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This past week I had the fun opportunity to work on a custom piece- transforming the newlywed couple Maria & Ahmed into cartoon superheros for their thank you cards. A daunting task at first, googling how to draw cartoon superheros made it much less intimidating. I was so pleased with how it turned out, I wish I had thought of a similarly cute idea for my wedding thank you cards! 


I used Windsor &  Newton watercolors, Sakura Pigma Micron pens to outline, and just the black Prismacolor watercolor pencil for the hair (because my watercolor set doesn't come with the color black, which makes little sense to me). The duo featured capes, gloves (the usual superhero attire), and each person's signature features- Ahmed's glasses, and Maria's glasses + curly hair. I tried to go for a lighter pastel look for the colors, but with the end product being a scanned .JPG file, I didn't want the colors to wash out in the scan.


The non-cartooned couple!

superheros maria & ahmed: cartoon edition

Thursday, June 16, 2016


Ramadan has begun, and with it comes the struggle of balancing a healthy diet and trying not to eat every delicious, crispy, fried thing in sight when you break your fast (I'm looking at you, pakoras and samosas). I find it's much easier to eat something healthy in the morning for the pre-dawn meal, suhoor, instead of the evening meal when you break your fast, iftar. Eggs, toast, oatmeal, yogurt, smoothies are all light and healthy for the mornings. Especially smoothies.

Let me tell you why I think the concept of a smoothie is fantastic: you can drink the daily recommended amount of fruits/veggies in one cup quickly, and on the go. The current recommendations for daily intake are atleast 2 servings of fruit a day, and atleast 3 serving of vegetables a day (this health.gov website has a great breakdown of the daily recs). Although not an impossible feat to accomplish, getting in the adequate amounts each day is challenging- especially during Ramadan, or even when you're just busy. I much prefer gathering all the ingredients, blending, and drinking them instead!


This berry green smoothie, taken from Damn Delicious, gets close to the recommended daily amounts. It has 1 cup of spinach leaves (1 serving of veggies), 1 banana, and 1 total cup of blueberries and raspberries (3 servings of fruit). Not bad for something you can drink for breakfast! The rolled oats give it a very gritty and filling texture, and the fruit totally masks the taste of the spinach, leaving you feeling full and refreshed!

berry green smoothie

Thursday, June 9, 2016


I saw this idea on Pinterest quite a while ago, and was just waiting for someone in my life to use it on- and who better than your new husband as you celebrate his birthday together for the first time? The set up was perfect: we had just gotten back from Spain and H's birthday was a few days before. We had celebrated in Spain so he wasn't really expecting anything else when we got back home. I had one day at home after we returned, and then was leaving to Los Angeles the next morning for a quick girls trip me and a friend had planned over a year ago. He was gone to work during the day, so that gave me ample time to plan this surprise!



It was H's 29th birthday, so I got 29 balloons and attached something I like about him on a piece of paper to each balloon's ribbon. I hid the balloons in our bedroom and closed the door, so he wouldn't be able to see them right away when he came home.


When I was getting the balloons from the store earlier, I told the man at the counter the surprise I was planning (naturally, people inquire what the balloons are for when you tell them you need 29 balloons to be able to fit in your car), and he gave me a "newlywed discount" by charging for 2 dozen balloons instead of the 29. I love it when strangers genuinely share your excitement about little things!



PS- I've been told my Urdu isn't bad.

DIY birthday message balloons

Thursday, June 2, 2016

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