Manchester

I spent a few days in Manchester this week, and had the chance to walk around and explore!

I'm used to the over crowding of London, so Manchester was a nice surprise! It's quite similar to London, just without all the people!

We went to China Town in Manchester, which is supposedly one of the largest in Europe ( I read it online somewhere so don't hold me to it). The only other China Town I have been to is the one in London, so if I'm comparing it to the one in London, then it definitely was bigger!

Whilst in China Town, we had lunch at this Pho restaurant. I can't remember the name of the restaurant but it was next door to a 'long legs' massage parlour. The restaurant looks deceptively small, as you have to go down a set of stairs as the actual restaurant is in what seems to be the basement.

Around the corner from the Pho restaurant was The Manchester Art Gallery. I'm not an avid fan of art galleries, but it was free so we decided to go.

Whilst some of the art work was very grand and exquisite (i'm not good at describing art) my favourite piece was this Zardozi piece, just because I gotta represent my brown heritage.























We also went to the Northern Quarter, this has some great cafes and bars and as we had researched before hand, we had afternoon tea at The Teacup Kitchen. This place was amazing, it was incredibly busy, and as we went in the afternoon, a lot of the cakes had sold out such as the Rainbow cake.

We had the almond and coconut carrot cake, with some indian chai (it wasn't legit indian desi chaa, but it was served with warm milk, which was a plus) as well as the pistachio cake with the rosey grey tea, which is a fruity tea infused with flowers. Both sets complimented the cakes well, as we had asked for some recommendations to go with our cakes. I really wanted to try to Vanilla Cacao, but this had sold out, so maybe next time!

For dinner, we then ended the evening at Wimslow Road which is referred to as Curry Mile. This is basically the food equivalent to Southall and Green st etc.

We had dinner at Mughli's, and it looked great from both outside and in. I didn't take any pictures of the food, because lets face it, i'm brown, so it was nothing new. I also generally didn't take any pictures that evening, so the following pictures from Mughli are not mine.

All in all, Manchester is a very nice place to visit, and it's a lot cheaper than London!

Aashni + Co Wedding Show

The Aashni + Co store recently hosted a Asian Bridal show at The Dorchester, which is a luxury Hotel in London's Mayfair.

I really wanted to go, but I didn't in the end, mainly because I'm not getting married anytime soon, and also because I don't really have anyone to go with that shares my love for Asian designers.

There were a range of designers there, and the following are some of my favourite pieces from some of the designers.

Tarun Tahiliani is my favourite brand, the pieces are so luxurious, and is probably why I became so obsessed with Indian designers and fashion. Some of the pieces are so ethereal and traditional yet so contemporary. 

Varun Bahl is another designer that blends the vintage with the contemporary. Some of his pieces seem very dark and romantic.

Sabyasachi is another favourite of mine, especially the bridal collections. The textiles and colours are so bold and some pieces are very vintage-esque. 

This blog post is very pointless, but I just wanted to share some gorgeous pictures and lust after the clothes. This actually took a lot longer than expected to write up, as I got distracted when searching for my favourite pieces. (obviously, none of these pictures are mine)

I've chosen some quite heavy designs as my favourites as I was talking about the Bridal show, and so I thought I would choose images in keeping with the theme.

Impromptu kindle case

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a book nerd. I love reading books, and have recently gotten into it again. I never liked the idea of using kindles and other e readers, and I was one of those people that liked paper books, as it felt a bit more real. 

However commuting to work every day in a train, and lugging The Game of Throne books with me, got a little annoying. The books are so heavy, and teamed up with the other crap I have in my bag, means that my bag gets a tad heavy to lug around on the tubes and trains all day! 

So I asked for a Kindle, and I got a Kindle! 

I previously made a macbook sleeve, so decided to make a kindle sleeve too. I've seen these kind of styles on Etsy, and it was a pretty simple design, so I got to work! 

As I'm too poor cheap I usually try to upscale, or I'll just keep an eye out for cheap material. 

The lime green material, was an impulse buy top for £2, bought in the sale.

The geometric fabric, was just some scraps I had left over. I got this fabric for free when I went to Southall a while ago. And the ghota (ribbon) was purchased when we went to Upton Park a while ago.

I love the colours and think they go really well together, in between the two fabrics I also placed some quilted material just to give the kindle some protection.

This was a little difficult, and I did have to get some help from my mum, mainly because at the time I made this, my sewing machine was out of action, and so I had to use my mums industrial sewing machine.

I love the colours for the sleeve, and this definitely brightens my commute to and from work!

DIY necklace hanger Pt 2

I have a lot of statement necklaces, and a while ago, you will remember that I started hanging them on an old door hanger. However I had too many necklaces for it, and they were way too heavy.

So instead I got inspiration from Pinterest, and made a necklace hanger thing? The only thing I had to buy was the chipboard from wilkinsons which was £2, everything else I already had from previous projects.

I was pretty happy with the finished product, now I just need to get someone to hang it on the wall for me!