The Chumbak Blog

And other stuff that you may or may not find useful :)

[chumbak-blog]

The Best Decor Ideas For Your Garden!

Your garden can be one of the most relaxing spaces for you to escape into. There’s something incredibly calming about being surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers and it can brighten up anyone’s mood instantly. We’ve got a whole bunch of ideas you can use to decorate your garden and turn it into your own little corner of zen. 

A touch of vintage: Create a corner where you can display bursts of colourful blossoms in a small arrangement of vintage ceramic vases. This could be on your garden wall or in a corner with the flower pots. It adds an element of interest to this little niche. Check out our collection of lovely vintage ceramic vases here.

Floral arrangements: Combine sprigs of ferns, potpourri and flowers to create beautiful floral arrangements that you can display in a jug or vase on a garden table outside - perfect as a table centrepiece for those impromptu weekend brunches. Shop here.

Mini potted plants: Whether you love bonsais or want to create your own mini section for herbs or blooms you can create neat little sets of plastic tubs in bright colours for splashes of brightness amidst the green. Shop for them right here!

Create a rockery: A rockery is a small garden arrangement that has mostly rocks and plants put together to make a statement in your garden. Use plain or moss-covered rocks of different colours, textures, and plants like cactii in interesting shapes, lichens and pebbles to build your very own rockery - you could even add in a pretty birdcage and put in a few colourful blossoms for a touch of whimsy. Shop for one here.

We hope you loved our ideas for sprucing up your garden with a few fun elements! For more, keep checking our blog and follow everything we’ve been upto lately on www.chumbak.com!

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak Weekend FOOD List!

While we’ve always brought you fun movies, books and music to fill up your weekend, this time we decided to give you a whole lot of recommendations based on our first love - Food! From mouth-watering biryanis to yummy desserts, here are our top picks of the best places for amazing food in Bangalore! If you’re not in Bangalore, fret not as we’ll be doing for other cities pretty soon too!

If there’s one thing about Bangalore that always holds true, it’s that we love biryani. There’s a million places across the city that serve delicious biryani of all kinds - Mughlai, Hyderabadi, Ambur - you name it. Two of our favourite places include Meghana’s biryani for their spicy, succulent boneless chicken biryani. If you’d like to opt for the local eatery experience, Shivaji Military hotel serves some of the best locally prepared biryani in town.

Tired of ordering from the typical fast food pizza chains? Wood-fired pizza is delicious and has that taste that you’d never get from commercially prepared pizzas. Try Prost Brewpub or Cafe Pascucci for the authentic Italian hand-tossed wood-fired pizza experience, with sauce and cheese that’s made in-house.

Let’s face it, we do Chinese food better. There’s nothing better than that fiery manchurian with an Indian twist, whether it’s on the roadside or at a restaurant. We love Meals on Wheels, a foodtruck seen mostly around Richmond road  - their momos are yummy too. Then again if you prefer the authentic experience, try Hunan in Koramangala - they serve up amazing dishes.

Craving for dessert? Glen’s Bakehouse in Indiranagar is an all-time favourite for its mini red velvet cupcakes and baked cheesecake. If you’re more of an icecream person, Milano Icecream has the most creamy gelato in flavours you may not have heard of (green apple mojito? pomegranate cheesecake? 

We hope you liked our mini weekend list of binge-worthy places! Stay tuned to the blog for lots more coming your way and as always, we’ll keep putting up the latest new stuff we get you on www.chumbak.com!

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak #WakeUpToOne Bangalore Instameet!

A gorgeous view from your balcony. A steaming hot cup of coffee served to you in bed. Your pet greeting you with oodles of love.

There are so many wonderful things you can wake up to. That’s where #WakeUpToOne began, and it ties in with something super exciting that you’ll wake up to when September ends! (ok, terrible Green Day puns aside, seriously, look forward to October!)

As you know by now, we love photography and it’s what drives us here to make your life a little prettier and more colourful. We thought we’d bring the best Instagrammers together and take them on a fun morning walk through some of the most wonderful places in Bangalore. So the idea for the #WakeUpToOne Instameet, with Little Black Book, Bangalore, was born. 

We started on a beautiful Saturday morning at the stunning Cubbon Park, and gathered a whole bunch of enthusiastic instagrammers (shout-out to the guy who came for it all the way from Mumbai - you know who you are! We’re amazed by the love!). Once we handed goodie bags and munchies for the walk, we set off along the way with a ton of inspirations for lovely pictures. Here’s a glimpse of the awesome photographs taken!

It was great to see so many of you bonding over Chumbak, the weather and your mutual love for taking the perfect shot. The walk through Cubbon Park led into the amazing Metro Art Gallery that had a lot of interesting art installations, graffiti, and photographs of old Bangalore. 

By the time we got on to St. Marks’ Road, most of the instagrammers were puffing and panting but the grins on everyone’s faces made it all worth it! It was the best way to feel pumped up on a Saturday morning. We finally ended with breakfast at Egg Factory and Cafe Mezzuna, after which we got quite a nice surprise on our Instagram with so many creative photographs that it was hard to choose one to feature!

We hope you had as much fun as we did. Watch this space for something similar coming up in Delhi very soon! Till then, keep posting your #WakeUpToOne photos and mark your calendars because October is coming!

[mydesirelines]

designs at chumbak #shopping #design #bangalore #art #travel #bangalore

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak Weekend Movielist With A Twist

- By our resident photographer

Photography drives everything we do here at Chumbak. We’re crazy about beautiful shots that express who we are through our collections. If you’ve browsed through our website or our Instagram feed, you’ll see that there’s a lot of thought behind each photograph we take, (even when it’s a cute picture of Hugo as seen in this post!) and tons of fumbling around to get a shot that conveys what we’re looking for, even if it takes 943859683463 tries. That’s why we decided that this weekend, we’d have a bit of a twist when it comes to our movielist, and we’ve curated a list of the most aesthetically stunning films and movies of all time.

Powaqqatsi: Beauty can sometimes be found in the ordinary, and Powaqqatsi sets out to give the viewer a visually enchanting look at life in the Third World. People make the pulse of every nation, and Godfrey Reggio makes sure you get to see life in all its forms in different cultures, through people.

Ida: Silence can be powerful. Ida is a jaw-droppingly stark Polish film set in 1961, and adopts an aesthetic that can only be called ‘minimal realism’.

Name - Test (Original title - Ispytanie): This one bagged Best International Feature at the Golden Orange Film Festival in Turkey. Arrestingly beautiful visuals, and it takes you through life in the USSR before the dawn of the hydrogen bomb age. The lack of much dialogue makes it fascinating.

Days of Heaven: Often referred to as a ‘screen poem’, this 1978 film is set at the turn of the century in America, charting childhood, love and murder told using nature as a storytelling device.

Amelie: This delightful French film is as beautiful as it is hilarious. Described by some as ‘good enough to eat’, it’ll leave you with that warm feeling inside - not the kind that comes from sappy romantic comedies but more for the colours, the places and the portrayals of everyday situations with so much genuine warmth.

We hope you’ll watch some of these and see what we see in them! In the meantime, if you love photography, food, fashion or travel (or a combination of them!) we’ve got an awesome Instameet coming up on 19th September with Little Black Book, Bangalore. For more details head over here!

[chumbak-blog]

The #ChumbakAtCyberhub Influencer Meet - Food, Fun & Conversation!

Last week, we opened our first store in Gurgaon, at DLF Cyberhub to overwhelming response. It’s one of our largest stores in Delhi-NCR, and so to celebrate our 4th store in the capital, we decided to host a one-of-its-kind blogger meet in collaboration with Little Black Book, Delhi. Food is something that means a lot to us, and the best conversations are usually had over delicious food! We wanted to reach out to a whole bunch of you who are passionate about food, fashion, photography and travel, and take you through the very special journey Chumbak has had over the past 5 years. We’ve got some exciting stuff planned for next month, and this was our way of letting you know! 

(Psst: watch out for the hashtag #WakeUpToOne on all our social media platforms - October couldn’t be here soon enough!)

The meetup started at Soda Bottle Openerwala, an out-of-the-box Parsi cuisine restaurant that’s known for its completely innovative takes on food. We took the bloggers through the very first phase of our journey so far with delicious starters that represented the beginning of Chumbak and why we created Chumbak. It was fun to see what each of the influencers thought about their very first time getting to know Chumbak. The main course, like present-day Chumbak was fresh, contemporary and interesting, having evolved from being a travel & souvenirs brand to a lifestyle brand. The Prawn Patio was the perfect way to depict this shift. 

Finally, the dessert is the best part of any meal - everyone looks forward to it and is left wanting more at the end of it. The Toblerone Mousse was the perfect way to announce our upcoming initiatives, and a lot of awesome stuff coming your way this October! Feast your eyes on that :) 

Finally, we completed the journey by taking them through our brand new Cyberhub store! The best part was our Real-Life Pinterest Boards activity, where we asked influencers to curate their very own Pinterest board using products in the store! Here are the entries! 

We got some excited tweets & Instagram posts from the bloggers - here’s a few!

If this seems exciting, we’ve got much more coming up! To stay updated on what this could be, follow our posts with the hashtag #WakeUpToOne on Instagram & Twitter!

[chumbak-blog]

Fall in love with our gorgeous throws - perfect for cosy, lazy days!

It’s already September - the leaves are turning lovely colours, and soon it’ll be the season for hoodies, piping hot drinks, festivals and more yummy food. We’re getting into the Autumn mood here at Chumbak, and while we’re hard at work bringing you the happiest products around, we decided to bring you something special. Here’s how you can create a warm and cosy space in your room or living room!

Step One: Grab your favourite book, your laptop or just the TV remote.

Step Two: Curl up on the sofa, or on your diwan or in a nice corner of your room.

Step Three: Wrap yourself in one of our soft and snuggly throws and let yourself sink into the most comfortable feeling in the world.

In case you’re wondering what makes them so soft and fluffy, we took the prettiest colours from fall, added essence of cat fur and mixed it with fluffy cloud extract to give you that unbelievably soft touch. 

Fine, if you want the boring version, they’re made from a high quality mix of fabric.

If you’d like to see what makes our throws so amazing, watch the video above, and if you’d like to get your hands on one, head to this link!

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak Weekend Board Game List

Did you miss us? We decided to change things up a bit and give you the weekend list on Sunday! This time, we’re going a bit old-school. If you’re reading this, it’s quite likely that you’re a 90s kid and grew up on hide-and-seek, 10-20-30-40 and, on those hot summer days, played board games. Board games were our cure for boredom, during powercuts, or when the sibling would hog the TV remote or when it would be too hot to play outside. You get lost in a world that stays contained in that piece of cardboard, and your pieces would be your partners in crime, helping you get to the finish line. 

There’d be drama, jokes, suspense, teamwork, betrayal - all the elements that reality TV (bleargh :P) claims to provide were contained in board games in a much more fun and engaging way. If you’re in Bangalore, we hear that you can get great coffee and snacks at this place in Koramangala, called Dice N’ Dine, and they have the most amazing collection of board games to play with! So if you don’t have your childhood board game stash with you, find a place that has one! 

Here’s our list of board games we LOVE. 

Ludo/Snakes and Ladders: This one’s a classic - there’d always be that one friend who would end up on the snakes every single time!

Monopoly: Empires were built, mortgages collected, millionaires turned to paupers and vice-versa. It was a whole new world when it came to Monopoly - it was always like a game that made fun of grownups’ problems.

Carrom: This game was also realllly popular with the adults around Diwali. 

Chess: The original ‘nerd game’ because of the amount of thinking and strategy it involved. Nothing beats the satisfaction of saying ‘Checkmate’ and then smirking at your opponent.

Scrabble: Everyone’s favourite word game!

Chinese Checkers: This one was a lot of fun when you had friends over. 

Tangrams: This puzzle challenged you with just 8 pieces that you had to play around with to create interesting shapes.

Taboo: This one will make you laugh, a lot! It’s like Dumb Charades, with a twist.

Game of Life: You can be a millionaire or a pauper or anything you want to be in this awesome game of life which is actually called the Game of Life!

Jenga: Stack wooden pieces strategically to form a tower as high as you can build one - you lose if you bring the whole thing crashing down!

We’d love to hear from you about how you spent your weekend, so if there’s a new place in town that has the best cheesecake according to you, or if you went to an amazing concert, or had the best biryani ever at a tiny, crowded mess, let us know on Twitter with #MyChumbakWeekend! Happy playing! For all updates on products we’re coming up with, check out www.chumbak.com, and for everything else, stay tuned to our blog!

[chumbak-blog]

The Story Behind This Insta Shot

He was standing there. He was sitting there. The photographer had been stalking him for a while. Bribed him with his favourite rag doll and idlis (yes, he is a South Indian dog). But he did not budge and he did not care. He was not going to show you his adorable face today.

This is the best shot the photographer could take. Hugo had won. Also, our first ever Black and White picture ever! So much history in this shot..

[chumbak-blog]

Pack A Fun Picnic With All-New Mason Jars!

Mason jars make everything better. No, seriously. Mason jars can make layers of cake and gems look like gourmet cake. It can make lemonade look like a fresh cocktail, and if you’re into DIY or craft, mason jars are a dream. At Chumbak, we thought it would be awesome if we could bring mason jars to your homes and make serving up food or drinks a little happier. They’re selling out fast, so make sure you check out the collection here!

We decided we needed to put together the awesomeness that is mason jars for you, so you can get inspired for your next fun party or just make lunch that much fancier. Are you following us on Pinterest? If you aren’t on Pinterest, you can still check out our awesome board, Mason Jar Love! right here. We’ve added so many possibilities to your mason jar addiction. From jar salads, desserts and juices, to summer fairy lights, home fragrances, makeup holders and so much more. Check it out! For everything else on what we’ve been up to, watch this space and stay tuned to www.chumbak.com! :)

[chumbak-blog]

The Story behind this Insta Shot - Popcorn and a Book!

So our photographer didn’t know what to eat. One of our designers didn’t know what to read and for some reason we always seem to have headphones lying around the Chumbak Studio. And in a strange, crazy way, they all came together.

Suddenly the photographer had a photo to take and the designer had her inspiration..The things that happen at the Chumbak Studio! :)

[chumbak-blog]

Host a Lazy Afternoon Garden Party

Hosting a party over the weekend can be a great way to reconnect with friends and take a break from your routine. We’ve come up with a couple of great ways in which you could host a lazy afternoon party this coming weekend. Lots of delicious food, great company and conversation, and the lovely weather outside.  A hardwood table with a colourful table runner [Shop here] set up with a few garden chairs in your lawn can be the starting point for creating a fun experience for your guests. 

For a cosy lounge area for your guests after the meal, put up a few colourful cushions under a tree or in a corner and dress it up with a mix of printed, textured and graphic printed cushions. [Shop here] This can be a nice place where you and your guests can relax after the meal. For a touch of whimsy, hang a few small glass jar lanterns or paper lanterns above.

Setting the table keeping a theme in mind can really help you create the right atmosphere for the party and keep things creatively organized. We think colours really add cheer to a dining table and presenting food in a beautiful way is just as important as the rest of the space. 

A tablescape is an arrangement of different elements to create a dining space that looks fun and makes the food look appetizing. For a garden party, choose a crockery set with fun and colourful prints. [Shop here] Dress up your table with printed table runners or pretty coasters [Shop here] that will offset the polished wood surface very well. For each seat, set a table, a glass or a goblet with a little touch of colour like a ribbon or a sliced piece of fruit. Choose a centrepiece that fits in with your theme. You could take wildflowers and greens in bright colours like orange, red, pink and place them in bunches across the table in mason jars or a large vase in black to contrast with the colour. It could also be a cake stand dressed with different coloured cupcakes, or you could even use it to create a tiered floral decoration.

A drinks station is a nice idea to set up lemonade, punch and more for your guests. Set a table with an ice box to keep bottled drinks cool, and add a glass drinks dispenser that you could fill with a cool beverage. Keep straws and glasses stacked and handy. Finally, decorations make the entire setup a lot warmer and cosier. To decorate your lawn or garden for the party, try simple coloured streamers tied onto the trees around. You could also tie gas balloons to the table or to the branches for a fun and festive look. 

That’s it – you’re all set to host a wonderful Saturday afternoon garden party! For more awesome home décor ideas, home décor hacks and a lot more, keep checking our blog, and for new arrivals stay tuned to our website!

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak Weekend Movielist & Booklist - Family Edition!

The weekend is here, with Onam and Raksha Bandhan - which means lots of family bonding, food and happiness! That’s what inspired our weekend movielist and booklist this time. So enjoy that Sadhya, spend quality time with brothers and sisters, binge on sweets and then sit back and read or watch our favourite crazy, funny, family movies! Let’s start with the movies - 

The Addams Family: Everyone’s favourite spooky, dysfunctional family.

Hum Hain Raahi Pyaar Ke: One of the most adorable dysfunctional families strung together with Aamir Khan in an inspired performance. Must watch!

We’re the Millers: A family that isn’t one but ends up being like one because each has their own agenda.

The Croods: This crazy but endearing caveman-era family will make you laugh. A lot.

The Parent Trap: Sounds like a Kumbh mela plot, but a pair of twins get separated at birth and end up finding each other years later, to confusion and chaos.

On to some of the best family-themed books that’ll make you laugh!

Family - The ties that bind...and gag! by Erma Bombeck - Prepare to laugh your fill-in-the-blank off at the madness that is Erma Bombeck & her family’s routine misadventures.

My Family & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell: This one’s a classic. If you haven’t read it, go. Read. Now.

Ravens by Georges Dawes Green: If you like dark humour this one’s about a family that wins the lottery but then everything starts to get weirder and scarier by the minute.

Matilda by Roald Dahl: This one’s great for reading out to your kid at bedtime or just reading it yourself!

The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer - This family has a strange motto: ‘Aurum est potestas’. Just go and start reading the series.

For loads more fun and gifting ideas for that awesome family of yours, do stop by www.chumbak.com.

[chumbak-blog]

5 Fun Tote Bags & How You Can Style Them

At Chumbak, we’re all about creating designs that are guaranteed to put a smile on people’s faces. Recently, we decided there needs to be a way that you can carry a bit of fun with you every single day, wherever you are. So we came up with a whole new range of designs for our tote bags! Here’s how you can style them in 5 different ways: 

1. The Brunch Look: This pineapple print tote is perfect to take with you for a casual brunch out with friends. Its minty green print will add cheer to your brunchtime outfit and if you make a quick stop to the supermarket or to the mall it’ll serve you well. Shop for it here.

2. The Campus Diva: The Bracket Suede tote bag is for girls who’d like to keep it stylish even when they’re in college. The fine leather and suede finish and the structured overall look of this tote as well as the bright colour pairings make it an awesome accessory to take with you to college. Shop for it here.

3. The Shopping Friend: This mahal print tote bag is great for those impromptu shopping sessions when you’re walking around and something catches your eye that you just have to get NOW. It’ll keep all your regular stuff safe and also hold whatever you decide to buy. Shop for it here!

4. The Perfect Companion: Dogs are a human’s best friend, and this tote will be your best friend that you can take with you anywhere and pair with almost any type of outfit. That pop of purple is just the addition you need :) Shop for it here!

5. The Happy Outfit Pairing: This was one of our most loved designs (you can find it in our wall art collection here too). This happy elephant will perk you up and add a pinch of happiness to a colourful outfit and will brighten up your day! Shop for it here.

For more fun posts, stay tuned to our blog right here and visit www.chumbak.com for all new product updates & more! If you’d like some sneak peeks into all our behind the scenes madness, follow our brand new Snapchat account (Chumbak)!

[chumbak-blog]

Our Designers’ Picks From the Chumbak Collection!

Designing for Chumbak’s entire product range is challenging, fun and crazy for our design team. The other day when they were brainstorming over yet another idea for our products, a discussion began over the products themselves. That’s when they got talking about putting themselves in your shoes, and we asked each of them what they would put on their wishlists from Chumbak, whether they were involved in the design or not. Here’s what they liked and why!

The Fishy Business Wall Art - A very colourful, interesting and frame-worthy piece that can stand out in any home. Shop for it here.

Flower Burst Teal Sofa: This is one of Chumbak’s most fun designs mainly because no one may have thought a sofa could be this vibrant, like a statement piece to own. Shop for it here.

The Snuggly Cats Wall Clock - It’s cute, it’s fun and has that look that’ll instantly add cheer to your room. Shop for it here.

The Blue Mahals Canvas Tote Bag: This one has a contemporary look to it and the lovely colour combination makes it versatile enough to match with any outfit! Shop for it here. 

The Bobble Heads Lunch Bag: Makes lunch a little more interesting, and has all the Chumbak signature characters together! Shop for it here.

Parrots of Fortune Dinner Plate: When Chumbak set out to do crockery, this was one of the designs that can complement any kind of dinner table setting. Shop for it here.

Did you know that you can create your own wishlist too, on our website? It’ll be so much easier to add something on there and then directly add it to your cart when you need to buy it. Make sure you check it out. For more awesomeness, stay engaged on our new Snapchat account (@chumbak) and Instagram.

[chumbak-blog]

We’re excited for #TheRakhiChain!

Remember that time when you had homework to do but your brother ran away with your pencil box just to annoy you? Or when your sister kept messing up your side of the room? But then there were also those other times when your brother came up with the most badass comebacks to give it right back to anyone who dared to mess with you? 

Raksha Bandhan is near and we’re celebrating sibling love today - the plan is to create a mile-long virtual chain of fun, crazy, and adorable Rakhi wishes on Twitter using the hashtag #TheRakhiChain! The more you tweet and RT the more we get to spread the love. 3 lucky folks with the best and most original Rakhi messages will win surprises from us! Plus, we’ve got something fun planned in the studio once we create the Twitter chain - so join in the fun! Here’s what you have to do - 

So get tweeting at 3 pm sharp and look out for our announcements about it! Follow us right here.

[chumbak-blog]

The Chumbak Weekend Booklist & Movielist - Adventure Edition!

The weekend’s here! With so much of exciting stuff happening at Chumbak HQ, we’ve been all pumped up to bring you an adventure-themed weekend list! Think trekking through the jungles, wading through piranha-infested waters, battling icy winds in the highest peaks...you get the picture. Let’s start with these books that are (if that’s even a word) unputdownable!

The Incredible Voyage by Tristan Jones - The title says it all!

She by H. Rider Haggard: One of the most intriguing reads in this category.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - Classic, satirical, fantastical.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London - You can never miss this one!

Shogun by James Clavell - A ‘gaijin’ or European lands on the shores of ancient Japan and starts discovering a whole new world & culture.

There are some movies that make you wonder how on earth some people can pull off such risky escapades, and some that inspire you to dust off that travel adventure trip to Leh or any place you fancy, which you’ve been putting off for so long. Here’s what we think will give you that momentary thrill of wanting to do something dangerously awesome.

Into the Wild - what if you just set out one day, leaving everything behind, to wander with nothing but the clothes on your back?

A River Runs Through It: An idyllic tale of two best friends who love fishing.

Land of the Lost: Funny, crazy, mixed up adventures in this Will Ferrell movie.

The Road to El Dorado - A hilarious animated adventure of two friends who stumble upon the treasures of Machu Pichu.

Eight Below: An amazing tale of two Antarctic explorers who are forced to leave their sled dogs behind.

That’s a wrap - we’re sure this’ll keep you pumped up and excited through this weekend for sure :) for more updates, keep following our blog right here and visit www.chumbak.com for the latest on what we’ve been up to. For some behind-the-scenes fun, you can now follow us on Snapchat (username: Chumbak)!