Trumatter

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

From My Front Porch To Yours – Treasure Hunt Thursday

http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.in/2013/03/anything-blue-friday-week-2.html

Sunday

http://www.rukminiroydesigns.wordpress.com

Lemon Tart

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Most of you who read me know the recipe of lemon tart and hence not bothering with the recipe. However, should you feel the need for trumatter’s trusted recipe- you know what to do!

For now- loving them and doing a bit of a jig with the photography

Have a fabulous friday

P.S: I have anew blog where I sell handmade jewelry and painting…if you care to watch!

Toodles!

Indian Spice Fish Marinade

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

What’s up this Friday evening! Come and say hello to a great marinade that will give your barbecued meat a great twist.

A great marinade that you can pretty much use for any white meat, you’ll need a couple of fresh stuff and a mixer to get this fantastic and aromatic mix- throw in chicken, fish, rabbit or even veggies for that matter and you’d have your fingers licked clean.

The man and I got conscious suddenly about our health (oh, we are hitting 30′s da) and turned to fish proteins for a while . We are also cutting down on oils and cheese and take-away’s and turning more into grilled and smoked and salads. Genes from my family are not all that great with regards to health and I really can’t take chances, you know!

I’ve had a cyst lately and it somehow shook me. The apprehensions, the unending pain, the dilemmas- and I am only 28. One needed to hold the health reign and steer towards a healthy life. So….

And the fact that we get a whole lot of fresh fish, everyday at the corner, fresh up from the sea!

Now for the folks who like their fish not too overpowered by the smell of marinade, cut back on the garlic. We like our grilled stuff, full of flavor- ahem…we are Indians.

Straight to the recipe then:

Chop…chop…chop

1 bunch coriander

3 green chillies

1 bunch spearmint/peppermint leaves

5 cloves of garlic

Mix and blitz

All of the above, 2 tbsp of lemon juice, Pinch of salt

Marinade

Marinade your meat with the above and keep it refrigerated for about an hour or two. The more the better.

Grill & Enjoy

Toodles!

Off to sleep

DIY footed bowls, DIY cake stand and a Spring vignette

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

God, have I been absconding from Trumatter.

I kind of juggled for a while but life’s priorities catch up hard and fast and blogging just goes out of the window. That and the fact that Ive been falling sick repeatedly. I’ll tell you all with what- “cold & fever”. It’s almost become a part of me…I miss it when I am alright, it’s that bad a part of me.

Who’s to blame? Indian Summer. Office Air-conditioner and that blasted thirst for anything cold along with cold baths. Seriously its way above 40 here and I am dying. Bad, bad, bad.

Regardless…

Here’s a sick-girl’s go to feel good therapy- DIY Cake stands, footed bowls and plants.

There is no secret to this DIY, no apprehensions or trick points. All you need is a hot glue gun, some unused plates and wine glasses and a broken wine glass with foot intact.

For DIY cake stand

Invert your wine glass, position plate on top.

Plug in your glue gun

Once glue is warm, line the base of the wine glass with glue and position plate- make sure the center is exactly at the top of the wine glass base or it will topple.

Wait for a day and you’re done!

For DIY footed bowls

Repeat same as above (being lazy)

oh, I need to tell something here. If the foot you saved off the glass has unbroken shards on top, break them gently and get a level that’s even. Else, obviously the bowl on top wont sit straight.

Easy right?

Tier small potted plants for a quick and easy spring vignette!

Sharing @

Monday

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

From My Front Porch To Yours – Treasure Hunt Thursday

http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.in/2013/03/anything-blue-friday-week-2.html

Sunday

Rukmini Roy Designs

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Just a quick shout out! My new design and service blog- Rukminiroydesign is now out with its first line of silver jewelry, “The Red Cloche”.

Unlike Trumatter, where I talk about a lot of things, RRD is going to be a design/sales blog where you can keep yourself updated with what’s coming up from the designer/maker side of me

I hope you all pay a visit and give me some feedback. Would mean a lot really!

Toodles!

Hello Lovely Inc. Plates goes Scandinavian!

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Morning northerners! How does it go with you?

I have Hello Lovely Inc. plates for you today, painted with Scandinavian Art prints. Do you fancy Scandi? She does.

Michele from Hello Lovely was one of those bloggers with whom I instantly connected. She writes, so do I. She paints, so do I. She sings for a band, so do I. She plays Tambourine, so do I. She’s got beautiful beach blonde hair, so…do I?

From the very first time we talked, there was a connection. It was instant, spontaneous and continuous too. It’s been what? Two years straight? And we still connect on every little thing- or atleast I do. When she writes, I read.

But lately lovely has been around stuff that is not so lovely, and yet she takes it with pretty pompoms and pink slippers. How can you not respect that girl?

Sometime back, she’s been kind enough to sent me 2 beautiful plates from her etsy shop along with few lovely brooches, both of which I love to death. This weekend while giving my living room some wall plate love, my thoughts took me to the Lovely vintage plates and I immediately knew I would love them to become heirloom.

This girl from the hollow is a die hard Scandi/Norwegian art/decor fan and there could have no better to salute this super brave girl.

I hope she likes it!

“So long lives this, this gives life to thee”.

Love

Trumatter

Sharing @

Monday

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

From My Front Porch To Yours – Treasure Hunt Thursday

http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.in/2013/03/anything-blue-friday-week-2.html

Sunday

Fashion DIY: Pimping it up with Vintage Lace!

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Morning ladies!

After a zillion years I have finally got myself to post and wait… it’s a fashion post! Laugh it out, if you must!

Seriously…This girl in here do not give a darn about fashion. She generally grabs a tee and a jeans and off she goes to do her chores. There is absolutely no pressure on her to look good or even remotely presentable for she works 10 hours as an editor, deciding how a web lay out should be with a particular copy and stuff, and prefers comfort to style. But once in a while she does come up with some brilliant fashion DIY ideas and flaunts it on date night with her husband!

We were to go Pot-Pourri- I wanted to wear the new Royal Blue top with silver earrings but somewhere something was missing. I tried different earrings, a pencil skirt, a tangerine pant- Nope! Doesn’t do it for me. I didn’t want to layer it with something either as it fits me a bit hugging.

SOLUTION: VINTAGE LACE

This is how it looked when I bought it.

So what I did is, place the stretch of lace on the reverse of the front neck and snipped the portion required, keeping an inch extra.

Next, I stuck it with fabric glue!

Now there are 2 good reasons why I used glue and not thread.

1. FASTER

2. No seam lines!!

How it looked finally!

I didn’t put a tutorial here because its very easy. In case anyone wants a tutorial, do leave me a comment.

Happy week everybody. The girl signing off.

Sharing @

Wednesday

Thursday

From My Front Porch To Yours – Treasure Hunt Thursday

http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.in/2013/03/anything-blue-friday-week-2.html

Sunday

13 Secrets To A Happy Rabbit

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Afternoon people out there!

It’s been a while… I know.

As my post title suggests, we’ll be talking about a beach house bunny today- the secret to a happy rabbit.

Before I begin on how to take care of your pet rabbit or how to share your apartment with a bunny, which would be a better title for this, let me tell you what all we have juggled a lot. A lot means, a lot.

In Pursuit of that Perfect Pet

Since the time we’ve started staying together, we’ve been looking for pets. Dogs, cats, fishes, at adoption sites, rescue lists, pet shops, from a friend of a friend who eventually decided to not give his lab puppy away after we’ve travelled 50 kilometres to get him and were mentally prepared- it was never ending. We exchanged links over email keeping our most important assignments at bay, we liked several rescue pages over Facebook to see if that dream puppy was somewhere along- nothing. When does one call enough, enough?

Tired and beaten and badly wanting, Ro decided we’ll keep fishes. So there we were in the pet shop, several hours later waiting to pick up Ro’s favorite fighter fish and guess what happened? From a whole room full of potential pets, I impulsively picked up a baby bunny. I could never let it go!

I’ve heard that they stay best in pairs so we took 2. One grey and one white.

Unfortunately, the Grey one died after a week.

On close heels of his death, we got 3 rabbits to keep the one who survived from the first lot company but all of them died, one after the other, leaving him alone as ever.

We read it up online and found no source to explain the sudden deaths. I also read somewhere that they die sudden.What a major heartbreak man!

We decided to never get another rabbit again and keep him single with us.
We thought he’d die in a week as we’ve heard they are social animals. Pardon us for being cruel- when you see too many deaths, you tend to get annoyingly practical.

Myth Bust

Its over a month and a half now- fluffy is doing great and he is very happy. He is that little creature who trots on your feet as you make yourself a cup of coffee and needlessly give you all the love he has. He might nibble on your favorite slippers and sometime your fat toe too but its all too sweet to even pay attention to the damage. They are your everyday mental damage control device.

So how did he survive? How did that happen?

This is where I’ll give you the secrets to a happy rabbit and bust some myth’s arse.

From what I have learnt-

1. Not all bunnies survive. Take this hard fact from me. Bred in captivity and in enormous numbers, its evident that only some will have survival-of-the-fittest genes. Count 1 out of 20. So, if your baby bunny die, don’t blame yourself for the rest of your life. They might be from a bad stock.

2. Your bunny will always be happy if you interact with it. Call it names, go near it, play with it, snuggle it a bit. They are social animals remember? Not rabittically speaking but for real. They love company.

3. Never, ever give your baby bunny a bath. It kills them. Sponge them with lukewarm water atleast until they are a month old, if you feel he’s gotten dirty. They generally clean themselves.

4. Hay is the happy secret. Make it mandatory to give him hay. Make it available to him all times of the day. Your rabbit can eat cabbage, fresh coriander, tomatoes, beetroot, spinach (fluffy hates it. He just ignores it) along with hay. You can feed them veggies twice or in little amounts throughout the day. One very important thing to note: Please make sure you are feeding your bunny at the same spot- ideally his basket. This will also train him to expect food only in his corner. For added benefits, read point 7!

5. There is no need to buy expensive cages and bedding and running wheels or whatever you buy. Get a big enough basket, line it with newspaper, get cheap straw and make his bed. On one side, keep his hay. Get a bigger basket to keep him caged when you want to.

6. The best exercise your bunny can get is to run around the house. Let him. Its fun.

7. You cannot potty train anyone. However, you can notice where it generally pees. Rabbits are good. They poop and pee while they eat and all one really needs to do is give him his food in his home and cage him. Do it for 5 days and it will automatically poop there. MOSTLY. Don’t be surprised if you find round pellet like poop in corners. Just broom it out and throw them in the dustbin. If they pee everywhere but their cage, clean it with dettol. They hate dettol and never pees there My bunny however has chosen one rug and his home as his loo. Your bunny will choose 2-3 areas for himself. Note these areas and provide cheap rugs. MYTH: Rabbits pee stinks. Ball-talk. It doesn’t. You can just wash the rug once in 3 months.

8. Keep straw in his bed and not fancy self-absorbing stuff because it absorbs pee like magic, its cheap and it dries really fast, keeping his home dry.

9. They tend to eat their poop sometimes. Allow him. Its full of fiber.

10. Limit sweet treats to once in 15 days. Pet him and give it to him. He will lick your hands with tiny tongue that feels like heaven.

11. When you want to punish him, cage him and scold him. It really works.

12. A single rabbit can be your pet. That social thing is bullshit.

13. If you have free wires running around the house, just switch the connecting plugs off. They actually dont bite wires. They like hairbands though

Sharing it for securing a place in Bunny Heaven:

Monday

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday

5 Muffins Recipe and An Easy DIY Bakery Style Muffin Liner

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

My brother in law, from Rohan’s side, wanted Muffins for his birthday. I asked which flavor. He said any. I was stuck between 6 options. So I made all 6! It’s good to be on the safer side when you are playing with people’s love for cakes you know. Specially when last Saturday he had a baby boy! Bad time to screw up in a sweet birthday as such.

A great guy, an ex-sailor who now runs his own maritime company and a wonderful guitarist who shares the same interest as my husband, I ate the strawberry one in this batch when the box I chose to take them could accommodate only 5. Yes, that explains the case of the missing muffin

For its liner, I did a DIY bakery style brown paper liner and it took me only 5 minutes to do all 6. All you need to do is cut squares, press them down in your muffin tin with a can or glass that fits the muffin cups and press the naturally formed paper folds tightly. There is one thing though, maintain the overlaps. You can choose not to, but if you do, it’ll look great.

There is a great tutorial here for DIY Bakery Style Muffin Liners, from Sarah @ A Beach Cottage (A place where she blogs about her Australian beach house, beach decor, lifestyle and recipes) if you wish to see! I follow her religiously and learnt my liner here. I cut the edges in a scallop though!

Now, the recipes.

For the basic vanilla cake mixture, you can follow this recipe- my staple go to. Never failed

Here goes the recipe!

All purpose flour: 1 cup

Baking powder: 1 teaspoon

Sugar: 3/4th of a cup

Butter: 2/3 rd of a cup

Eggs: 2, large

Vanilla Extract: 1 teaspoon

Cold water: 2 tbsp

Procedure

Cream butter and sugar, until light and fluffy. Dunk in two eggs, beat again and add vanilla.

In another bowl, sift baking powder and flour.

Mix the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing a bit at a time to avoid lumps.

Add cold water and give it a final whisk.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and spoon in the batter. Remember to spoon in only till half to two thirds as you’ll need to keep room for it to rise.

In a preheated oven (That’s been preheated in 325) bake your cupcakes for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Flavors

Divide your batter into 5 portions and mix. The ratio given below is for one muffin each:

Coffee and caramel: For coffee and caramel, Heat 1 teaspoon butter with 2 teaspoon sugar. When the sides start browning, lower the heat and add 5 tbsp of full cream milk. Keep stirring till it thickens and gets a light brown caramel color. Cool.

To muffin batter, add caramel and instant coffee (1/2 tsp)

Pure chocolate: Add a spoonful of good quality cocoa powder and top with chocolate hundreds and thousands

Srilankan Cinnamon: Add 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and crushed almonds to batter. Garnish with whole toasted almonds

The heart of pineapple: Fill your muffin cup with half batter. Place a spoonful of pineapple jam in the center. Top off with batter.

Keylime and Apple vodka: Mix 1/2 teaspoon of keylime juice and 1 teaspoon apple vodka. You can either mix it with batter or follow the heart of pineapple method.

Give away with love and tears

Likey mikey?

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Monday

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Happy Women’s Day and DIY Kitchen Storage Jars with fabric and modgepodge

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Rukmini Roy

Morning Bedouins! How’s it going?

To all the ladies: Happy Women’s Day. Keep being the kiddo your husband thinks you are, the mom your child thinks you are and the person your dog thinks you are.

Now, now…this post was not meant to be posted on Women’s Day but now that chance has brought it upon me, I shall talk a little about the woman I am and what the crew in this house thinks about me. Ready for the truth? I am a woman of class. I am the only sensible person in this household. Everyone else just exist with their common thoughts.

I am the only one who recognizes the grave dangers of a tea box with green lid and constant savings (I hope Rohan is not reading this) on fancy storage stuff that otherwise would cost me an obnoxious 399/- rupees a jar. I have bought teapot for one worth 2 grands but hey, that’s a story I’ll tell when I want to spend. Today, I’m the women who wants to save a buck for being the good wife’s sake

The crew (comprises of my husband and our rabbit, both of whom are least interested in my brilliant DIY ideas. That rabbit I tell you is my husband’s pet. It’ll watch finance and budget but not play with the soft toy.) on the other hand seem to think that I have gone nuts and that I could rather buy it off Shopper’s stop and get it over with than spending hours looking up online and trying to knock off a bloody tea jar. That I waste time on insignificant things when there are issues in this world that needs attention.

Attention? Like what?

Husband: Like would you buy gold or invest in equity? Would you rather buy the house later when the rates are low or right now for the market seems to be pretty stable?

Rabbit: Like I need a bath and I like capsicums and hate spinach and beetroot makes my teeth red like pan eating Indians. Like you don’t let me stroll in the verandah..

Ah, wordly matters. Whatever (and continues her DIYs)

That’s the kind of woman I am. Stubborn, headstrong, aesthetically manipulating, a lover of all things beautiful, romantic and that’s how a typical conversation ends in Trumatter’s household. They call me the KID and I am happy being one!

I Love my husband. I have pretty much given him all the important responsibilities of life (he loves them and is really good at it) and am chilling with making recycled jam jars. He thinks I am a KIDDO and impulsively stupid. I think I’m glad I am out of it, its where the big guys play and I don’t care. Win-win situation.

And hence, I stick to my world and its grave issues which includes tea kept in a plastic box with fluorescent green lid is something definitely not right and closed cabinets can catch fire and hence open shelves. Haha, I have my ways around getting things done you know. Some stupid logic is what I give to people and make them believe that its very necessary that I do that certain thing. There was no need of open shelves in my house, it could have waited if it was not for the backache which was genuine.

I’m a manipulating little she-dog when it comes to home decor. But then every girl is, unless your husband is an architect or an interior designer in which case, you are either lucky or horribly sidelined.

Was my coffee spiked with some leaves of some sort? Or is it Friday that I am blabbering on end? Irrespective, here’s a tutorial on how to perfectly modgepodge your glassjar lids and reuse old bottles as fancy and classy tea jars and think of yourself as the someone who is very creative.

This is what you’ll need

An empty Jar

Fabric of your choice

Modgepodge

A label (print out)

This is how you’ll do it

Cut a swatch of fabric and thick paper of the same size.

Stick your paper to your fabric with glue.

Why not plain fabric?

Because this way its easier to cut the fabric in slits, it sits better when stuck and also, if your fabric is semi transparent and your lid is bright red, it won’t show.

Once you’ve stuck the fabric to the paper, fold one side of the paper inside the lid and see how much fabric you’d need to cover the lid without disturbing the thread inside the lid. If you cover the thread, the lid might not fit properly.

Keep the necessary fabric to fold in and cut the round.

With scissors cut the sides as shown above.

Why can’t I just cut it in a round and fold it?

Because when you fold it, it will be uneven and sharp corners would stick out on the overlaps. Plus this is wayyyy easier.

Once you have cut the sides, simply glue the tips of the cuts and start folding.

It would take you less than 5 minutes to do the whole lid. {It will also sit beautifully}

Follow this with cutting your label and sticking it to your jar with podge. One coat of modgepodge on top of the lid and one coat on top of the label- there! You are done.

You are now the official owner of a brilliant tea jar without having to spend a dime.

Best part is, you can color coordinate your jars, customize, make sets to identify the kind of spice and stack according to color for that great touch to your open pantry.

Moral of the story: This is a great craft and I am a great girl.

Would love to know what you think!

{FIN}

Sharing @

Monday

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia – Tuesday’s Treasures
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty
Vintage Wanna Bee – Talent Tuesday

Tuesday

Wednesday