Posts tagged Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Gifts

Here are a couple more ideas in the run up to Valentine’s Day….

MITCH is a new range for men from Paul Mitchell.  There are quite a few options from gels and glues to pastes and creams.  I was sent a sample of each product which Nick has been trying out – he was really surprised at how many different products were in the range but seems to like all of them so far!

Sranrom are a luxury home spa range from Thailand.  I’ve tried out their hand cream and it is gorgeous so definitely a brand to subtly hint for (or just buy for yourself!).  I really want to try one of their candles….if you’re reading Nick……!  A word of warning though – I found their website quite hard to find my way around as the tabs across the top have hand wavy spa type descriptions rather than helpful ones!

Anyone got anything planned for Valentine’s Day this year?

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Valentine’s Giveaway Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered my latest competition!  Just a quick post to announce the winner so, the winner is……..

I’ll send you an email Joanne so if you could reply with your address asap, I’ll get your prize in the post!

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Valentine’s Day Yumminess!

We don’t usually do much for Valentine’s Day other than cook a nice meal – the past few years that hasn’t even been on Valentine’s Day itself what with us being in uni in different places!  Here are a few things I’ve found which would be perfect for Valentine’s Day……

1. Guylian chocolates – how can you not love these!

2. Fudges hampers.  There are a few different sizes with different things inside.  I’ve tried some of the crackers and biscuits before and they are really good so I think these would be a great idea for foodies.

3. The Mercers Chocolate Sauce & Salted Caramel Sauce.  These taste amazing and are just £2 each!

4. Firefly Love Potion – makes a change from the usual Valentine’s Day champagne!  This tastes nice on its own but can also be mixed for cocktails.

5. Olives et Al’s Chilli Harissa.  This is nice and garlicky and tastes really good with lamb.

6. Jamie Oliver’s chocolate bars.  I like the packaging and they’re fair trade as well.

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Sugar Cookies

I’m still so busy (I was in university working on a group project ALL day yesterday (Saturday)!) but, obviously, it’s hard to work if you haven’t got anything to eat!  I made these biscuits in literally 15 minutes.  They taste really good, are very addictive and have lots of sugar in to keep you awake!  I also justified these as being a practice run for Valentine’s Day!  I cheated a bit with the icing and used Renshaw Ready to Roll Icing which you can buy in Lakeland.  It’s only 1.49 and seeing as it iced 16 biscuits, saved me heaps of time and tastes good, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it!  Anyway, here’s the recipe I used (I can’t remember exactly where I found it sorry – I just Googled for an easy recipe!).  I only ended up rolling out half of my dough so if you make cookies roughly the same size as mine, you’re looking at around 30!

Ingredients

  • 225g butter
  • 200g sugar
  • 1egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 340g self raising flour

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 190°C and grease some baking trays.
  • Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy.
  • Beat in the egg and vanilla.
  • Fold in the flour.
  • Use your hands to roll the dough into a ball – add more flour if it’s too sticky.
  • Dust a surface with flour and roll out your biscuits.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just turning brown.
  • Ice however you prefer once cool.

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Valentine’s Giveaway

Here’s the Valentine’s Day giveaway I promised you!  One of you will win a Love Rug which is basically a Valentine’s themed Snuggie (except it’s not made by the same people!).  It’s perfect for cwtching up on the sofa whether you are in a relationship or not :-)

To enter, you need to be following with either GFC or Feedburner and leave a comment at the bottom of this post.  You can also get one extra entry for each of the following…..

  • Follow me on Bloglovin’ using the link on the sidebar.
  • Like my Facebook page.
  • Follow me on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway.  Make sure you include a link to this post and  @hels89 so that I can see your tweet!

The giveaway will close on February 6 and I’ll choose the winner as soon as I can using random.org.

UK entries only!

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Little Messages

Little Messages have some really sweet but affordable Valentine’s Day gifts.  You can get mugs, key rings, magnets and bath bombs with cute little messages on them which make fun, if slightly cheesy, presents for under £5.  My favourite things from the Little Messages range are the Love Message Cards.  There are 8 credit card size cards in the pack, each with a message on which you can hide around the house for your other half to find.  You can buy Little Messages either online or from WHSmith.

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Fondest Fancies!

Mr Kipling has some special new cakes – Fondest Fancies especially for Valentine’s Day.  They are cute little strawberry flavoured sponge cakes with a vanilla topping and pink icing which taste delicious!  I don’t think there’s much else to say other than you can get them from supermarkets for £1.99 for a pack containing 8 cakes!

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Thorntons

Thorntons have loads of delicious looking and tasting Valentine’s Day gifts.  The prices range from 69p for a Valentine’s chocolate lolly to £75 for a hamper containing practically every single chocolate product Thorntons sell!

I like the cute ‘I Love You’ truffles……

…… and this box of heart shaped chocolates is under £5.

Thorntons even have an option to personalise your box of chocolates with photos and your choice of chocolate.  You can also get a box of ‘Alphabet Truffles’ where you can choose what you’d like your box of chocolates to say.  I think these are brill ideas as whoever you are buying them for will know you’ve spent a bit of time choosing exactly the right gift for them, not just picked any old box of chocolates up of the shelf!

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Personalised M&M’s

I love M&M’s and was really surprised to find out that you can get personalised M&M’s!!!

The website MyM&M’s lets you pick which colours you want and make up your own messages to go on them.

There are some restrictions such as only two colours and a limit on the number of letters but you can still give an imaginative and thoughtful gift. 

If you want these by Valentine’s Day you need to order by February 6th.

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A Couple of Valentine’s Day Ideas…..

This Elemis Skin Nourishing Milk Bath Anniversary Edition is expensive but makes your bath that extra bit special. It has an old fashioned glass bottle which you can reuse and it smells gorgeous.

Something a bit cheaper but still just a lovely smelling is a Bodhi gift set. The products don’t contain any harmful parabens, sulphates and petrochemicals and has a high ratio of essential oils. I love this cute I heart…. t shirt from La Redoute and it’s much cheaper than you would think at just £9.

Find-Me-A-Gift have some good ideas including this Rose Compact, the Valentine’s themed snuggie blanket and loads more. Not too sure about this Cupid’s Cushion though!  I mean it’s a fun idea but I personally wouldn’t pay £18 for it (certainly not the £30 when it’s not in the sale).  There are some much nicer gifts on the website which I would choose over this cushion.

For something different, why not try this Black Moth Truffle Vodka? I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t a massive fan when I first tasted it – it tastes quite salty. I’ve never actually had a proper truffle so can’t say whether they taste anything like the vodka but it is made using them so I would assume that it does! The website has lots of ideas for cocktails using the Truffle Vodka, some of them are very odd and not what you would think to put together but they somehow work!If you’re not sure about something quite as exotic as the Truffle Vodka, why not try BLOOM Gin.  It has “delicate floral notes and aromas, enriched by the natural botanicals of chamomile, pomelo and honeysuckle, capture the uplifting sense of spring” according to the website.  I’ve got to be honest, I’ve only tried it with tonic but there are some really nice looking cocktail recipes on their website if you want to jazz it up a little.

I don’t know about you but I can’t tell the difference between sparkling wine and proper Champagne (unless I drink one after the other!) so if, like me, you can’t afford to splash out on the real stuff then Hardys have a great alternative – Hardys Crest Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir. They’ve also got a rose version which tastes delicious as well.

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