Pages

Sunday, August 31, 2014

A look back @ Summer with Vermont

UPDATE!

I'm a brand ambassador for BEADRELIEF! They are an awesome brand that sells bracelets for different charities. I got one for The A21 Campaign, a campaign that combats human trafficking, and one for The Samburu Project, a project that provides water to people in the Samburu district of Kenya.


Look at these beauties! Oh yeah I also got a guitar. It's a Taylor Mini and is adorable! I love it. It's acoustic-electric and sounds soooo good. 

Back to Vermont.
So we went around Vermont and stayed at this place called "Basin Harbor Club", a really nice, getaway, by-the-lake-and-enjoy-privacy place in a small basin along Lake Champlain (lake the leads out to Canada). I think I fell in love with Vermont? It's such a beautiful place. I think it's also so admirable how everything is independently grown and everyone just loves everyone. IDK. Vermont tho. Here are some pictures :-)


Ahhh LOOK AT VERMONT all the FLOWERS AND NATURE and
Add caption

My bro caught a huge fish! It kind of creeps me out cause where he caught it was where I swam and everything.
I got so freaked out I refused to swim in the lake again



We visited Middlebury College! Potential higher education option for yours truly.


LOOK at this beautiful and amazing fruit tart. It was $5. The place was called "Vergennes Laundry",  and it is legit the most hipster cafe I have ever been in. They write their menu (which I think changes daily) on recyclable paper that hangs from a wall (like the one we use in restrooms). Really good cookies too.

I thought these sunflowers were so pretty! They were HUGE. I wanted one but it was impractical so I wasn't allowed to buy one. It's literally the size of my face.



We went to the Burlington Farmer's Market, and they have like AMAZING stuff everything there is so pretty and great and homegrown.

We also bought homemade root beer, it was really good. It tasted special and very "rich", if root beer even is that deep. Homemade stuff is #1. 

Our view from BHC


Weird photo but we were roasting marshmallows and listening to this guy finger style. It was great. 



Look at these 2 boys selling lemonade and all! They were making $$$$$$$


Met this artist @ the flea and LOOK AT HER WORK? I want to cry it's so beautiful.


Also met the girl behind "Nicole's Threads". I am so in love with her idea and her shop and earrings and everything

This etsy quality jewellery tho

BERRIES! 

We visited the original BEN AND JERRY'S factory and got to see how they make ice cream and taste some too! Ah, Vermont. Land of cows and cream

We almost went to The Von Trapp Family lodge, but we were too tired. So we retired to another small town, Stowe, and had some nice fish and chips at a local diner.







Thursday, July 24, 2014

Summer Update: MMLA

Sorry I've been so inactive! We weren't allowed to use technology a lot @ MMLA and when I did I was always talking to my friends and updating my instagram or twitter or what not.

Sooooo, what exactly did I do for 4 weeks? I went for an intensive Spanish-program called MMLA (Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy), a program which I am pretty sure is funded by Middlebury College.

 I took a flight from Houston to Atlanta to Albany, and drove for 2 hours to get to campus in a TINY one-street town called Poultney. The place is pretty okay, they have no shops but they have cute co-ops (places that sell all natural organic food, tea, etc from local farmers) and ONE regular supermarket, Shaw's.

I expected to learn a lot more grammar here so that I could skip a grade and improve my Spanish, but unfortunately I was placed in the lowest class with people who couldn't speak any Spanish (I have no problem with them, they're great) and we learnt pretty basic things.

I don't mean to be cocky or anything, but a lot of people who were in higher levels than me thought I belonged in a higher class (I agree....) but in the end when I took the assessment, I got the highest Intermediate level scores for Reading, Writing, and Speaking, even though I was literally placed in Spanish 0.

Most of my Spanish improved because of the "Palabra de Honor", the language pledge, a pledge that I signed to promise that I would speak solely in Spanish during my whole time @ MMLA. I was sort of forced into speaking the language, and my conversational Spanish and listening skills have definitely improved.

We learnt a lot about the culture of Spain and how to live and study abroad, etc, in a college. I had a roommate, Susannah, who's from Maine, who is totally awesome. She's lived in Peru before (what??) and she taught me a lot of past/future conjugations for Spanish verbs and she was an awesome roommate. We lived in a tiny room with two beds, two desks, a shared mirror, and 2 separate closets.

We only got to shower in the morning and I wore slippers EVERYWHERE, I was kind of anal about the dirt and stuff. All the Spanish students (like 70 of us) had to share 1 bloody laundry room, so there was always so much drama and fighting about the washing machines, so Susannah and I would wake up early to do our laundry (thank god she had Tidepods, I literally had NOTHING because i had to cram a month's worth of living things into a carry on luggage). Everything in Vermont is super green and clean and whatever and so of course the machines were environmentally friendly and took REALLY long to complete each cycle.

The food @ Green Mountain College was really great though, we had different food every morning, and I think that my favourite meals were the Chinese beef stir-fry and the pesto-chicken sandwiches. They had pretty suave ice cream as well (my fave flavour was cookie dough).

Oh my god. Literally the most INSANE thing happened. There was this huge ass thunderstorm which destroyed like ½ the campus. We all had to huddle and stay in the cafeteria for 4 hours even though there was a tile on the roof that was falling out (???). It was pretty crazy. Ok look at these photos.

The tree got bloody UPROOTED.

A lot of telephone/electrical lines got messed up
And this all happened the night before the 4th of July, so you can image the fun parade and fireworks we got to enjoy(none --this is satire).

This made me really sad cause there was a whole field of trees where we would sit down and have picnics and play instruments during our free time but the shitstorm killed almost all the trees and they had to be removed because they were dangerous
ANYWAY,


We had "Olympics", with events in swimming, dodgeball, a mummy-wrapping race, and musical chairs. I was in musical chairs and was the last Spanish kid left, but lucked out when some cocky asshole French dude shoved his way into my chair. I'm not even exaggerating. I was the only person who knew how to play musical chairs cause I was actually dancing and like having fun. Whatever. The Germans won (well, they had really good looking guys so I blame their good looks on being distracting) and they all had a weird obsession with a garden gnome, whatever I don't really understand it.

We also had a world "Expo", which was basically a showcase of all the languages (in this case, Chinese, French, Spanish, and German). The Chinese showcase was funny, I was glad I could understand everything. They sang my favourite song (月亮代表我的心) and "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys in Chinese, which was so cute. I sang "The Moon Song" from the movie "Her" on my friend's ukulele but translated in Spanish (the English version is on my sound cloud here).

At the end of the whole camp, they made us take 2 assessments online to kind of gauge our level of improvement. I tried taking this 4 times. Everytime we'd take it, the power or the internet would stop working. Eventually, we had to take the test off-campus (#smalltownprobz). It was just kind of funny how nature was like working with us cause everyone was pissed off about it.

Oh yeah, a lot of my friends were really pissed off about the whole camp experience. They didn't like it. Here's some photos of them + some fun bios I guess??

From left to right: Charlie who has an adopted sister, Rachel who likes to work out, Sam who got in trouble for sneaking out onto the roof at 3am to eat macaroni and going off-campus to a lake, Grace who had the most awful room mate and had an illegal sleepover in my dorm, Neil (the guy who's cut off) who's 13 but is pretty cool, Me, Micah who lives in Middlebury and plays the drums and piano, and Susannah! I gave her a nice intro already so I'm done now.
From left to right: Rachel, Grace, Me, Julia! my friend who lives near NYC who literally had the most beautiful dorm room, Susannah, Julia! who shared a dorm with Alex and plays the piano and has a ghetto sounding boyfriend, and Zach! my friend who lives in North Hampton and has 4 moms.

I made some really good friends. I mean, when you live in a shitty place together and complain about shitty things, a bond forms (right?).

But yeah basically it was a really fun experience, and I'm glad I made so many awesome friends from New England! Will continue to update my blog about Vermont and Boston, but bye for now! :-)

Thursday, June 19, 2014

DIY: Perfect Thank You Cards

Hey! A little tutorial for you if you're bored at home today. I know a lot of times when we wanna say "Happy Birthday!" or "Thank you!" we go to grocery stores to get cards. Pfft. I'm waaaaay ahead of that. They're expensive, plus they only look okay. Well. Here we go!


How to make the perfect Thank You card.



Stuff ya need:
  • Watercolour set (doesn't matter what kind, I use Pelikan)
  • Any kind of black pen
  • Thank you card (set) or card stock
  • Ruler (optional)
  • Scrap paper
  • Paintbrushes
  • Watercup
  • Any circular object




Pictured: I have a set of classic thank you cards. You can buy these or just grab your own card stock.


I'm using the circular object (body scrub, in this case) to draw a circle in the middle of the card. To find the centre, find the midpoint of both sides by using a ruler to measure.


Start by mixing light pastel colours. Make sure you add a lot of water to get a very light colour for the first base. Shape them circular or cloud like (these are going to be roses).



Keep adding different colours, sizes, shapes, and remember to paint the ferns and leaves in last. They sort of serve as "fillers".


Once you're done with the first base, go back and mix the pastel colours with less water to get a darker colour and to paint "shadows" or darken your flowers/leaves.





 It's okay if you mess up, because the real shapes come out when you draw outlines on the watercolour flowers.


Start tracing the shapes, do them in any way you want. This is kind of the "get loose" and be crazy kind of stage. Do whatever you want.





 Once you're done tracing/outlining the shapes, you can draw little bass clefs and add little dots around them to fill the space and to design it further.


ta-daa!



Now, we're going to fill in the "Thank you!" (in the bottom left corner, I used my scrap paper to mix colours and test them out before actually using them.)


I love the tip because it's just like a paintbrush. Before writing the "Thank you!" practice in cursive multiple times on your piece of scrap paper.



Voila! 

And there ya have it, simple, fun, and very pretty Thank You cards! :)


follow me on instagram/twitter/soundcloud @ sarvarnah!
check out my latest sound: the moon song from her
bye for now! :-)



Tuesday, June 17, 2014

My 16th Birthday Party

Hey y'all! I haven't updated a lot but it's because a) I'm busy watching Netflix, and b) I'm busy watching Netflix. Here are some photoooos



We ordered some really great macaroons, fruit tarts, and mini eclairs from this place called Oui Desserts. The macarons were lavender, hazelnut, and raspberry flavoured. 


Mom made some pasta and mini quiches. Had so much fun decorating and setting up! (all with the help of my wonderful beb Bridget)

Ma rug


16 Helium Balloons
-
Here are some photos from the photo booth! (Bridget made most of the props and we decorated the top with rolls and cut outs!)







Some polaroids:





My cake! I love this cake, it's so pretty! It tasted wonderful too :-)


Group shot while blowing out the candles


Overall it was really fun, kinda chill, and so grateful that everyone came out. Hope they enjoyed the company and food as much as I did :-)

Sunday, June 1, 2014

DIY Muscle/Fringe Tees


So I've been wanting to do this for a really long time.... These tops are perfect for the heat and they look super cute. This is how to make a fringe top and/ or a muscle tee. It's easy and fun

These are the materials you need:

  • A regular shirt
  • A muscle tee
  • Fabric scissors
  • Something to draw with (pencil/fabric chalk)
You can get any tees from thrift stores or use your old shirts! 


A regular shirt you want to transform, a regular muscle tee, fabric scissors, and some sort of line drawer

This is the shirt I'm using

Line up the muscle tee with your shirt and draw lines where you want to cut. Make sure you give yourself some leeway incase you make mistakes
Snip snip snip
Start cutting the bottom up. You can cut the string horizontally to whatever length you want

You should draw your line in pencil. 

Final product!

I decided that I didn't like the width, so I went back and cut it up some more. Try it on before you decide what you want. You can always go back and clean up the edges, but we want a "grunge" look so it's fine.



I would pair this top with jean shorts and a long pendant necklace. If you have a vibrant/bright top, you can skip the necklace and go with rings instead. Cute and affordable midi / regular rings here!
I love making these because I can go out and flaunt something that I made.

What it looks like. You can also cut off the fringe completely for a crop top
Hope that was easy enough! :) It's really fun and cute for summer. Have a good one :)