WIP Wednesday

crochet is my hobby, my interest, the thing I turn to when I'm not feeling good. When I have a yarn and hook between my hands, the world becomes 10 x better. I haven't been crocheting much lately, I cross stitched a little and uni started this week so I've been busy a little and didnt have much time to crochet. Last night I was home alone and grabbed a yarn and hook and searched "crochet Japanese flower tutorial". Never made one but I love how Japanese crochet flowers look and the projects that can be made with them. I followed these instructions and changed a little to get the perfect Japanese crochet flower.

 

 Not really sure where i'm going with this. just making some Japanese flowers here and there. will either choose all the colors or just green, pink, yellow and blue. I'm actually thinking of joining them and make a little table mat for my night stand. what do you guys think? any ideas ?



work-in-progress Wednesday

Every Wednesday, in the blogging world of crafters and crocheters, readers are updated on the latest projects the blogger has been working on. And I'm that person who waits until Wednesday is here to check my dashboard for 'work-in-progress Wednesdays'. They are one of my favorite posts <3.

This week I decided to join and post my 'work-in-progress' project.

As some of you may know I've been crocheting since I was 7 and never really stopped, 2 years back I decided to try something new and took on knitting, I loved it. So last year, again, decided to go for something new and tried cross stitching. I was told that with cross-stitching you first have to start with the ones that already have the picture printed on the fabric and you just have to cross-stitch over the printed picture. So I went ahead and bought one and started to cross-stitch, I liked the idea of cross-stitching but didn't like that I was just copying the picture. with crochet and knitting, you kinda have to count how many stitches you make here, add 2 there, decrease 7 over here (use your brain) but with the cross-stitching it wasn't like that (which got a little tiny bit boring). My friend who is an expert at cross-stitching got me one of the cross-stitching kits that have everything in it (the fabric, the pattern on a separate paper, and the yarn or whatever they're called)

last week I started cross-stitching and OMG I cant stop. I'm loving it. I'm a bit slow though.
Here's a picture:

 

 

will post the final picture once i'm done.

Follow my crafting account on instagram: @crocheta_bh

 

 See you soon x





Clean eating

Hello there, hope you’re all well :D

My last post was the epitome of FAIL. I promised to put up 2 to 3 recipes every week during Ramadhan, and created this series which will encourage you all to go into kitchen and experiment and improve your cooking skills. But I realized that the food I was cooking and baking was so unhealthy. I was following @officialfooddiary at that time and I saw how healthy she ate and it suddenly hit me, “I WANT to eait healthy”!!

For the past couple of years my eating habits have been really bad, I don’t eat well when it comes to main meals, but rather concentrate on the snacks more to fill my stomach. And that’s not really healthy. I am not doing this to lose weight or to lose fat, I’m not saying that I’m 100% happy with the way my body looks and is shaped. I currently weigh 48.3 Kg and my goal is not to change that, but I will be recording my weigh throughout my healthy eating diet.

As a Persian living in an Arabic world this is going to be hard, my grandma is not going to like this. My diet normally is;

-         Breakfast: I don’t like to spend much time making breakfast I’m usually half asleep when I wake up so it’s either cereal or cheese sandwich and milk and tea (I can never skip breakfast, if I do I get severe headaches and energy levels get so low)

-         Lunch: because I’m a Persian living in an Arab country rice has to be included in my lunch, if it’s not rice then it’s pasta (and that only happens like once a month or something). Lunch is the heaviest of the 3 meals.

-         Snack: fruits, biscuits, chocolate, EREEETING

-         Dinner: I try to keep it simple when I’m at home but when I’m out it’s fast food, or just whatever dinner is.

You should know that:

1.      I never eat banana’s (I can’t stand the smell nor the taste of banana’s) I know how healthy they are but I just can’t.

2.     I don’t drink soft drinks or whatever you call them (pepsi, 7up, Canada dry…etc)

3.     I’m not a big fan of sea food. I do eat it when that’s what our lunch is, but if I’m at a restaurant I don’t order sea food. I prefer chicken and beef.

I am trying to improve my diet and balance it out. My skin needs this, my hair needs this and my body needs this. Most importantly I want to feel healthy I know it is going to make me a happier person.

If you wanna see my food diary I am posting whatever I eat on my instagram which is @maryamsamii

If you want to start eating healthy or a food diary on instagram please leave ur instagram account in the comments, I’d love to follow you.

Ramadhan kareem

Hello there, hope you're all well :D

A bit late but I'd like to wish all my muslim readers and followers a ramdhan mubarak. May this month be filled with joy, happiness and positivity.

If ur wondering why I'm late with this post, it's because I havent been feeling well lately. Headaches, soar throat, cold and flu, which lead to me being voice-less. And above all that I was feeling a bit low, I was bored with my daily routine that consisted of me waking up every morning, having the same breakfast, doing the same thing over and over again. If you know anything about me, it's that I dont like to complain, especially to people I'm not too close with. But I just felt like getting this off my chest. I'm also participating in an exihibition where I'm going to be selling some of my crochet items. (Will talk about it more in anothet post probably)
Okay, so now that we have that out of the way. Remember I said I'll be doing a series this ramadhan? Welllllll, I will be posting some fun recipes every week. Like 2 or 3 recipes every week. I'm not saying that I'm a professional chef or anything. But I love cooking and I'd like to share some recipes with y'all. I'll be posting desserts or soups or finger food. I'll be very happy if you joined me and posted some recipes and it could be a thing, you know ?
Anyway, I'll be starting this tomorrow insha'Allaah.

I'm blogging from my phone for the first time. It is now 2:02 and I'll be up until shoor and so I thought why not blog? This post was a bit random but I just wanted to talk to y'all and give u a little update. Battery low. Okay. Once again. Ramadhan mubarak♡
See you soon x

May and June favorites

Hello there, hope you’re all well :D

I almost forgot about may and June favorites post, but I didn’t. yay me

I’ve been really busy with university applications and exam entries, which I may talk about in another post.

Anyway, let’s talking about monthly favorites, shall me?

-         Number one favorite: my DKNY sweet delicious perfume. It has a sweet scent, love itt.

 

-         Number twoo : urban decay naked palette. I’m a bit late on this one but I finally decided to get me one and I’m in love.

 

-         Number tree: berry M coral nail polish

 

-         Number 4: Revlon lip butters. Again, a bit late on this one. They are the most amazing thing on the face of the planet.

-         Number 5: most random favorite, HobNobs Oat biscuits. Not sure if they are healthy, but they look super healthy and taste amazingly good.

-         Number 6: vitamins. This was prescribed by my dermatologist. I have definitely noticed a difference. My nails and hair look much healthier than they used to.

-         Number 7: and 8? Garnier BB cream in light. And the roll-on which is a great under-eye concealer. In love with these two products.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay Okay, I know this post looks really ugly and messy. it's because of my stupid laptop. The screen has a big fat line where it's all coloured and I cant see anything from it. Sorry x

See you soon x

Top 10 songs :D

Hello there, hope you’re all well :D

Because I couldn’t do a monthly favorites post for May, I thought I’d do another one of these ‘Top 10 songs’ post. What I’ve been listening to throughout this month.

1-     Stubborn love – the lumineers

2-     Flowers in your hair – the lumineers

3-     Demons – imagine dragons

4-     On top of the world – imagine dragons

5-     Radioactive – imagine dragons

6-     Love your friends, die laughing –Man overboard

7-     Breath of life – Florence and the machine

 

And now some songs from the great Gatsby movie soundtrack. I’m in love!!

8-     Young and beautiful – Lana Del Rey

9-     Together- the xx

10- Over the love – Florence and the machine

 

See you soon x

 

Studying tips

Hello there, hope you’re all well :D

So now that I’m officially done with my 12 years of school (or more), I think I’m eligible to give out some studying and exam related tips. Those tips work very good for me, not sure if it’s gonna work for you as it works for me.

 

1-     Summarize: for each subject I had a notebook where I summarized everything in (and I actually learned this from a friend of mine which she also posted something similar on her blog click here to check it out). Break down long paragraphs into short bullet points. Try to abbreviate long words. Try drawing diagrams instead of writing the entire thing.

2-     Ask for help: If you have some doubts, or if you don’t understand something let your teacher know, I’m sure they’ll help. If not, then study groups can be useful sometimes. I personally didn’t like study groups, maybe because I always had them the night before the exam which was more of me teaching my friend everything I knew but never got to ask about the things I had doubts in. So never have study groups the night before the exam and never be the teacher who teaches and doesn’t get to ask the questions, that’s another tip right there.

3-     Make it interesting: use colors, cue cards, colored papers, whatever you think is going to make studying interesting. If you’re out of time, skip this part, it can be time consuming. Another way of making studying seem more interesting is by having study groups, where you can study and have pizza at the same time, instead of studying all alone and getting bored.

4-     Understand before you memorize: because imagine you memorizing an entire paragraph and when you’re answering the long response questions and forget a word, you’re screwed. This happened to me twice and I nearly had a breakdown in the exam. At least it taught me a lesson.

5-     Divide your work: I also learned this from my friend. for example; if your teachers told you about your test a week before, you can divide your work, study a couple of pages each day.

 

And now off to exam period tips

1-     Eat good food: Try to have good food; carrots, cucumbers, apples, anything healthy. If you are one of those people who get’s stressed during exams it might cause dehydration or breakouts or even hair fall. Try to keep hydrated by drinking water and eating healthy food. What I used to think was if I ate a heavy meal, then I won’t have to waste my time every couple of hours to grab a snack. But the meal was so heavy that I couldn’t concentrate.

2-     try not to pull an all nighter: dividing your work will really help, try to finish your work 2 days before the exam, so that the last day your just skimming through your notes or previous test papers. If you didn’t finish your work early, then you’ll have to pull an all nighter, and nobody wants to pull an all nighter.

3-      Try not to drink coffee, coffee isn’t healthy and what did we say about eating healthy? I’m a coffee lover, I LOOOVE me some coffee. But during exams it’s more of a habit that I drink more than one cup of coffee a day which isn’t really good for your body.

4-     Have enough sleep: if you don’t have enough sleep you’ll sleep on the exam paper in front of all those students and invigilators. So please sleep instead of embarrassing yourself.

5-     Try to have everything you need next to you. So that you don’t have to go looking for your pencil case, or papers every now and then. By doing that, you’ve wasted a lot of time.

6-     Because my room got very messy towards the end, I couldn’t study in my room it was depressing. So I studied in the guest room or living room sometimes (when everybody was there). So try to change the place every once in a while.

 

That’s it for my studying tips, if you have some more tips, leave them in the comments below.

See you soon x

Update !!

Hello there, hope you’re all well :D

I know I said I’ll be blogging more once I’m done with my exams and school. And I feel so bad for not blogging and I missed my blog so much *virtual hugs*. So here I am, just going to give you a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately and what you’re going to see on my blog in the summer which is the next couple of months, just a little preview.

After I was done with my exams, I had to take my laptop for some formatting and stuff like that because it was dying, I could sense it. This kept me from blogging, and when I got it back I didn’t even turn it on for a couple of week because I was busy shopping for my graduation and awards night (checkout next blog post for details, or the one after that. not really sure). Alhamdullila I graduated with a high GPA and I’m so very happy that I made both my parents proud. After awards night and graduation was over, I finally realized that my room is a huge mess; books, papers, notebooks and folders were literally EVERYWHERE. And as an OCD person, that’s not good. So I finally came around to cleaning my room and organized some parts (still have loads to get rid of and organize some more stuff). I can’t stop thinking about how I wanna redecorate my room, but my mom thinks my room is perfectly nice and there is no reason to re-do it.

Anyway, I also know I promised that I’ll be doing monthly favorites at the end of each month, once again I apologize. I will make it up to you but accumulating two months favorites in one post, and I’ll talk about my outfit details for awards night on another blog post, and some studying tips after that. I also have a series coming up in Ramadhan insha’Allah. OMG can’t wait. So I’m gonna go now and write another post.

See you soon x

50 facts about me

Hello there, hope your all well :D

So I’ve been seeing a lot of people doing this tag thing on their blogs or on youtube, so I thought I’d give it a try.

1-     Burning a candle never fails to get me in the right mood

2-     I love the way the house smells after you’ve baked a cake probably more than I love the taste of it.

3-     I once registered for a one year membership in a gym and only went there for two months and ditched for the rest 10 months.

4-     I’m very OCD when it comes to things I have to do, like when I write revision notes I have to make sure my diagrams are all neat and all the words are the same size. Or when I’m baking, I like to have all the ingredients nicely measured and lined in front of me so that I don’t make a huge mess. But my room isn’t that organized.

5-     I never get bored of shopping.

6-     coffee is my guilty pleasure. I drink coffee approximately every day but I hate the fact that it makes my teeth look yellow and it isn’t exactly healthy.

7-     Chocolate fountains make me happy.

8-     I can’t stand the smell/taste of banana’s

9-     I go through obsession phases.

10- Cold nights, hot tea, and a good book is perfection.

11-  Leonardo Di Caprio was my first celebrity crush.

12-  I have very bad eye sight.

13-  I’m a wanderlust who wants to see new places and learn about different cultures.

14-  I love tattoos. I’ve planned all my tattoos and can’t wait to get my first one in a few months

15-  I’m currently in the process of growing my make-up and nail polish collection.

16- I’m a perfectionist, I want everything to be perfect and if it doesn’t go that way then that’s not good.

17- This is how old I am.

18- I’m turning this much on September 3^rd.

19- I started to crochet when I was about 7 years old.

20- I want to study interior design once I’m done with my BA in English or B.Sc in business.

21- I never crave ice-cream, I like it but it’s not something I crave

22- London is my goal.

23- The great Gatsby is my favorite novel, and I’m so excited to watch the new movie :D

24- I want my future house to consist of 5 rooms; my bedroom, my closet, my library/office, my craft room, and a room dedicated to my photo albums.

25- I’m really into vintage things, like vintage cameras and typewriters.

26- I’m very awkward when it comes to phone calls, I try to avoid them as much as I can. Example of my avoiding a phone call:

Person from a company or something: “hello, this is …. I’m calling to tell about…..blah blah blah”

Me: “HELLO? HELLO? I cant here you” and just hang up

I’m sorry if I ever did that to you, I just don’t like talking on the phone.

27- Having breakfast at tiffany’s is on my bucket list

28- I don’t like big cars, but range rover is my dream car. It’s too huge for me but I LOVE it

29- I love making lists; bucket lists, shopping lists, movies lists, to-do lists… basically everything.

30- I read all four twilight books but stopped towards the end of breaking dawn because it got too boring for me.

31- I can never get a pedicure at a spa or salon because I’m the type of person who get’s tickled by the slightest touch.

32- As I am sitting here writing this blogpost, I am staring at my room  thinking of a million ways I can redecorate it, same thing happens when I go to people’s house. Which is one of the reasons interior design is my thing.

33- I do not know how to swim.

34- The next step for me, now that I have my blog, is to start a youtube channel.

35- I have a bracelet that was given to me on the day I was born by my aunt, and I’ve worn it ever since I was 5 till this day and never took it off, and surprisingly it still fits me perfectly.

36- I get so excited to go stationery shopping before school starts and sadly school is over for me. I guess I’ll go stationery shopping for uni or with my little sister.

37- I’m such a bad liar, if I lie it’s written all over my face.

38- I can listen to old songs all day and never get bored. AKA (so happy together-the turtles) and (here comes the sun-the beetles) (hey jude- the beetles) and the list goes on.

39- I love small kittens but dislike cats, if that makes any sense

40- I’m an insomniac, I don’t like to call it that because it reminds of me of the song which talks about a guy not sleeping because of a girl or something similar.

41- I don’t nap, I only nap if I haven’t slept the night before at all. If I nap I sometimes wake up with a bad headache, or with the feeling that my day is over and I haven’t done anything, so I rush over my things and try to get as much done as I can, even if I have nothing to do.

42- I was on Roaccutanes for 8 months and just finished 3 days ago, I might blog about it sometime soon.

43- The idea that in a couple of years I’m going to get my eyes fixed (LASIK EYE SURGERY) freaks me out. Imagine someone cutting your eyes. Yeah.

44- Lately I have been using the work “chill” a lot. Eg. I’m chilling here with a hot cup of tea.

45- I never get a proper tan, I always get sun burned.

46- I had braces for 10 months.

47- I’m graduating from high school in less than a month and I’m so freakin’ excited but I know I’m going to miss school so much.

48- When I was a kid, whenever I went to the cinema I cried. I have no idea why I cried but it was probably the sound system, it was too loud for me.

49- I’m a Virgo.

50- My other half is nowhere to be found.

That’s pretty much it, if you enjoyed this then leave a comment telling me some facts about yourself.

See you soon x

 

 

University talk

Hello there, Hope your all well :D

When you reach the end of high school, people start asking “what are your plans?” “what do you wanna do after school?” “where are you applying?” “Are you gonna study in Bahrain or are you gonna go abroad?”. I HATE those questions, it’s like everyone is suddenly interested in my future. I know you care and you want to give out some advice, but honestly, all your doing is confusing me more so please just BACK OFF. (this sounded a bit too harsh)

Some people are very lucky to know right from the beginning what they want to do once they’re out of school and where they want to study, so they go ahead and choose the right university and apply early. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those people. I was very confused, I even went through a phase where everything sounded interesting to me; medicine, pharmacy, nutrition, history and everything else except computer science (I’ll never understand computer stuff). While all of this was going on in my head, there was a university expo in Bahrain that included some very reputable universities in the UK. My dad took me to the expo although I knew that my parents wanted me to stay in Bahrain. I went there, looked around, asked some questions and so on. This made me realize that I HAVE to sit down with my parents and discuss my future because there wasn’t enough time left. And my parents always brought up the topic during dinner time, like SERIOUSLY? And when it came up I just felt nauseous.

My father studied civil engineering and my mother studied business and management, so this did effect my choice greatly. My mom thought architecture could be my thing, but it wasn’t. And my dad thought engineering could be my thing, but I wasn’t interested. At the back of my mind, I was thinking of teaching English, this is what I see myself doing in 10 years time (with a side business, we’ll get on that later). SO ANYWAY, I wasn’t sure if my parents will like the idea of me studying English language and literature, and having teaching as a career in my mind. But when I later discussed it with both of them, they were very supportive and encouraged me to do it. I also want to apply for business and management as I think I’ll do very good in that sector and I really enjoyed studying business in high school.

So here I am, chilling in my P-jays, just found out that I have an exam next week for a university entry, not sure whether I have to prepare for it or just go unprepared. Wish me luck ! I might give you updates on university applications and stuff like that. But for now I’m really hoping this all turns out as I hoped it would. I still get nervous when people talk about universities and future, it just sounds very big to me, like there is a whole entire life out there that we haven’t experienced yet and it’s time to draw our paths.

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”

See you soon x

March and April Favorites

Hello there, hope your all well :D

I wanted to post this towards the end of March but I didn’t have enough things to show you guys, and so I decided to wait until the end of April to accumulate more things. These are some random things I’ve been liking throughout the two months of March and April.

Let’s start off by

Evian facial spray: moisturizes, refreshes, and hydrates. I like to use it over my foundation, it gives it a natural look.

Bioderma make-up remover: small amount of this on a cotton pad will do. removes eye make up like a piece of cake, perfect for water proof mascara.

Body Butter: Japanese Cherry Blossom body butter from the body shop is what I use every night before bed. Very moisturizing and it has a soft smell that’s great for the spring season.

Labello: This product has been my best friend for the past 8 months. My lips have been very dry, I’ve used different products but non worked as good as this one did.

Nail polishes: O.P.I Pandemonium Pink and Nail station Menthe, pastels are great for spring time and those two nail polishes and great in color and formula.

 

 

Plastic shoes: I’m not sure if they have a specific name, but that’s what I call them. Very comfortable and pretty you can dress them up with skirts or dress or wear them for a casual day with a pair of jeans. I even wore them for school, very comfy.

Hamsa Bracelets: Hamsa Hands have been around for ages, it has a different meaning in different cultures and religions. They are beautiful accessories, I wore these a lot for the past two months.

 

 

And now for my favorite song of the month I’m gonna go with I will Wait by mumford and sonsand man on the moon by Phillip Phillips.

 

So that’s it for my March/April favorites. I’ll try to make this a monthly thing, the purpose of it is to recommend new products and things to people, and to try new things. I posted this a bit early as I will be very busy this week with the exams and all. Wish me luck

Leave a comment telling me about what you’ve been liking and why.

 

See you soon x