Healthy Food - Friday Favourites

After the Christmas season many of us resolve to get back to our healthiest in the New Year. It’s now easier than ever to get on the health bandwagon and we at The Amazing Blog have been gathering our favourite healthy foods to share with you.

Glenilen handmade yoghurts really caught our attention with their large collection of natural low-fat yoghurts. The family-run farm has been running for generations in County Cork. What started as a hobby using their cows’ milk has now grown into a fully-fledged business, using fresh simple ingredients.

The yoghurts come in lots of delicious flavours, including rhubarb and strawberry, natural seeds, and blueberry. We loved the creamy textures and all the yoghurts had a lovely thick layer of fruit. With no additives or nasties, this is the perfect sweet treat without the guilt. Buy it here for £1.99.

The Amazing Blog are big fans of Gosh’s naturally free-from range. Suitable for vegans, their products are free from gluten, egg, dairy, nut and soya, meaning that everybody can enjoy these great products. The food from Gosh is made from minimal and fresh ingredients, blending vegetables, pulses, herbs and spices.

We particularly enjoyed the mushroom, puy lentil and butter bean burgers. Packed with mushrooms, vegetables, they contain one of your important five a day. Although they are super healthy, these burgers pack a punch with great flavour. These products are feel-good food we know you’ll enjoy. You can buy the Gosh burgers for £2.50 here.

Lizi’s Granola is a healthy breakfast cereal containing oats, nuts, seeds and more excellent healthy ingredients. Lizi’s has always strived to add natural and simple ingredients in their products. The oats are a fantastic source of both protein and fibre, helping you to stay fuller for longer and prevent spikes in blood sugar levels.

We at The Amazing Blog were excited to try Lizi’s Pink Apple & Cinnamon Granola. Apples are a great addition to your diet, aiding the heart, digestive system, and blood sugar. Cinnamon is also a brilliant ingredient to help control blood sugar. The granola is really tasty and so easy to prepare when you’re in a rush – simply add milk and eat. For an incredibly easy and delicious breakfast, get it here for £3.65.

Skinny Dipping is a savoury dip company offering up an amazing selection of healthy and natural dips. The brand is the brainchild between two friends in Islington, and what they’ve cooked up is really special. Coming from their love of hummus, Skinny Dipping has put together beautiful flavour combinations such as Spiced Squash and Yoghurt, Broadbean and Mint, and Charred Aubergine and Lemon.

The dips are homemade and created with 100% natural ingredients. All of the pots are healthy with a high a vegetable content, meaning you can indulge as often as you want! We think they would be brilliant to share with friends with crudites or even as an addition to your lunchbox.

You can buy the Skinny Dipping Dips here for £2.95.

Christmas Special - Alternative gifts for Her

At the Amazing Blog, the atmosphere in the office over Christmas is amazing we are all counting down for the Christmas celebrations and looking forward to spending it with our loved ones, plus we are excited to see what everyone got given for Christmas presents. Leading up to Christmas we have been doing a Christmas gift guide leading up to the big day, and this is guide is for all the last minute people who need to get alternative presents. 

Winter nights at home lounging on the sofa in your comfy pyjamas are the perfect setting when you have candles lit around the living room; a delightful candle that smells gorgeous when lit is the Violet & Sweetpea by the brand Etta French. Etta French is known for being a luxury that are full of surprises that hides a special item of jewellery in each candle which is exclusively created by their UK designers, we thought this is a lovely idea as each jewel has a special touch of beauty and style that we think would make a lovely gift to someone for Christmas. Plus it is the element of surprise as they will unwrap and find two presents in one product.  The candle it’s self has an gorgeous scent to it, that makes you want to have it lit straight away also each candle is hand poured in the UK and uses 100% natural plant wax.

The candle is available to grab here for £38.50.

The brand Fressko kindly sent us two of their flasks, which is appropriate considering it is winter these are the perfect gifts to give someone to keep them hydrated and warm over this season especially if they live in the UK, and we all know how unpredictable and cold our weather is. The first flask we received was the Tour flask this is suitable for tea and fruit water, perfect if you know someone who is an adventurous day-tripper, we really liked the packaging of this design it has a wooden top but the actual flask is clear so you can see all the goodness from the fruit within the flask. The second flask which we all really loved in the office was part of their colour collection; the Colour Flask is the colour blush it is a beautiful tone of pink it’s very appealing, feminine and would make the perfect gift for a female. The colour flask is slightly smaller has its 360ml compared to the tour mask which is 400ml, however the colour collection has 6 hour insulation and is suitable for hot and cold beverages, and it is colour coated with a variety of colours you can choose from and it is a stainless steel flask.

You grab the tour flask here for £36.85, and the blush flask is available here also for £36.85. 

The third product we recommend is a beautifully scented diffuser by Heathcote & Ivory, called Atlas Silks  it smells gorgeous and will fill your room with an inviting scent of atlas silks, mountain rose, ylang ylang, sandalwood plus it is blended with essential oils such as coriander.

We chose this particular brand to feature in our gift guide because the artistic packaging is really pretty and would make a perfect alternative present for a loved one or family friend, especially if they love bringing colour, scent and sophistication to their home interior this product would be make a really nice gift.

This product is available to purchase here for £22.00.

Another alternative we recently got sent to our office and as a team we loved how convenient and useful the product is by Tweexy. We have find a new product that will help make your life easier, any girls who regularly paint their nails at home know how painful it can be when your knock a nail polish over. Tweexy is a comfortable polish holder that fits for all, and will make painting your nails become less of an annoying task. What we love about Tweexy is it comes in a variety of different colours, it is very comfortable and light on the finger and it doesn’t get in the way of painting and makes your life less complicated. This product is perfect for a female who loves try new things, it is small and perfect to travel with and also small enough to make a good stocking present or a secret Santa gift. 

Whether this product is for you or to help a best friend out, this will make life easier. You can grab this product here for £9.95. 

Christmas Special - Alternative Gifts for Him

Christmas shopping is fun when you go out for the day and pick everyone’s present, but it can be a struggle when you have a family relative or a close friend who is slightly picky or you just have no clue what they would like. At the Amazing Blog we can definitely relate to this so we've decided to put together an 'Alternative Guide'.

During Christmas day to keep the entertainment going, it’s nice to play games with your relatives and friends. The first product which would make a good small gift is the Rubik Sparks. It’s a new Rubik's cube that has six new games with 25 unique levels, and each level will challenge your mind, speed, memory and logic. We saw this and thought it would make a good family activity for the kids and parents to get involved with and see who the best gadget player is. This Rubik's cube is also upgraded with a new revolutionary way to control the game: there is no buttons or touch screens, and you control the spark by tilting and turning. You can play this game either in a single or multiplayer game play.

You can purchase this cube here for £24.95. 

The second alternative we find is this luxurious brand that specialise in the finest tableware called The Posh Trading Company. Each product is beautifully made and we were really impressed with their Luminescent Coasters. Mixed with the old and modern interior design, they come in a variety of colours you can choose from. They are presented in a clear acrylic box or a silver leaf lacquered box to show off the beautiful design of each coaster. We loved the modern twist to the coaster display that will definitely enhance your dining room décor and will look lovely if you or someone were hosting a dinner party or a corporate event. 

Our team’s favourite is the gold coaster box that you can purchase here for £135.00.

Celebrations and enjoying yourself with your family is the best time on Christmas day surrounded with your loved ones. We have found a company that specialise in 'special' gifts that you would give to someone over Christmas to add that bit of humour.  The company is called Barbuzzo.  We loved their motto of  'life is too short to be serious' and here at The Amazing Blog we definitely agree on that. A silly joke or a gift you may see that reminds you of a relative will always work over Christmas, but if you are finding it specially difficult to purchase a present for a male we definitely recommend going to their website. Our favourite product was the Beer Hammer, a real hammer that actually works but that you can also use as a bottle opener. It is the perfect 'two for one' funny gift if you know anyone in your family who loves DIY's and a good beer

You can purchase the beer hammer here for £7.38.

The final alternative product that we think would make a really good and useful present is by the brand Udoq. They have come up with a Docking station that is suitable worldwide for any brand of mobile phones. We were also really impressed with Udoq's vision of helping to protect the environment, stopping tons of electrical goods going to waste by just using one device. You can customise each docking station which we find even more intriguing and impressive.  The team here really liked the idea, specially as it is sometimes common to have two phones or a phone at home for back up. This will make your life easier as you can even use other kind of devices such as iPads and it will also help  protect the environment, what's not to like?

Grab this, either for yourself or as Christmas present here for £ 89.84. 

Christmas decorations - Friday Favourites

It’s that time of year where the competition of who puts on the best Christmas show starts to really heat up, so to keep you at the top of the game we at The Amazing Blog have rounded up our favourite alternative Christmas decorations.

Nkuku’s 2016 Christmas collection definitely has the wow factor, the extensive collection can be used to decorate the whole house, with delicate draping jewels to baby baubles; we love the classic yet cool feel of the collection. The items in the range all ooze glamour and sophistication, and we love that you don't need to worry about going to all different shops to find what you need. Our favourites from Nkuku's collections are the Talini geometric decorations, with a basic gold wire creating diamonds, stars and squares shapes, they give a young modern twist to your tree. We also love the Hani wreaths, a twist on the usual green leafed ring, these versions are made from a ring of baubles and add a glamourous touch to your door decorations. 
The whole collection can be found here and starts at £9.95 for a set of 3 or 4.

You can't really argue that the staple decoration is always the Christmas tree, whether you have only a small space for a miniature or a large gap for a giant, Twilight Trees are an elegant alternative to a real Fir. Without the hassle of finding the best of the bunch, clearing up the leaves or throwing it away when needed, these LED trees bring the glam needed to match the presents underneath.  The trees are hand crafted to a high standard and are simple and alluring. A range of sizes for any type of room are available and being battery operated means they are easy to fit. For a stylish tree to last more than just one Christmas we recommend Twilight trees.

They start at £72 for the ‘Mini LED Cherry Tree’ which is perfect for a small decoration or as a gift and are available here.

No Christmas dinner is complete without two things; Brussel Sprouts and Christmas crackers! If you’re looking for an eco-friendly alternative or if you’re tired of the usual Christmas jokes and mini presents of main stream crackers then the re-useable cracker from Keep This Cracker is perfect. The crackers are square shaped and larger than most shop-bought crackers, meaning you can choose the perfect present to place inside. The crackers come flat packed and ready made to pop into shape, attach the snap and fill with custom gifts. The crackers come in a variety of colourful designs to suit any table theme and the shape is halved so when pulled it doesn’t tear to be easily be made up again and again. All you need to do is choose the perfect offering for your dinner guests and fill the cracker, good example are theatre tickets, jewellery or nail varnishes. 

For a cracking addition to your dinner decorations you can purchase your Christmas crackers from here for £15.95. 

To finish off the table decorations or to make your house that bit cosier we love Lime Lace’s Christmas candles. This year Lime Lace offers a beautiful, minimal trio of Bronze trees, a candle plate and copper pipe candle holder. The metallic colour theme mirrors this years’ fashion trends; the bronze Christmas tree candles are sophisticated show stoppers, yet are small enough to have them scattered around the table and the rest of the room. For a table centre piece, the mirrored circular piece has a Rose Gold edge, simple yet great to place candles or your own Christmas decoration. If you’re looking for a unique candle display the copper candle holder adds a modern twist to the table centre; add your own coloured candles to match how you’ve decorated the rest of the room to bring the whole look together.

These candles are a perfect compromise if your space is small, or to add the final Christmas touches to your festive home, you can purchase here from £23.00 to £46.00.

Pumpkin Power - Coldpress

At The Amazing Blog we as a team love the Autumn Season; we look forward to the small things such as cosy nights in with candles lit in the living room. Autumn reminds us of certain spices and flavours such as pumpkin spice or cinnamon so we were really excited to try the Pumpkin Power by Coldpress.

Healthy juices are a good way to get the daily recommendation of nutrients and vitamins into your body. What we loved about the flavour Pumpkin Power was all the different flavours, tastes and smells; it is infused with a good combination of ingredients that work really well together. As this juice is cold-pressed and not heated, the juice naturally is full of tastes and flavour including all the healthy nutrients, inside this juice it pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, carrot, pineapple, apple and lemon full off vitamins. 

Coldpress also have a variety of flavours to choose from to cater to your taste buds including juices that are just single fruits, or their is a passionate blend, silky smoothies and vigorous veg. We loved that there is a variety for each individual and you can decide to stick to what you know or you maybe feeling adventurous and want to try something different.

This would be a perfect autumn essential not only is it enjoyable and has all the flavours that remind many of us off this season. It also would be one of your five a day and it is suitable for vegetarians too. You can grab these juices in several of your local supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose also available online here for £2.79.