Christmas Candle Feature

As winter envelops us here in the UK, we all at The Amazing Blog, are looking to create that cosy warm hygge atmosphere. There is always something very special about lighting a heady and atmospheric candle. Not only the flickering light casting shadows but the gorgeous evocative aromas that help to create the right ambience. And we can't wait to share with you some of our  favourites candles to get you in the mood .

Breathing the scent of flowers when arriving home is the ideal way to start the evening. Sloane Home Topiary Garden with its fresh and floral notes help you create the peaceful atmosphere we are all craving for during those cold nights. The Sloane Home candles are all handmade, cooled, labelled and packaged. The Topiary Garden candle is made with mineral wax and beeswax, the top notes include apple and bergamot, the heart notes are juniper berries, patchouli, rose and jasmine and the base notes are vanilla, moss and ambergris. These ingredients make a modern, classic yet wonderfully scented candle. Purchase the Topiary Garden Candle  here for £32.00

When looking for a more luxurious and relaxing ambiance The Wakefulness candle by Aurelia Probiotic Skincare is our favourite. Specially crafted to energise and uplift your spirits this candle instantly install a sense of well-being in your home. The candle is made with a unique blend of oils including rose geranium oil, palmarosa, neroli and ylang-ylang oils. To complement the floral notes, the brand added grapefruit and mandarin to bring a fruity and fresher scent to the candle. The combination of these most relaxing and revitalising oils instantly put you in a peaceful and relaxing mindset. The candle is made from natural wax and is contained in an elegant ceramic vessel that perfectly complements your room décor.

Purchase the Wakefulness candle here for £55.

Strawberry Thief scented candle is a rich, earthy grounding candle made by Morris & Co’s. The candle is a rich and luxurious blend of scents including amber, sandalwood, patchouli, incense and vanilla, the heart notes include rose and violet, and the base notes are red berries, mandarin and bergamot. More than the delightful scent, what make us love this candle is the wintery and festive packaging it sports. The candle is contained in a colourful and printed glass with Morris & Co signature design and it  burns for up to 50 hours. Purchase the Strawberry and Thief candle here for £25.

In our opinion, Skandinavisk makes some of the most beautifully scented candles you can buy. We sampled their SKOG  candle which instantly transported us to a Scandinavian forest – in fact, Skog is Norwegian for forest.The Boreal forests cover half of Scandinavia. Unbroken, the forests stretch right from the far south to the arctic circle. The rich and natural scent of the pine candle is complemented by notes of subtle leather and lily of the valley. SKOG candle is hand-poured and made with 100% cotton wick. This candle is the perfect way to add a sophisticated festive and scandi feel to your home. Welcoming and warm, the mini candle will instantly transport you to somewhere a little more beautiful and peaceful. Purchase the Skandinavisk SKOG candles from Cotswold Trading here £15 for the mini candle (16 hours burning time) or here £29.99 for the regular candle (50 hours burning time) there is also a SPECIAL DISCOUNT of 10% at the time of publishing this feature - enter code CANDLE10 at checkout. 

Is there anything better than having a nice beauty sleep and a peaceful night after a long working day? Scentered candle after a year of research and creation created a therapeutic and most relaxing candle that they named Sleep Well. The name says it all; the candle is specially crafted to help you relax, calm your mind and uplift your spirit, thus helping you to have a good night sleep. Formulated with 100% natural ingredients including lavender, chamomile, palmarosa, Ho Wood, Geranium and Ylang Ylang this sophisticated candle combines all the soothing and therapeutic benefits of its components. Fragrance your room with these calming scent, relax and have a good night.You can purchase the Sleep Well candle here for £32.95.

Last but not least, and probably the most glamorous candle of all is the delicious new ‘Bacca’ scented candle from Ancienne Ambiance . This is a must-have when it comes to Christmas candles. ‘Bacca’ which is Latin for small ‘small round fruit’ perfectly describes the vibrant and fruity scent of redcurrants, blackcurrants and an array of freshly picked bursting berries in the candle. This candle is truly 'berrylicious' and has an excellent burning time or 60-65 hours, which from our experience has a scent lasts throughout. The beautiful and sophisticated scents of bursting berries were loved by the Romans, Etruscans and Greeks as they were thought to have medicinal properties. We just love the added bonus of this feel-good factor.

The candle comes beautifully packaged in hand-crafted luxurious gift boxes made in the UK, making them a perfect gift or a gorgeous mantelpiece. Each candle is hand poured in the UK using a unique slow burning natural wax blend and a lead free wick. We want one of these candles burning on our Christmas Day! Purchase the Ancienne Ambience ‘Bacca’ Candle here for £40.

Whether you are looking for just a gently scented relaxing candle, or a rich and luxurious fragrance to set the party scene; we certainly think you'll that find one of these here. 

Christmas Stockings Fillers

For the last post of our Special Christmas Week, we are going to talk about stocking fillers. No matter our age, we're always so excited to find out what Father Christmas put in our beautiful stockings. While we love those little, fun and cute gifts, it can sometimes be difficult to find great stockings ideas for less than £15. We at The Amazing Blog have racked our brains and looked for the best stockings fillers at a reasonable price.

Let’s start with Heathcote and Ivory Gardeners Tree Tidings; this little gift set contains two hand creams and a Relax bath tablet. The shea butter hand cream as its name suggests made with shea butter(obviously) but also with other essential oils including lemon, orange and peppermint. This beautiful mix makes a highly nourishing hand cream. While the shea butter cream has a zesty and fresh scent, the Hedgerow hand cream has more of a fruity smell thanks to the blend of rhubarb, blackberry and elderflower extracts included in the formula. Together these ingredients intensely hydrate hands leaving them softer and smoother. Enriched with chamomile, lavender, eucalyptus and rosemary the bath tablets is the ideal product to help you relax while bathing. All made without Parabens and Sulphates. You can purchase the Gardeners Tree Tidings here for £6.00.

The festive period is the opportunity for us all to look at our best. With Christmas dinners and New Year events, we all like to shine bright and to have our party looks on point. And what better way to complement a look than a beautiful nail polish. A lovely and shiny nail polish is the little detail that instantly completes a look. Le Mini Macaron’s Mini Petit Bouquets nail polish set with their pretty pastel shades might just be the perfect trio for nail polishes lovers. The set contains three nail polishes including lavender; a pale purple, Rose pale; a pastel pink and wildflower a grey nail lacquer with blue hues. These nude and pastel shades will bring a modern and elegant touch to your look. Le Mini Bouquets nail polish set is available here for £24.99.

Christmas is the time to be merry, eat great food and drink delicious tipples. However, as years pass by, we start getting bored of the usual tastes and flavours. For those who like us want to add a little twist to their tipples, Popaball has created the Popaball Bursting Juice bubbles for Gin, Prosecco and Vodka. The Blueberry and Lemon Bursting Juice Bubbles for Gin, with its sweet and zesty taste instantly add a burst of sweetness and juiciness to your drink. The Apple & Cherry Bubbles for Vodka, (our favourite) taste delightfully good; the sensation of the Popaballs bursting in the mouth is just incredible; it brings drinking Vodka to a whole new level. The Shimmer Blueberry Bubbles for Prosecco is ideal to add a little touch of glam in your prosecco. Just add the blueberry bubbles and the shimmering liquid, watch the sparkle forms and enjoy the fruity taste.  The bubbles are suitable for vegetarians. You can purchase all the Popaballs from Cotswold Trading. See here for the bubbles for Gin £3.79, the bubbles for Vodka here for £3.79 and the shimmer bubbles for prosecco here for £4.49. Guaranteed to add a bit of an extra 'fizz' to your Christmas tipple!

We at The Amazing Blog appreciate a warm and relaxing bath once in a while. And when we do so, we love using the most calming and beautifully scented bath products. Sloane Home excel in the art of making stunning bath salts. Our preferred ones remain the Lady Grey, bath salts with a zesty and fresh perfume, the Topiary Garden, is a more floral and classic scent and the Rose Garden has a sensual and luxurious fragrance. All bath salts are made with Dead Sea salts well known for its therapeutic properties. The bath salts help you relax by easing muscles and uplifting the spirit. There are nothing more agreeable than soaking in a warm and welcoming bath after a long day and these fantastic bath salts from Sloane home are just what you need. Purchase the bath salts here for £16.50 each.

Hang on a minute you really thought that we would give you some stockings fillers tips without including one treat? Come on you should know better, we here at The Amazing Blog can’t resist the temptation of delicious and savoury candies. Our addiction of this season is The Fudge Kitchen award-winning sliders; the brand specialised in making gourmet handmade fudges, its sliders include six fudges with three different flavours. The Gin Selection pack include two Bitter Orange and Cubeb Gin, two Juniper and Kaffir Lime Dry Gin and two Sloe Gin fudge. This box with its popping and rich flavours will ravish your delicate palate. The Salted Selection include Isle of Sky Salted caramel fudges, Cornish Smoked salted Maple fudges, and Maldon Sea Salted Chocolate fudges. These fudges are at the same time creamy, sweet and smooth. The sea salts included in the recipes add a little touch of zest and crunch that balances perfectly well with the sweetness of the other ingredients. You can purchase Fudge Kitchen's Salted fudges and Gin fudges here for £8.00 each.

Friday Favourites: Tipples With a Twist

Whether you are a cider lover, live only for gins, or a wine aficionado, here are some flavourful and delicious must-have drinks to have in your possession. If you're bored of the usual drinks on offer, we at The Amazing Blog have a selection of some traditional drinks with a unique and interesting twist. 

The Fifty Pounds Gin is produced by a family owned distillery located in London. It is traditionally made with the finest grains spirit distilled four times. The gin is produced using a method that is centuries old, known as Batch Process Distillation, which Fifty Pounds Gin hark as the best way to get the purest gin possible. It is thrice filtered, making sure all impurities are removed. It is self-proclaimed as the 'smoothest gin ever' and we have to agree. The method they adopt is delicate and painstaking; however, we reckon it is worth it. The botanicals selection, a combination of herbs, spices, fruits and flowers, makes it extremely delicious and nuanced in flavour. Where most gins focus on the juniper berries (the ingredient that makes gin a gin, and which can be a bit heavy or resinous), Fifty Pounds Gin have made the more mellow coriander seed their hero ingredient. Angelica root then contributes a lovely earthy and spicy flavour.

It is a classic, smooth, rich and fresh drink that goes well with a good tonic and a lemon zest. A special mention should be made for the design of the bottle that is inspired by the first ever gin bottles, giving them a beautiful vintage appearance. 

You can purchase the Fifty Pounds Gin 70cl bottle here at £34.99.

Cider Lovers are going to love the Cranes Cranberry Cider. When twin brothers Ben and Dan decided to go into the business they thought that cranberries should be the key ingredient of their drinks and they thought well!

Cranes cranberry ciders are a mixture of the finest cranberries and apples which makes them very refreshing, light and tasteful. The ciders are naturally light as the sweetness comes from the fruits used during the production rather than additional sugars, and therefore they have 30% fewer calories than brand leaders. You can enjoy these sweet ciders guilt-free! These delicious cranberry ciders are available in three sublime flavours.

The Cranberry & Lime is one of our favourites; it is crisp, light and ideal for an afternoon refreshment. The second flavour is Blueberry & Apple; a perfectly sweet pairing. The third flavour is the Raspberry & Pomegranate, which is as fresh and invigorating as the first two but with that little delightful fruity taste that makes all the difference. 

A case of 12 Cranes Cranberry Cider can be purchased here at £27.60.

Famous for its alcoholic drinks, the Republic of Ireland will be soon renowned for its fruit wines. Móinéir wines are luxurious artisan fruit wines made in Wicklow Way Wines, the first ever Irish fruit winery. The wines are made from 100% Irish fruits.

The Blackberry Wine is a delicious blend of blackberries and wild elderberries; an Irish plant that was foraged in the Wicklow Mountains. The wine is intensely flavourful and fruity but with a light body making it easy to drink.  The Móinéir Blackberry Wine is a perfect choice for a light aperitif and goes wonderfully well with red meats.

The brand’s Irish Strawberry Wine is created with juicy, delicious handpicked Irish strawberries gently pressed to capture the most of their flavour. It is an aromatic, slightly sweet and crisp wine that will satisfy the palate of wine lovers. Here at The Amazing Blog, we love combining it with some dark chocolate, a real treat! We love that these are a little taste of Ireland captured in a bottle.                                                

Both wines are suitable for vegans and are unique gifts to offer to your loved ones.

You can purchase the Strawberry Wine here at 21.99€ and The Blackberry Wine here at 24.99€. Fortunately, you can buy the products in GBP by using PayPal.   

Sloane Home has found the way to our hearts with the Lone Stag Spirits: the LONE STAG SPIRIT Raspberry and Lime Gin Infusion and the LONE STAG ZESTY Clementine, Lemon and Lime Vodka Infusion.The drinks are traditionally produced in the heart of the British countryside with only the finest ingredients. Bottled, packaged and labelled by hand they are more delicious and savoury than any spirit made by machines. 

The spirits offer an excellent tasting experience; you can taste and identify all the ingredients used during the production. The sweetness and acidity are well balanced making the drinks taste natural, delicate and aromatic. The Lone Stag Spirits come in a fabulous case with cocktail ideas, transforming you into the new cocktails master. It is also a great gift for your friends and family.

We are very fond of these flavourful spirits, and we are not the only ones. Indeed, the LONE STAG SPIRIT Raspberry & Lime Gin infusion was awarded a Great Taste Award by the Guild of fine food August 2017 and the LONE STAG ZESTY Clementine, Lemon & Lime Vodka infusion won the same award in 2016.

If you want a taste of these delicious spirits, you can purchase a Sloane Hamper including both bottles here at £45.00.

We here at the blog can no longer have a dinner or go to a party without one of these drinks. This great selection of diverse and unique drinks will be a show-stopper at any dinner party.