5 Ways Our Homemaking Can Enhance Our Work-at-Home Lifestyle

In my experience, if we have our homemaking systems down to a pat (okay, maybe not down to a pat, but more or less sorted out), we can create a happy place for our family and ourselves as well as work on our assignments and deadlines at peace. 

Personally, I began valuing the art of homemaking and how it adds a sparkle to our other facets of home life, including, working-from-home, after many years of homemaking by the seat of my pants. But now that I'm kinda figuring it out, here's why I feel homemaking can help me (and many of us) stay grounded and happy as we putter around home, working, teaching and being.

Happy Homemaking to help the Work-At-Home Lifestyle / Pic credit: Pixabay

Here are 5 ways that homemaking can have a positive impact our work-from-home life:

1. When we spend time and happy energy on “making a home”, it percolates into our work-from-home life too. And in the same way, if we pour in frazzled energy into how we manage our home, it makes our work-from-home experience hassled too. While homemaking is at the core of any home, when you work from home you’re always surrounded by the energy that you filled up your home with.

2. A simple homemaking system and routine can help us focus better on our work. Systems, routines and rhythms streamline the household chores and keep offering the regular TLC that our homes and our lives need. 

3. Purposeful homemaking means that we also factor in time for ourselves and the little treats that brighten up a day. As the saying goes “all work and no play” is a surefire recipe for a dull day. I’m learning to inject more treats into my days, instead of rushing from one homeschooling or homemaking chore to a work-from-home deadline.

The Brigade that Builds Brands: Author, Recycling Artist & Army wife Reshma Kadvath on how she has created a home, lifestyle & creative career around her passion for upcycling

Hello friends! Today I'd like to welcome Reshma Kadvath to The Brigade that Builds Brands. An avid recycler + up cycler, author of two coffee table books on sustainability, and a creative blogger, this Army wife champions a cause very dear to my heart. A cause that many of us can weave into our lives now too, to not only nourish our creativity but to nurture the Earth. I "met" her on Instagram, and was instantly fascinated with how she creates jewellery, furniture and decor items out of old, broken objects that anybody else would probably discard without a backward glance. With the magic wand of her creativity, a broken doorknob turns into a candle stand, a woven hand fan into a coffee tray, hooks into a necklace, and much more. 

Reshma Kadvath - Author, Upcycling Artist, Blogger & Army Wife

Let's dive into this chat and find out how she does what she does while moving from one small military base to another with her Army officer husband. (You are welcome to read about all our featured milpreneurs here.)

CB. Please tell us something about yourself – what do you do, where are you based and how long have you been a fauji/military wife (and which service are/have been part of i.e Army/Air Force/Navy).

RK. Hi… I am Reshma Kadvath. Basically I am a Keralite, but after 22 years of marriage to an Army Officer, I can safely say that I have a bit of ‘all states of India’ in me. I am a self-proclaimed lover of everything Indian, and it reflects in my fashion sense and décor sensibilities. I am a nature lover and try to surround myself with plants and greenery wherever I go. Apart from this, I am also a writer. I have authored two coffee table books, primarily dealing with creativity and upcycling.

CB. What has been your business or creative journey been like: how & when did you start your brand/business/creative career?

RK. The journey has been very fulfilling and satisfying. The creative roots can be traced back to my childhood, but the journey truly took flight, once I became an Army wife. My first born was diagnosed with clinical ADHD, so it became difficult for me to venture out much. That is when the décor bug bit me real hard. I started transforming my Fauji homes into the ultimate creative and inspirational sanctuaries. However, soon the pinch of a single earning member started curbing my creative instincts. That is when I started my creative journey, into the world of UPCYCLING (creative reuse of old and discarded objects). Although it initially started as a means to save money, once I became aware of its ‘POSITIVE IMPACT ON OUR ENVIRONMENT’, it has become my one true calling… my IKIGAI. Now my main aim is to spread awareness about this beautiful creative process and its many benefits on the environment, to one and all.

Reshma with one of her coffee table books

Reshma's beautiful home decor - most of it created through up cycling and recycling

CB. Fauji wives make their home in an assortment of obscure places across the country. Our lives are about living in the moment and doing what we can, when we can. Can you share how you stayed creative or found work that satisfied you while moving across the country?

RK. I believe travel expands one’s creative horizons. You get inspired by the various cultures, traditions and rich art forms. Every state I get posted to gives me new raw materials (mostly from junkyards and flea markets) to work on and introduces me to local artisans, trained in different skills, who help give life to my ideas. It is a two way affair. I get to see my ideas fructify, and I with my creative imagination in turn help open their minds to infinite new possibilities of their craft/talent. Taking inspiration from all over the country, in addition to décor accents, I create upcycled jewelry, fashion accessories, utility items, furniture… you name it I upcycle it. 

5 Eco-friendly & Organic Gardening Steps Fauji Wives (and anyone with a garden) Can Take In A Snap

We military/fauji folk often live in green areas with sprawling gardens, prolific backyards, and lush surroundings with trees and abundant fauna. The air there is clean, the skies blue (sans a film of smoke) and the opportunity to tend to the Earth, bountiful. But even though most of us like to get our gardeners to create immaculate gardens and plant rows upon rows of vegetables and flowers, not many of us actually take eco-friendly steps.

Military areas might look lush green and soothing to the eye, but in reality, how green are our gardening and lifestyle practices? Hey, don’t turn this off already – read on to find some super simple ways that you can maintain your garden, enjoy the vegetables & fruits you’ve grown, and still make the whole experience richer for you and Momma Earth.

1. Don’t let your gardeners spray pesticides in your garden. Time and time again I’ve seen that the local gardeners (most of them are untrained) insist on spraying down flowers and vegetables. They don’t really ask for permission to do this (as they think this is a perfectly normal practice), so it’s wise to speak to them beforehand and tell them not to get the chemicals in. Instead, learn about eco-friendly ways to deal with garden pests and pass on the info to them for implementation.

Green go-to tip: In my experience, using neem oil and Panchagavya, and planting garlic and calendula around veggie gardens often keeps pests away.

My dream: To support women & girls through their wellness and green living sojourn

Exactly a year ago, I sent a wish out into the Universe. I wanted to get back to working with women as a Health Coach, like I did before my son was born (my wellness practice was called Luscious Health). But this time round, I wanted to do things differently. Support more women. Create varied offerings. Work towards making something better. However, I didn’t know what shape this dream would take at that time.

12 months on, it’s morphed into this melting pot of gentle wellness, green living and creativity called Gorgeous Girls Go Green – a resource center that works with women and children to empower them with gentle + eco-friendly lifestyle choices. 

A resource center? Well, a one-stop shop to tank up on green wellness through our digital magazine, a bouquet of wellness workshops and eco + skin-friendly bodycare products. GGGG is all about learning, sharing and implementing all that knowledge through small, practical steps.

It might be easy to call Gorgeous Girls Go Green an eco venture, a micro-business or a project. But what I wish for it to be is a warm and cozy blanket that’ll offer you comfort when you need it. That cup of coffee or tea that you reach out for at a busy time. That buddy you turn to for support or help or a few minutes of sparkles.

photo credit: www.unspalsh.com

Let Gorgeous Girls Go Green be your very own 4G Network. Let it be your go-to friends’ group when you need to slow down or take care of yourself, or do something to make this world a better place. Does any of it resonate with you? Join me on this sojourn on a new path. Like the Gorgeous Girls Go Green Page on Facebook to stay connected . See ya around J.

And ladies, how can I support you as you strive to stay well, go green and be creative? Drop in a comment below or contact me via our GGGG Facebook page.

#gorgeousgirlsgogreen #greenliving #womenswellness #ecowellness

3 of my favorite body care products in March

Over the past year, I’ve been slowly replacing chemical-laden body care products with handmade, gentle and natural alternatives. We make some and buy the others from entrepreneurs or self-help groups across the country. The idea is to own fewer products, but cherish the magic in each little bottle, box or jar that we source.

Fresh, handmade, sourced from small businesses and most-importantly, crafted with earth and body friendly ingredients, this month's goodies are making me feel good :).

I’d love to share three of my favorites this month (every month, I’ll share a few of my current fav things).

Disclaimer: I’m not being paid to recommend these products.

Apricot body oil from Aarohi: Like bottles of liquid gold, these nourish my skin in the dry and not-yet-summer days. In a season, when olive oil becomes too thick and heat-inducing to apply, and coconut oil seems a bit too light, this sunshine-yellow apricot oil with its faint aroma of crushed apricot seeds is like a slice of heaven. Cold-pressed and made by women in the hills near Nainital, this oil is a good alternative to store-bought lotions.

How to make your own lip balm (and where to source the ingredients from)

I’ve been on a quest to de-toxify our home and find natural, eco-friendly alternatives for some of our lifestyle choices. But let me be honest - I’m not a thorough eco-warrior who has banned plastic totally from her life, cloth diapers her child all the time, grows all her food or eats only organic food, has given up make-up or become totally minimalistic.

I’ve chosen the middle path, which marries some of the conveniences of urban, modern life with some of the wisdom of old-fashioned, DIY, natural living. For now, this works for us.

And this is what the middle path looks like on most days: we cloth diaper our son a few times a day but use disposables too; we grow a small portion of what we eat and source a large portion from the local market; we’re slowly exchanging the toxin-laden home cleaning products for homemade cleaners that are just as effective (a post with recipes on that soon). We compost our kitchen waste and make our own wrapping paper instead of buying the shimmery plastic ones.

We’ve still not given up on our plastic utensils, but are also using more of steel and glass in the kitchen. We try to recycle old plastic bags and carry cloth bags while shopping. And, I’m trying to make some of our body care products – body butters, ‘talcum’ powder, lip balms, mosquito repellents, hand sanitizers and toothpaste. (In case you're wondering why I'm doing this of all things - here's what's in our commercial cosmetics.)

If you’ve been trying to add a dash of green into your life and some of these things have piqued your interest, then you might like to give this recipe a whirl. How ‘bout making your own lip balm and ditching those jars of petroleum jelly or tiny pots of store-bought lip balm?

Our homemade, non-toxic, essential oil-infused lip balm

I do love my Lavender Lip Balm (I’ve adapted the recipe from 'My Buttered Life’). It’s nourishing, soothing and natural. It’s easy to make and takes a small sliver of your Sunday to whip some up.

What you need:

30 gm of Beeswax

30 gm of Shea Butter

30 gm of Coconut Oil

10 drops of Lavender Essential Oil (or an essential oil of your choice)

You’ll also need some small containers to store the lip balm in – I recycle old lip balm containers

A saucepan and a pot

Method:

Before you start, set up all the ingredients on your kitchen counter. Make sure you have everything at hand.

Grate the Shea butter and the Beeswax with a cheese grater, and keep aside.

Now fill up the pot with water and bring it to a boil. Then, reduce the heat to low.

Drop all the ingredients except the essential oil into the saucepan and place it over the hot water. Stir with a wooden ladle when the ingredients begin to melt and meld together. (Don’t let the mixture bubble and boil).

When the Shea butter, Beeswax and coconut oil have turned into a pool of golden liquid, add the essential oil, give it a quick stir and take it off the heat.

Pour into the containers and let it cool.

Label the containers and use J.

P.S. When I wrote about making your own body butter, a lot of you asked me where I source the raw materials from (in India). I buy the shea butter, beeswax and cocoa butter from Ekta Singh of Green Junction. And I highly recommend her products; do check her Facebook page out.

P.P.S. I found the Story of Cosmetics very interesting. It gives you something to think about, right?

Do join the conversation at my Facebook page!

#naturalliving #diycosmetics #safecosmetics

How to make your own body butter to nourish your skin this summer

Summer’s on a gallop. The sun’s turning up its heat and we’re already dreading the next few months. It’s at times like this when I crave a little bit of homemade comfort and nourishing. And what better than making a few body care products at home with the freshest of ingredients, all of which are pure and toxin-free.

Summer’s a tricky time – we need to stay moisturized without feeling oily and sticky. 

Homemade body butter whipped up in out own kitchen...

So, when this fiery month comes knocking on our door, it’s time to pack the thick, warming olive oil that we’d been slathering through the cold months and bring out a jar of something that’s luxurious yet non-sticky, moisturizing yet non-oily.

Here at the Bear home (sometimes we’re fondly known as the Three Bears ;-)), we’ve made jars of body butter out of cocoa butter, shea butter and coconut oil, and have been using this as our go-to skincare solution. 

If you’d like to make some for yourself – a jar of pure goodness minus the parabens and the plethora of toxins, here’s the recipe. (We've adapted this recipe from the 'My Buttered Life' ebook series)

Ingredients:

Shea butter – 220 gm

Cocoa butter – 110 gm

Coconut oil – 110 gm

Method:

1. In a double boiler, gently melt the ingredients till they’ve melded into a molten golden liquid. Stir with a wooden spoon.

2. Take this mixture off the heat and cool to room temperature. After that, pop this mixture into the refrigerator for a couple of hours till it solidifies.

3. Pull out the mixture from the fridge and whip it with a mixer till its light and fluffy.

4. Scoop it into your containers and use it to nourish your skin during the long summer months.

And then...use a scoop of luxurious butter to treat your skin every day :-).

#naturalbodycare #greenliving

Composting in your backyard – a quick DIY project

A while back, I decided to take baby steps towards a greener lifestyle.

I’ve tried to make simple changes around the home – create my own body care products, make my own natural cleaning solutions, paint our own wrapping paper instead of using the tinsely plastic ones, plant a kitchen garden, use cloth bags instead of plastic packets, eat wholesome meals. Little ways of cutting down on the toxins and reducing our carbon footprint, while revving up the health quotient of our family. So, when you’re doing stuff like this, you also begin to wonder about composting.

My mom has been vermi-composting for years, but my attempts at it have always failed. Whenever I’ve tried doing this, I’ve ended up with a bucketful of dead worms and a stinky mess. So, I decided to go with the simpler solution – composting my wet kitchen waste without the worms. And it worked! Right now, the big, blue bucket stands in my backyard, turning months of vegetable peels and dried leaves into rich, black compost - a feast for our garden.

So, if this is something that interests you, here’s a small DIY.

1. Take a large bucket with a lid. Drill holes around it and at the bottom of it because composting needs air circulation. Place this bucket in your backyard.

2. Now start collecting all your vegetable & fruit peels and egg shells in a container in the kitchen. Also start collecting dry leaves in a pile in the corner of your backyard.

3. Dump some dry leaves into your composting bucket, and then add a layer of garden soil. Now start dumping the peels and egg shells into the bucket. Make sure that you chop the peels into small bits and crush the egg shells, so they decompose quickly.

4. After you’ve added a layer of green kitchen waste, add a layer of dry leaves and paper. Top this with a layer of garden soil and sprinkle half a bottle of water on it, before adding another layer of green kitchen waste on top of it. Rinse and repeat.

5. Composting needs both, greens and browns to turn rich. So alternate the layers, by adding equal amounts of green waste and dry leaves.

6. Try to give this composting mix a stir with a stick once every week or two, so that the mixture will stay aerated and compost better.

7. Composting, like most good things, takes time, so give yourself and your composting pit a bucket load of time.

Notes:

I compost vegetable and fruit peels, egg shells, dry leaves and grass. But there are a multitude of things that you can compost. Here’s a list of all the things that you can dump into your composting bucket to turn into black gold.

Here’s a website that can give you detailed information on composting.

 #naturalliving #compost #greenliving

Another simple eco-friendly lifestyle option – DIY Hand-painted Wrapping Paper

Lately, I’ve been looking for simple solutions for our lives and home. Solutions that are natural, sustainable, and DIY. I want us to experience hands-on living. Life in a way where we get our hands in the mud; where we do more than just delegate; where we experience fulfillment in crafting the dailyness of our lives by being more present, more engaged in the simple rituals that make up the fabric of life.

So this would mean cooking more simple yet nourishing meals ourselves rather than getting a cook to do it. Gardening ourselves to grow a percentage of our own food. Painting and crafting to make our home warm and pretty. Creating home-cleaners at home with a few basic non-toxic ingredients. Having a good time as a family within our home (now that does not mean that we don’t go out at all!).

DIY and eco-friendly living also spills over to our gifting options and gift-wrapping options. Instead of packing our gifts with tinsely plastic foil, I’m trying to paint my own wrapping paper or craft my own painted paper bags to hold the gifts. It’s a simple yet practical way to fit some creativity into my days as a mom with a toddler at home (those of you who have little humans around the house, know how much of free time that leaves you with!). The final product looks pretty, it takes less than 30 minutes and pops out amongst a crowd of shimmery packages.

If you’d like to paint your own wrapping paper, here are two simple techniques.

Floral Watercolor Wrapping Paper

1. Spread out a large sheet of white paper on your work table.

2. Dip a broad, flat brush in water and cover the entire sheet in a thin layer of water.

3. Working quickly, dip another brush in your favorite color and paint freestyle (and freehand) flowers.

4. Cover the sheet like this. If you feel that the paint or water has pooled, ball up a paper napkin and dab it over those areas. Now let the paint dry.

Eccentric Streaks Wrapping Paper

1. I use little pots of tempera paints for this. I spread a large sheet of white paper out on the table and dab a dry, flat brush into a pot of paint.

2. Then, I paint strokes and circles and figure of eights around the paper, letting my brush be a whimsical ice skater making her way around the skating rink. Let a pattern emerge this way.

3. Once the paint is dry, paint some quick motifs like small flowers or ladybirds or big polka dots among the streaks to add an element of interest to the pattern.

Use these pretty papers for gift wrapping or scrapbooking!

P.S If you can lay your hands on sheets of plain white recycled paper for this project – then even better.

What I want to strive for in 2015...

Hi Folks!

Happy New Year! 2014 went in a blink or it seems that way every time we step over the threshold of a brand new year.

So while I don’t do resolutions in the true sense of the word, I create a few goals to work on or roll with every New Year. Here’s what I want to strive for in the next 12 months.

1.Learn new ways to stay healthy and fit naturally as a family. I started using some of the principles of aromatherapy this year to keep illness at bay. I aspire to deepen this practice in 2015 and add the ‘tapping cure’ to my natural remedy tool kit.

2.And, I will drop those last few pounds – the baby weight that has been stubbornly clinging on to me.

3.I will complete my Yoga Teacher’s Training this year and offer up classes for those who want to explore yoga as a way to stay fit.

4.I also wish to work on more professional assignments, be it for magazines and websites or through natural living workshops.

5.I am finally declaring myself as an ILLUSTRATOR, instead of a closet one. I will open up that door of possibility for people who wish to work with me to develop illustrations for posters, cards, websites and blog banners.

6.I wish to explore more ways to live naturally with my family.

7.I pray for peace and joy for us, and for the world.

What are your goals for this year?

What we're eating to boost our immunity this winters...

How I miss the sunshine...

The winter up here, in the plains of Punjab where we live are chilly at the best, and gloomy, bone-bitingly cold, teeth-chatteringly miserable at the worst. And where we live, central heating is the thing that you dream of while toasting your hands around a room heater, dreading that moment when you have to walk out of the room into the chillier parts of the house. You get the picture, right? ;-)

So as days slide between thick foggy mornings, cold misty evenings and pale yellow afternoons with a poached-egg of a sun, it’s getting even more important, and more challenging to stay healthy and flu-free. With bugs thick in the air and sniffles and fever knocking on every door, I’ve been trying different ways to boost our immunity and keep us an arm’s distance away from winter infections. I’m not sure how much of a victory I can claim, but I’m going to try every little trick in my book of holistic living.

Eating healthy and fresh is one of the essential ways we’ve been trying to stay fit in this difficult season. We’re tanking up on things that fill us up with nutrients and keep our immunity at its hilt (at least that's the aim). Here are a few simple things we’re eating.

My Dirty Dozen - 12 simple steps towards a sustainable lifestyle

Neel - in touch with earth ;-) (pic by sandeep banerjee)

So I’ve been telling you about the 50 different things (err..well not 50, but you know what I mean) that I was up to this November. A lot of which centered around living greener & cleaner while reducing the carbon footprint of our family and leading a more sustainable life.

Now I’m the last one to preach a certain lifestyle. But once you’ve tasted the freshness, the goodness of a more natural way of living, it’s difficult to turn back to your older one. It’s difficult to go back to a more materialistic, more toxic, more ‘I don’t have to think about the environment’ way of life. And it's just as difficult to not share some of this goodness.

Also, a lot of you responded to my previous post with questions about living a natural life. So I thought what better than incorporate these 12 steps into your daily life. Take one simple step and make that change before moving onto the next. Choose whatever catches your fancy out of this list or whichever change you feel yourself gravitating towards. Work on it, and then add another one, slowly and steadily working through the list.

Let’s begin with these 12 things to add a pinch of green to our lives.

Cloth shopping bag - noricum

1. Carry a few cloth bags in your purse/tote/shopping basket whenever you step out to go to the veggie market, the mall or to the local bazaar. Stuff the goodies you buy into these rather than bringing home a dozen plastic packets along with your purchases. You can even recycle old plastic packets by taking them along for your shopping trips (yes, I’m known to do that!).

Rescuing Ourselves With This...

With winter striding in stealth mode, towing along a bag-full of germs and viruses, it’s time to rev up our immunity and get ready to battle the cold. This past week, we’ve had someone or the other sick at home, down with a scratchy throat, a running nose, a fever or body ache (I have a scratchy throat right this moment). And even though 13+ months of breastfeeding my son did arm him with good germ-fighting abilities, the viruses swirling around in the air are beginning to take a toll on him.

The winter’s only going to get colder, more severe, more sun-less. And the air is only going to get thicker with germs and viruses. So, to prepare for the five months of long, chilly, flu-full winters, I’m dipping into my box of essential oils to prevent illnesses.