Christmas Gifts for Men

Let’s face it we all know how difficult it is to find that perfect man gift. Every year struggle offering the same things: Aftershave, watches, ties or even socks! This year at The Amazing Blog we've had enough of the mundane and have a few more unusual gifts ideas to suggest...

Question: Who loves a well-groomed man with a smooth and perfectly shaved face? Answer: We do!  That's why we think that the Cornerstone personalised gift set is the perfect gift for those who like to step up their shaving game. The £30 Shaving Gift Set includes a face scrub, a shave gel, a personalised razor with engraved initials (an added bonus) and a post-shave balm.

Before shaving, the Face Scrub gently exfoliates the skin removing dirt and impurities which helps for a smoother shaving. Enriched with eucalyptus oil and ginger extracts the Sensitive Shave Gel is formulated to protect sensitive skin from irritation and shaving cuts. Eucalyptus works as a highly protecting ingredient with its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. The gel enables a smooth and comfortable shaving experience. The Aluminium Razor is made with five high-quality fine blades. Each blade is made from Japanese chromium steel and designed to reduce the risk of burns and clogging. The razor has an Aloe Vera strip that helps the blades glide smoothly. Finish the shaving in apotheosis with the Sensitive Cooling Post-Shave Balm. Infused with mint and honey, this refreshing balm instantly replenishes, hydrates and cools the skin. This set also comes with a £10 gift card - bonus! Purchase the Cornerstone gift set here for £30. They also have a Cornerstone subscription club - see website for details.

Christmas means gifts, wine and good food. It’s the time of the year when we do our best to be an aspiring 'Nigella' cooking gourmet meals for our loved ones, made with delicious, rich and luxurious ingredients. When January comes its time for a slowdown generally with a detox and rather boring food. However, this year why not make the whole year feel like Christmas with the L’Atelier Des Chefs Cooking Classes.

L’Atelier Des Chefs is one of UK’s best cookery schools it offers classes from a quick 30 minutes to an intense 4 hours tuition for anyone wanting to learn more about creating great food. The school provides a great and diverse range of class themes including French, Thai and Asian cuisine. They offer a diverse selection of Seasonal and Healthy Eating, Pastry and Sweet Things, Greek, Moroccan, Burger Making, Street Food and of course British food.

The classes are run by professional chefs that are passionate about sharing their expert tips. These classes are the opportunity to expand your recipe repertoire and learn new techniques in a fun environment. These culinary courses are the ideal gift offering the opportunity for your man to don his chefs hat and become the latest cooking maestro! For a  90 minutes cooking classes, a gift card is available here for £58.

This year we have found the perfect gift for gin lovers. It is the Gin Tasting Experience for Two, at Brennen & Brown distillery. This unique olfactory experience will take you through a voyage of sensorial discovery guaranteed to tantalise the taste buds. There will be demonstrations of their innovative distilling techniques where you will also glean more about the history of Gin. During the tasting class, you will not only drink and taste fabulous gins but also learn more about the different botanicals which create the individual gin flavours. It is a an experience for two, which always makes it more fun to share. The experiences starts at 5.30pm and run on a Thursday and Friday with occasional Saturday. You can buy a Gin Tasting Gift Card here for £35.

Interflora’s Gentleman's Indulgent Mini Hamper is a real treat for anyone with a sweet tooth. This luxurious gourmet hamper has everything your man could need for a quick snack. The basket includes Cartwright & Butler Chocolate Peanut Cookies, Bespoke Pickle by Blue Writing, and Thomas J.Fudge's Tangy Stilton Wafers. In fact, there are a plethora of treats including Cambrook Brilliantly Baked Salted Mixed Nuts, Copperpot Caramel & Sea Salt Butter Fudge, Yorkshire Popcorn Salted, Fair & Square Milk Chocolate, Haribo Jelly Beans with Blue Ribbon and Green & Pleasant Natural Cider. All very tempting, not only that but Interflora also includes two bottles of refreshing artisan cider to boot! Perfect for your chap, we're sure he'll bless you as he sits back, relaxes and enjoys these in front of the TV. You can purchase the hamper here for £35.

Wallets are a Christmas gifts classic, and so last but not least, we thought we'd include our favourite one.  We love this beautiful Gentlemen’s Hardware Bi-Fold Leather Wallet. Made with hard-wearing tan leather this stylish and sophisticated wallet is a must-have man accessory. Designed with multiple compartments and card slots this wallet enables the owner to have a well-organised wallet that is fast and easy to use. It has an advanced RFID lining that blocks any unwanted contactless payments. The wallet comes in an elegant, smart branded tin box. Apart from its great quality what we particularly like is the embossed words on the inside seam: “Fortune Favours the Brave”. What a great motto for that special man in your life. The wallet can be purchased here for £40.

Christmas Gift Ideas for Her

Every year during the festive season, we all face the same struggle asking ourselves the same question; what on earth do we give to our mothers, sisters and best girlfriends (yes girlfriends, we're expecting gifts from you too!) So this year at The Amazing Blog we've come up with a great collection of gifts ideas that we think will suit even your fussiest of friends.

The first gift idea we would like to share with you is from one of our favourite brands Heathcote & Ivory, we'd like to suggest their Heathcote and Ivory Sakura Silks Exquisite Spa Set. This set comes in a stunning and colourful hexagonal tin box - which we think will make a glamorous storage box afterwards. When lifting the lid a gorgeous floral and zesty aroma gently pervaded the office - we were in love! This gift set contains three products; a hand cream, bath salts and a body butter.  The hand cream is formulated with shea butter, vitamin E and panthenol, green tea, jasmine and cedarwood. Together these ingredients intensely nourish hands and cuticles leaving them velvety soft and delicously scented. The Sakura Silks bath salts are the perfect way to indulge and pamper your body at home and help create a luxurious and relaxing at home spa experience.  Finally, the body butter is a rich moisturising cream made with a unique blend of essential oils including lemon, lime and sweet orange. Shea butter and vitamin E are known for their hydrating and protecting properties smooth, soften and provide the extra-hydration skin needs during winter.  All of these products are paraben free. You can purchase the Heathcote & Ivory set here for £15.

We think that a fragrance or perfume is a nice treat when it comes to a Christmas gift. With this in mind, we'd like to suggest the newly launched Change perfume created by the actress Lisa Riley.  Inspired by celebrating a new chapter in her life, the Change perfume is a versatile and memorable fragrance which will suit almost everyone with its floral and oriental notes. The top notes are mandarin leaves and mulberry flowers while the middle notes are tuberose, orange flower and jasmine; and the base notes include sandalwood, Tonka bean and patchouli. These luxurious ingredients work to create and rich and sensual perfume that is timeless and transcends all seasons. You can purchase the perfume here for £14.99 + p&p.

We think that owning a beautiful silk scarf is an investment as well as  a classic item for every woman's wardrobe. So we've chosen one from Libby by Design, these are all limited edition handmade silk scarves. Each of these designer scarves are made in England, 100% silk, and hand finished with rolled borders. Every piece is unique, some even have themes from Rudyard Kipling, but all take their inspiration from in the style of Indonesian batiks. We have featured our favourite “How the leopard got his spots” which is a versatile 98cm silk square that can be worn in numerous ways. These scarves are the perfect accessory for brightening up either a heavy winter coat or worn as a sarong on a sandy Caribbean beach. Purchase your scarf here for £174 with SPECIAL OFFER of 15% off if you order before Christmas!

For another Christmas gift idea, we were rather taken with this Morris and Co design inspired lavish body gift set. One of our favourites of this year, is their Pure Morris The Collection, this includes a travel size shower cream and a body lotion, together with a full size hand cream. The shower cream is a gentle body wash that is formulated with vitamin A and E, kelp, silver birch and thistle extracts. These ingredients deeply cleanse the body while keeping skin balanced and hydrated. The body lotion is also infused with the same extracts, but in addition there is also almond oil and cocoa butter which help to soften and smooth the skin leaving it velvety soft. The hand cream is formulated with natural ingredients including shea butter, jojoba oil and macadamia oil making it a deeply nourishing cream to protect hands during the winter season. The products come in an intricately embossed tin. The Morris and Co Pure Morris gift set can be purchased here for £22.

For the glamourpuss in your life, we think that the Rouge Bunny Rouge Surprise Eye Shadow Palette will be an excellent choice. Rouge Bunny Rouge is a favourite here at TheAmazingBlog; this international make up brand always keep us up to speed with their new launches. So we were happy to learn about the Surprise Eye Shadow Palette which contains five long-lasting shimmery shadows including a highlighting shade, three smoky neutral tones and one frosted iridescent shimmer eye shadow. NB: This quintet of colours are a 'surprise' so we cannot show you the exact selection of colours (the image above is just the palette casing).  Lightweight, creamy touch offering an extended 8-hour wear, the eye shadow formula is made to stay put and to look freshly applied all day long. All refill shades are made to fit perfectly into this Limited Edition. The palette also comes with a free decorated presentation box which makes it an even more impressive present. Purchase here for €50.00.

We hope we're provided some good inspiration for gifting your loved ones, as well as yourself of course! 

The Cockney'tivity – A Very Cockney Christmas Story

We love Christmas at The Amazing Blog. It is a beautiful and loving time spent with all the people you love most in the world, especially family. But before the big day, we like to have a special dinner with our best friends where we exchange gifts, play games, laugh and drink a bit too much. As fun as this is though, it can be a bit tiring, especially if you are the one cooking and even worse if you are cooking again a few weeks later! So we were positively giddy when we came across the Cockney'tivity – A Very Cockney Christmas Story.

This event is utterly unique, it will make you a Christmas hero, and everyone will remember it for years to come. The Cockney’tivity is a Christmas dining experience that features three short acts of hilarious festive drama surrounding a delicious three-course meal in an authentic east end pub. As you enter The North Star, you’ll take a seat at the Christmas dinner table and enjoy your meal as the drama unfolds around you, ending with a hilarious and raucous finale that will have you dancing on your chairs.

The menu sounds brilliantly festive. Starting with roasted vegetable soup with herb oil and garlic croutons Or Smoked Salmon, Pickled Radish Salad with Horseradish Cream. There are two mains; the first is Herb buttered roasted Supreme of Chichen, Roast Spuds, Glazed Carrots, Maple Roast Parsnips, Gloucester Old Spot Pigs in Blankets, Gloucester Pork and Apple Stuffing, Buttered Greens with Nanny Bill’s Gravy. The second is a vegetarian option, titled Nanny Bill’s Nut Roast with Cauliflower Cheese pots, Veggie Stuffing and all the trimmings. Dessert features the classics, Handmade Mince Pies with Brandy Cream and Christmas Budding with Lemon Sorbet. 

The event runs from the 1st – 22nd of December and tickets cost £55 a person. Private bookings are also available here for up to 60 guests.  Get your tickets here and make a Christmas memory no one will forget. 

Friday Favourites - Winterville

As we may have mentioned before, at The Amazing Blog we absolutely LOVE this festive period! Mulled wine, fairy lights and layers are among some of the best things, so being able to enjoy all three in one event is certainly an evening we won't be missing! This year one of our favourite festive events, Winterville, is taking place in South London at Clapham Common. 

What we like about Winterville is that the event offers Londoner’s an alternative festive experience that’s accessible and enjoyable for all. Go ice-skating on the outdoor ice rink, take the kids to the fairground or head to the roller rink with some friends for an active and fast-paced day.  If you would rather relax and be entertained then head to their famous Spiegeltent which is hosting one-off events such as comedy, cabaret and family Christmas shows.  What’s more, the event is the part-time home to some of London’s best street food at the Feastopia, full of option and delight. 

Entry is free, but attractions and events are priced individually. Winterville is open from November 23rd until January 5th, so there is plenty of time for you to go and no excuse for you not to. NB:  Due to weekend popularity for all these individual events, Friday and Saturday night you will need to book your tickets here.

Christmas at Kew

Deck the halls, hang up the mistletoe and string up those lights. Christmas season is here everybody, and we here at The Amazing Blog, clearly, couldn’t be more excited. More excitingly, Christmas is coming early to Kew, running from 22 November to 1 January.

The Kew Christmas festivities take place after dark, once the gardens have closed. The magical after dark experience brings you fairy-tale and fantasy. Wander down the one-mile long trail that winds through the gardens, as you are surrounded by illuminating and singing trees, giant baubles, buildings that boast over one million twinkling lights, a flickering Fire Garden. The Palm House lights up with a dazzling show of laser beams, jets of light and kaleidoscopic projections. It really is a sight to behold!

In addition to the mystical outdoor trail, there is festive food and drink on offer. Sipping some mulled wine, hot chocolate or spiced cider, and toasting marshmallows around the fire is the perfect way to warm your cockles in the winter chill. Fancy picking up some Christmas gifts? There is a wonderful selection of gifts and stocking fillers in Kew’s shops. The children even get a chance to meet Father Christmas and his elves next to the magical vintage fairground. It is the perfect event for all ages, to get you into the Christmas spirit and we can’t wait to bask in the festivities.

Book tickets here for £16, or £10 for children.