Life By Design

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  • Home
  • About
  • Intention & Life
  • Style & Choices
  • Home & Space
  • Self & Skin
  • Mother & Daughter
  • The Store From Doodles to Dreams
Home & Space

Top Kitchen Organisation Must-Haves

The kitchen is the room that resists organisation most stubbornly. Not because it is inherently difficult to organise, but because it is used so constantly that any system you put…

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January 9, 2025
Home & Space

Budget-Friendly Diwali Home Decor Ideas That Look Luxe

Diwali is a festival of lights, love, and togetherness, but decorating your home beautifully doesn’t have to mean draining your wallet. With a few clever tricks and thoughtful touches, you…

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October 14, 2025
Style & Choices

The Best Bags for Every Occasion: Stylish Picks That Balance Comfort and Function

A good bag is more than just an accessory; it’s a companion that carries your day. Whether it’s a roomy tote for work, a sleek clutch for dinner, or a…

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December 5, 2025
Intention & Life

Summer Body Goals: Keeping It Real With Yourself

Let me tell you about the summer I decided I was going to be a completely different person by June. It was one of those springs where everything conspired to…

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April 30, 2025
Self & Skin

Best Acne-Fighting Products That Actually Work

I am in my thirties, I work from home, and I still get acne. Not the dramatic teenage kind. The quieter, more frustrating adult kind. The hormonal spot that appears…

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November 17, 2018
  • Close-up of hands holding across a table with coffee cups, conveying warmth and connection.
    Intention & Life,  Mother & Daughter

    Embracing Slow Living: Your Guide to Finding Joy in Life’s Simple Moments

    August 28, 2025 /

    I did not arrive at slow living through a book, a podcast, or a particularly compelling Instagram account. I arrived at it through exhaustion. Not the dramatic kind. The quiet, accumulated kind that builds up over months of moving too fast through days that were full but not particularly satisfying. Doing a lot, finishing things, checking boxes, and still ending the week with a vague feeling that I had been busy rather than present. That I had moved through my life efficiently without actually inhabiting much of it. The shift did not happen all at once. It happened in small recognitions. The best parts of my days were consistently the…

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    Tanjore Painting: How This Ancient Art Form Transforms a Home

    October 22, 2018
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    How to Balance Work, Home, and “Me Time” Without Guilt: A Real Mom’s Guide

    March 20, 2026
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    Summer Body Goals: Keeping It Real With Yourself

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  • Intention & Life

    Intentional Living Starts Before Your First Coffee

    August 22, 2025 /

    What is the first thing we do as soon as we wake up? The first thing most of us reach for in the morning is our phone. Not because we mean to. Not because we have consciously decided that the best use of the first minutes of our day is scrolling through notifications that accumulated while we slept. It is just the automatic motion that the morning has trained itself into. Alarm goes off, hand reaches sideways, screen lights up, and before we are fully awake, we are already reactive. Already responding to the world’s agenda rather than our own. I know this pattern well because I lived it for…

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    A Journey into the World’s Most Beloved Traditions

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    Self-Appreciation: The Radical Act of Having Your Own Back

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    10 Tips to Thrift Shop Like a Pro

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    Intention & Life

    Summer Body Goals: Keeping It Real With Yourself

    April 30, 2025 /

    Let me tell you about the summer I decided I was going to be a completely different person by June. It was one of those springs where everything conspired to make you feel like your current self was somehow not enough for the season ahead. Every second piece of content I came across was a countdown. Twelve weeks to summer. Eight weeks to summer. Five moves for a flat stomach. The algorithm had decided I needed fixing, and it was very committed to letting me know. So I committed. I overhauled my eating. I started workouts that I did not enjoy at times that did not suit me. I tracked…

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    5-Minute Healthy Snacks for Work-From-Home Days

    February 5, 2026
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    My Sunday Reset Routine: Cleaning, Skincare, and Setting Intentions Like a Queen

    October 10, 2025
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    Embracing Slow Living: Your Guide to Finding Joy in Life’s Simple Moments

    August 28, 2025
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    Home & Space

    Top Kitchen Organisation Must-Haves

    January 9, 2025 /

    The kitchen is the room that resists organisation most stubbornly. Not because it is inherently difficult to organise, but because it is used so constantly that any system you put in place gets tested immediately and repeatedly. A wardrobe you can organise once, and it holds for months. A kitchen you organise on Saturday, and by Wednesday, it needs attention again. I have tried many approaches over the years. The elaborate systems, the colour-coded containers, and the ambitious pantry overhauls look incredible for about ten days. What I have landed on is considerably more pragmatic: a small number of well-chosen solutions that solve specific recurring problems and require almost no…

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    Summer Home Refresh Ideas

    May 20, 2026
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    Creating a Cozy Reading Nook at Home: The Ultimate Booklover’s Guide

    January 23, 2026
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    Home Office Ergonomics: The Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Work-From-Home Setup

    May 26, 2021
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    Home & Space

    Efficient Storage Solutions for Every Room

    October 11, 2024 /

    I have a theory that the state of your home and the state of your mind are more connected than most people want to admit. Not in a judgmental way. Just in a practical, observable way. When the surfaces are clear, and everything has a place, I think more clearly. When things have been piling up for a week, there is a low-level friction to the day that is hard to name but very easy to feel. I am not a naturally tidy person. I am an intentionally tidy person, which is a different thing entirely. It requires systems. Designated places for things. Storage solutions that make putting something away…

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    How to Decorate with Antiques Without Looking Old-Fashioned

    March 6, 2026
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    Home Office Ergonomics: The Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Work-From-Home Setup

    May 26, 2021
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    Intention & Life

    Simple Daily Habits for a Healthier Lifestyle: Your Complete Guide to Wellness

    July 27, 2024 /

    I have never been someone who approaches health with dramatic intensity. No juice cleanses, no 5am boot camps, no thirty-day challenges that collapse on day nine. That kind of all-or-nothing energy has never suited my temperament and, honestly, I have never trusted it. Anything that requires you to completely overhaul your life to work is already building its own failure into the plan. Let’s build Simple Daily Habits for a Healthier Lifestyle. What I have found works, actually, for me and from what I observe in most people who manage to sustain healthy habits long term, is considerably less dramatic. Small things, done consistently, that gradually become so woven into…

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    Unlock Your Creativity with 5 Inspiring DIY Projects

    September 10, 2025
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    Bullet Journaling: A Beginner’s Guide to Organizing Your Life

    December 23, 2025
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    Intention & Life,  Mother & Daughter

    A Mother-Daughter Journal

    May 6, 2024 /

    Some weeks, my daughter and I barely scratch the surface. School, dinner, homework, bed. The days move fast, and the conversations stay shallow, not because we don’t care, but because we don’t have a structure that invites something deeper. That’s exactly why I built this journal. Not as a grand gesture. Just as a small, weekly ritual that gives us both a reason to slow down and actually talk Why A Mother-Daughter Journal? A guided journal gives you an easy starting point when you don’t know what to talk about but still want to connect. With thoughtful prompts, quotes, and short activities, it gently nudges both mom and daughter to…

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    Style & Choices

    SKIMS: Shapewear Brand Taking the World by Storm

    July 28, 2022 /

    I came to SKIMS late. By the time I finally tried it, the brand had already been dissected by every fashion publication, worn by half of Hollywood, and declared a billion-dollar empire by people who track these things. I was not an early adopter. I was someone who watched the noise from a distance for a long time before deciding it was worth finding out what the fuss was actually about. What I found was that the fuss was, for once, entirely justified. I have a complicated history with shapewear. Most women do. The category has a long track record of promising confidence and delivering discomfort: rolling waistbands, digging edges,…

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    Buying Too Much? Don’t know when to stop?

    August 4, 2026
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    How to Build a Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe Checklist

    July 7, 2021
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    Jewellery Trends Worth Actually Investing In This Year

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    Intention & Life,  Style & Choices

    How to Build a Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe Checklist

    July 7, 2021 /

    A few years ago, I counted the clothes in my wardrobe and realised I was regularly wearing about a third of them. The rest existed in a kind of holding pattern, too good to donate, not quite right enough to reach for, taking up space and contributing to that daily low-grade frustration of standing in front of a full wardrobe feeling like you have nothing to wear. So, I thought, why not build the ultimate checklist to build a Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe?. That is the paradox that capsule wardrobe thinking solves. Not by having less, exactly, but by having less of the wrong things. I am not a minimalist in…

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    Books I Could Not Put Down: My Honest Reading List for Women Who Read to Escape

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    The Notion Template That Helped Me Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

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    Intentional Living Starts Before Your First Coffee

    August 22, 2025
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    Home & Space

    Home Office Ergonomics: The Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Work-From-Home Setup

    May 26, 2021 /

    I have been working from home for several years now, and I will tell you what nobody told me at the start: the physical cost of a badly set-up workspace accumulates quietly. So this is my version of The Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Work-From-Home Setup. It does not announce itself on day one. It starts as mild tension in the neck by 3pm. Then a recurring ache in the lower back that you assume is just tiredness. Then you realise you are shifting positions every twenty minutes because nothing feels quite right, and your ability to focus is taking the hit alongside your posture. I am not someone…

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  • Buying Too Much? Don’t know when to stop?
  • Self-Care Routine for Busy Moms With Only 20 Minutes
  • Journaling Prompts for Moms Who Need to Think Out Loud
  • Bonding Activities for Moms and Daughters at Home
  • Kitchen Organisation Tips That Work in Real Life

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