And then your rice is ready to be served.

I hope you like this recipe. If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know in the comments how you like it.  Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you on Friday with a healthy recipe. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2). If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.

Women’s Empowerment

Hello beautiful people. I hope you all are doing great. I know I am little late for Women’s day special article (apologies!!!) but better late than never. So here I am with an article which was supposed to be collaboration between me and one of my very talented blogger friend but I guess I am little late in publishing my article (Link for his article is at the end of this post). So here I go.

‘Women’s empowerment’, this word has really being in focus ever since the interview featuring Mr. Rahul Gandhi was aired on a news channel. But the real question is, are women in India really empowered? The answer, unfortunately is NO. In our society, the position of a girl is still lower than a boy. We worship goddesses but even today, many girls are killed even before they can come into this world. In many families, a girl is not treated equal to her brothers just because she is a girl. A girl deserves love, care, education, respect and most importantly freedom in every possible way. She deserves to grow and become successful, doesn’t she? She is strong enough to fight for her rights & freedom, but why does she have to?

I am the only child of my parents & my parents were always proud of the fact that they are parents to a girl. Me and many other girls like me are blessed to have such parents. But not every girl is given a chance to enter into this world, study and become independent. Just yesterday, one of my friends was eve teased on the roads. Is this how women’s day is celebrated?? Celebrating women’s day will actually make sense when every girl is gets her right, right to live and be free.

All I can say is that a girl needs to be respected not because she is someone’s daughter or sister, but because she is a human being. So today let us salute the spirit of womanhood. Please feel free to leave your thoughts about Women’s empowerment in the comments down below.

Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below. The link to my friend’s post (where he talks about the history of the position of women in India) ishttps://engineeringmescopehain.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/this-will-enrich-your-knowledge-and-thought-process-about-the-status-of-women-in-the-society-things-that-we-dont-know/

Being Happily Single on Valentine’s Day

Hello happy people. I hope you all had an amazing week & I wish you all a very happy Valentine’s Day. I dedicate today’s article to happily single people like me. I have a rule which goes something like this “If you have a valentine, it’s great. But if you don’t, then you are your own valentine :D” So here I present to you few ways to have an awesome Valentine’s (that is to feel good and feel loved) even when you are single. So here we go.

1. Fall in love with yourself all over again – Today, my dear friends, be a little selfish & fall in love with yourself ;) . Follow the song Matlabi... from the recently released film Roy for more inspiration :D

2. Do something that you love – Don’t you feel awesome when you do something that you love to do? I mean I feel on the top of this world when the words flow out of my heart. Shopping, writing, cooking, dancing, whatever is it, just do something that you genuinely enjoy doing.

3. Go on a date with your equally single friend/s – If you have friend or a group of friends who are truly, madly & deeply in love with only him/her or themselves (just as you are ;) , then you are going to have a rocking Valentine’s day for sure. No need to elaborate why ;) :D

4. Spend some time with your family – Even though you do love your parents & rest of the family, it’s not every day that you actually say I love you to them. So take some time out of your busy lives to call your family members & say the three magical words “I love you”. Trust me, this would make you feel loved.

5. Grab a box of chocolates or a tub of ice cream & enjoy your favourite movie – I know ice-cream & chocolates aren’t really healthy but sometimes you just got to forget being healthy and just enjoy yourself. So go ahead cheat your diet routine & enjoy your favourite movie/movies with chocolates & ice-cream or whatever you love to eat because it’s all about loving yourself :D

At last I would just say that there are all kinds of loves in this world. Feel the magic of love in whichever form you can. Single or committed, doesn’t really matter, keep spreading the love. And I love you all my dear readers aka my Happy People because you are meant to be loved. Leave me a comment telling me how you are celebrating this Valentine’s day.

                Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comments.

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Hello lovely ladies. I hope you all are having a great Valentine week that has just begun. So I decided to share with you a simple nail art design. Single or committed, you got to love & pamper your nails ;) . And I am pretty sure you are gonna love this easy design. So without further ado, let’s get started.

You will need:

1. Maybelline Color Show 212 Hooked on pink (or any pink nail polish)

2. Maybelline Color Show 601 All that glitters (or any golden nail polish)

3. Round ended tooth picks

4. Base coat (optional)

Procedure:

1. Apply the base coat to protect your nails.

2. Apply 2 coats of All that glitters.

3. Use the end of the tooth pick to draw a slightly angled pattern as shown near the cuticle area. All you really need to do is place a dot and drag it down.

4. Repeat the same pattern to complete the heart.

5. Repeat it on all your nails. And there you go ladies, your nail art is done. Easy peasy right?

I really hope that you try out this design and if you do then make sure to send me a picture on facebook. Enjoy the valentine’s week which is all about falling in love with someone or yourself. I chose the later :D

Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.

P.S.: I thank my bestie for being a very patient model. I woke up with one broken nail again (Sad) so she had to model for this article. 

7 ways to “Be happy”

Hello all you happy people. I hope you all are doing great. Today I am going to share with you my views about “Being Happy”

Before writing this article, I went around asking few of my friends and colleagues what made them happy. I got varied answers ranging from enjoying with friends to doing what they love to getting surprised and so on. Some even remarked that making others happy made them happy. Some of my friends didn’t even bother to reply to my messages. I think that is their idea of being happy. Sorry I am just being sarcastic.

So friends here I present to you some of my tips to “Be Happy”

1. Do what you love – This is the sure shot mantra of being happy. If you are busy with something that you love doing, you are bound to be happy. I have seen so many people those who are frustrated with their job. Happiness is short lived for such people. So it’s always better to do what you love than being stuck up with something that you don’t enjoy.

2. Be optimistic – I know it's hard to look at the positive side of any situation, especially when the situation is not that good. But if you try to be an optimistic, you will be happier.

3. Learn to let go of the past – Let go of the past, live in the present and hope for a happier future. These are three easy steps to being happy. You need to remind yourself “Come what may, I am going to be strong and happy”

4. Enjoy little things in life – I believe that money can’t buy all the happiness in this world. Of course it can buy you stuff that you love [Did anyone hear me say lip glosses & nail polishes (wink)]. But there are some little pleasures like dancing in the rain or watching a baby laugh and many more things that can make you happy. I am a child at heart so little things make me happy.

5. Surround yourself with positive and happy people – Just as a rotten apple can rot all the other apples in a basket, an unhappy person can make everyone else feel pathetic and unhappy. So why take chances, better be with a happy and crazy person. You can’t be anything but happy when you are with a bunch of crazy friends :D

6. Smile more often – Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Everybody has some bad days but smiling never hurt anybody. I always say that a smile can change your life. Smiling can’t solve your problems, but it surely does give you strength to face those problems. So please do smile in order to be happy.

7. Chocolates – Yes my dear friends, it’s scientifically proven that chocolates make you feel happy. So the next time you are unhappy, just grab some chocolates and eat away as much happiness as you can (wink). Happiness increases by leaps and bounds if you share it, so I don’t mind getting a piece or even the whole box of happiness from you, my dear friend :D

So friends these are some of my tips to be happy. If you have some more tips, please do share them in the comments. Also I would like to know what makes you all happy.

Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.

Herbal Face Pack

Hello beautiful people. Today I have an herbal face pack to share with you all. If you have an acne prone skin or if you have acne marks, dark spots, etc. just try this out. So let’s get started.

Ingredients:

1. Multani Mitti

2. 25-30 Neem leaves

3. 15 Tulsi leaves

4. 10 Mint leaves

5. ½ cup Water

Procedure:

1. Boil the mint, tulsi and neem leaves in ½ cup water for around 7-10 minutes. You need to cool this water to use it for the face pack.

You can store this water in an air tight Glass container, in refrigerator for around 10-15 days.

2. Take 1 tbsp. of multani mitti & add the water to it. Adjust the consistency of the pack as per your choice.

3. Apply this pack on your face and neck & leave it until it dries. Then take it off using lukewarm water.

The basic ingredients used in this pack are neem, tulsi and mint leaves. All of these are absolutely amazing for oily, acne prone skin. These ingredients help to treat dark spots as well as aid in skin lightning. And if you want that youthful glow, then this is just the right thing for you.

So friends if you decide to try out this face pack, do let me know in the comments down below. Goodbye my dear friends and I will meet you next week. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.

Healthy Eggless Cake (in pressure cooker)

Hello all you healthy people. This is my first article of 2015 so I decided to share with you a healthy sweet option (Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye). Without further ado let’s get started.

Ingredients:

1. ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta)

2. 2-3 tbsp. cocoa powder

3. 1 tbsp. baking powder

4. 1 tsp. butter or ghee

5. 1/3 cup dates

6. Pinch of baking soda

7. Milk (1+4 tbsp.)

8. Water (1/3 cup + 2 tbsp.)

9. Chocolate chips (as per your taste)

10. Peanut butter (optional)

11. Pinch of salt (optional)

You will also need sand to bake the cake in the pressure cooker.

Procedure:

1. Soak the dates in 1/3 cup water and 1 tbsp. milk for about half an hour. And then puree it in a blender.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

3. Add pureed dates and ghee.

4. Slowly add milk and water until the mixture turns semi solid. (I added 4 tbsp. milk & 2 tbsp. water)

5. Grease the vessel with ghee and flour.

6. Add the prepared mixture to it. You can add chocolates chips on the top.

 

7. Fill the pressure cooker (use aluminium one for this recipe) with sand until the whole bottom is covered. Place the plate on the top of it as shown.

8. Place the lid on it. Don’t use the rubber gasket and the whistle.

9. Heat the cooker on high flame for 5-7 minutes.

10. Place the vessel in the cooker and let it cook on low flame for around 45 minutes to 1 hour. (Insert a toothpick into the cake after 45 minutes. If it comes out clean then the cake is cooked. If not then let it cook longer.) And then your cake is ready to satisfy your sweet tooth.

So friends I hope you like this recipe. If you give it a try, let me know in the comments below. Goodbye my dear friends and I will see you soon. Until then Keep Smiling. Please do follow my blog, like the facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Happy-Girl/292903830872974?ref_type=bookmark) and follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/A_Happy_Girl2) as well as on Google Plus. If you have any suggestions or questions, please comment below.