First Christmas In Our New Flat...

Merry Christmas to you all! I know I'm a bit early but there's not long to go now, so thought I'd get it in there :).

Those of you that follow my posts on here and/or follow me on Twitter (@GemsGemz86) will know that me and Si moved into our first flat together earlier this year. So obvs it's our first Christmas here :). It's been really exciting buying our first lot of Christmas decorations, decorating the place our way, doing our first proper full Christmas shop (we did used to help mom out when we lived with her), wrapping presents and putting them under the tree and creating our own traditions :). I thought I'd write this post and show you how we have decorated the place for Christmas and show you a few of the things we have bought.

So this is our living area with just the Christmas lights on and where we have the main decorations going on. So the tree was my first real tree, Si has had one previously with his family. It smelt gorgeous and looked lush when we first got it and set it up. We bought it on the 30th November and approx 2 weeks later it had died. It was a nightmare and we were pretty gutted about it! We got the tree from a local garden centre and there was some sort of guarantee on the trees there, so Si rang them up and they said if we returned it they'd exchange it. Si's mom took him to return it and I cleaned up the mess. When we had it up, I'd clean around the tree and a couple of hours later the floor would be covered again. It took me two hours to clean up properly whilst Si was returning it, filling one medium bin liner with piles of needles and then I hoovered the rest up, having to empty the hoover twice in the process. Some of the little bleeders had dug themselves into the carpet, so to do a good job and get rid of them all as best I could, I had to get down on my hands and knees and pick them from the carpet with my fingers :/. Not a pleasant experience I must say :/. Luckily, Si managed to get our money back and my mom's friend was giving up her artificial Christmas tree as her daughter had given her hers so mom brought that one up to us and we've now got that one all decorated (I took all the pictures in this post before our real tree decided to die, so I thought I'd just stick with them saves taking them all again :)). I think if we ever get a real one again (not in any particular rush we've both said ha), then we'll get one where the needless don't come out...I bet they are pricey though! The lights around the TV are just a pack of coloured lights that were £1 from Poundland and the ones on the window are those I used to have in my bedroom back at my moms, Si got them for me and they were £20 from Wilko's.

We have some of the traditional decorations on our tree like beads, coloured baubles (we decided to go for a red and gold theme), bows, stars and of course chocolates :), but there are some baubles/tree decorations that are a little bit different, so I thought I'd show you those a little bit more closely...

The glass bauble with the beads inside was a couple of quid from a local garden centre called Garden Land. It was the same garden centre we got our tree from. I thought it was so cute! The special couple bauble was also from the same garden centre but it was a gift from my mom :). It's a money box bauble! The star decoration was also from the garden centre and was a couple of quid. I wanted to get a few items for the tree that were unique, so everything wasn't all samey. The red and white baubles were from a PDSA charity shop, they were new stock and were about £3.50 for a pack of six, we got two packs. The Santa hat and the stocking decorations were from Poundland (the hat was on its own and the stocking decoration came in a pack of four). Lastly, the reindeer decoration came in a pack of six for £1 and were from Discount UK, which used to be our old Woolworths (I miss that shop!). At the top of our tree we have...a star! What do you go for? A star, angel or something else?

We also have a few more decorations and lights around the flat...

The Merry Christmas garland was £1 from Poundland and we found the lights in a back room of our flat when we moved in :)...ta very muchly to whoever left them here!

The snowman and the Santa were £1 each from Poundland (they light up), as were the Xmas letters (everything else is normally on the window sill but the candle holders Si got from work and the bowl and pot pourri was from Asda :)).

This set of lights was just £1 from Poundland. They don't look very bright in the picture, but it's cosy of an evening with them on :).

This is a window decoration and it is hand made. I got it from Birmingham Christmas/German market this year for £3.50. It's a lovely, unique decoration and sparkles when it catches the light.

We also got a few things for our dining table for Christmas (me and Si usually have Christmas at moms but as this is our first Christmas in our own place, we wanted to have it here and cook for my mom and sister, so they are coming to ours :)), aswell as a few other Christmassy bits and bobs...

I got these gummy paper strips for £1 from Poundland and there were loads in the pack and four different designs. I was unsure of what to do with them at first but loved the designs, I didn't know whether to make a garland for a wall, above a door or what, but when playing around with them I created this little decoration for the back of our dining table chairs :) makes it that little bit more Christmassy!

I loved this salt pot when I first saw it at Garden Land. It was only £1.99 and I thought it would look good on the dining table on Christmas day. I didn't bother getting a pepper one aswell as no-one here really has pepper on their meals and I'll just use this for Christmas, put it away and bring it out again every year. I think this is actually a pepper pot as it has three holes instead of two, but they didn't have any with two holes, so I think people must have already snapped them up. I got a few disposable items for Christmas evening when we have sandwiches, a few bits of party food, cheese board etc. These plates were £1 from Discount UK.

The napkins were £1 from Poundland and the cups were £1 from Discount UK.

I wanted to make some home made Christmas cookies/biscuits so I picked these cutters up for £1 from Discount UK. I also picked up a pack of two festive table covers for £1 from Poundland. I love the whole Nordic style, so I couldn't resist.

Sticking with our red and gold theme this Christmas, I picked up four place mats for £1 each from Discount UK and a pack of 4 drink mats for £1. Also at Garden Land, I got these two festive Yankee Candle wax tarts (Christmas Eve and Apple & Pine Needle), they smell amazing! They were £1.25 each.

There were also a few bits that I've seen about that I liked the look of and either haven't had the chance to pick up, saw such items after we'd bought all of our decorations and we didn't want to go over the top or my local stores didn't have the items available but I still thought they were worth mentioning and there's always next Christmas :).

I saw so many of these types of trees in my town centre but as it was our first Christmas in our new place we needed a main tree let alone any side trees ha! So we gave a tree like this a miss this year but I think they are beautiful and definitely something we'd look into getting next year as an extra to our decorations. This particular type is from Garden Site and the price ranges from £37.99 to £72.99 depending on the size that you want. I'm not sure if you have a Discount UK store near you but I've seen some in there during the run up to Christmas (couldn't find an image on their website to show you) and again they range in price. Do any of you have a tree like this?

I think it will be cute to have something like this for next year. We're getting married in September 2014, so this will probably be something we'll look at getting for next Christmas knowing me and Si :). It's sweet! You can personalise it with any message and it's only £12.99 from Gone Digging.

Me and Si love travelling, so we'd love something like this for our tree. It's £5.95 for one from Not On The High Street and you can choose from black, cream or green. I know over the years we are going to probably build up a nice little collection of unique Christmas baubles and decorations!

Lastly, I'm sticking with the Nordic/Scandinavian theme with these lush items from Tesco. The nearest Tesco to me don't have these items in for some reason. Tesco have quite a few lovely Christmas items to be honest, they are all on their website, I think I need to get to a bigger Tesco to see their full range though. These two items are fab and would look lovely in our front room, fitting in nicely with our theme. The cushion is £10 and the throw is currently £16.65.

Such lovely items don't you think?

How do you decorate where you live for Christmas?

Have you bought any new decorations this year?

Thanks so much for reading!

Gem XxOo

Images courtesy of Garden Site, Gone Digging, Not On The High Street and Tesco.

Pointless (The Travel Game)...

Me and my Fiance love watching the TV show Pointless. We always have a laugh playing along, so when I was offered the chance to review the Pointless travel game, I was like 'Yeahhh!'.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

For those of you that aren't familiar with the BBC1 game show, it is hosted by Alexander Armstrong and the concept of the game is that you have to try and think of the most obscure answer rather than the best answer (scoring the most points) to each question you are asked (at some point before the show each question is asked to 100 people and they are given 100 seconds to come up with as many answers as they can - only correct answers are considered) and try to score the lowest number of points. Even better is to get a pointless answer which scores zero.

The full sized board game is also available to purchase, but I got to review the travel version. It is recommended for people of ages 10+ and for 2-4 players or teams. It contains 120 questions, 1 question card holder, 1 'Pointless' pencil, 1 answer and score sheet pad (30 sheets which are double sided) and 1 set of rules.

The game is similar to the TV show in terms of the whole concept of the show, so you have to try and find the lowest scoring answer for each question. The game has many differences to the TV show though in terms of the following:

- You can play with as little as two people if you want to. You don't have to play with solely four teams to start with like the TV show.

- In the TV show there are elimination rounds, before the final two teams with the best scores (the lowest scores) compete in the head to head and the winner of that gets to play in the final. In the travel game, there are no elimination rounds, everyone gets to play all the way through to the end, so no one gets knocked out during play. I suppose if you wanted to play like the TV show you could just adapt the rules.

- Each round is the same and the player or team with the lowest score of each round, gets to go first in the next round. When it comes to the end of the fifth round, the player or team with the most Pointless answers (scoring zero) gets to go first. At the end of the sixth round, the player or team with the overall lowest score wins the game.

- Answers are written down on an answer sheet rather than spoken out loud in turn. The scores (that your answers get) are also written down and recorded on your answer sheet.

- One player is to be chosen to be the question master, but can also play the game.

- The game isn't electronic, the questions and answers are on cards (they are also double sided) within a special card holder (which hides the scores from prying eyes ;)), so the questions and answers to choose from are on view and the scores are only revealed when each card is taken out of the card holder.

- All answers are on the cards to choose from, where as in some rounds on the TV show you have to think of some answers yourself.

Players are advised from the rules card that at least one of the answers could be false on both sets of answers on each card and at least one of the answers could be Pointless on each set. Players can't select an answer given by another player, hence the reasoning behind who goes first in each round. There are two sets of answers for each question, so each player or team gets the chance to answer the same question twice (similar to the TV show, where the two people on each team both get a chance to answer the same question).

The above points are the main ones about the travel game, but the rules card explains all :). You can read more about the TV show Pointless here.

There are a few errors within the travel game, on the game cards. I haven't gone through all the cards but whilst me and Si were playing, we noticed a few things. See if you can see what's wrong with the answer sections of both of these cards before finding out below...

Have you seen what's wrong?

On the first card, Nepal is named twice within the two answer sets. If someone answers Nepal from the first answer set and later the score of 10 is revealed, when the second answer set becomes available to choose from, no one is going to choose Nepal again knowing it isn't a Pointless answer and they will already know the score is 10. There is no point in it being there, so it's got to be an error.

On the second card, Estonia is there twice in the second answer set, the top one has a score of 2 and the one further down has a cross by it meaning that it is apparently an incorrect answer...this made us laugh when we saw it...go figure?! It didn't affect our game because there was only me and Si playing, so we just chose answers around the errors, but if there are a lot of you or a lot of teams then it might be different, especially if the error is on the second set of answers, when you have already answered from the first set. If the number of players or teams matches the amount of answers there is to choose from, then you will probably have to just re-start the round.

I kind of wish it was an electronic version as even the full sized board game isn't electronic. It's still great fun though!

You can buy the game from stockists such as: Argos, Amazon, Smyth's, The Entertainer and Tesco. I have also seen the game being sold on Ebay if you like shopping on there. Not all places sell both the travel game and the full sized game, so you will have to check what they have available. The travel game usually retails for under £10 and the full sized game for under £20. Prices vary for each stockist.

Do you watch Pointless? Is this game something you'd be interested in playing?

Let me know if you have any board games that are television shows!

Thanks for reading!

Gem XxOo

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Father's Day Gift Guide...

Another occasion is fast approaching..."Father's Day", which means more money to be spent! I'm hoping this gift guide will give you some inspiration when it comes to buying a gift for your dad. I will be doing this gift guide slightly differently and splitting ideas into price categories, so there should be something to suit every budget. I hope it helps!

£10 or under...

I always find that Tesco have a good range of Father's Day gift ideas and they are quite inexpensive. I feel most of their gifts would be great for those younger daughters and sons who are maybe buying their gifts out of their pocket money and don't have that much of a budget. The kind of gifts I am talking about are mugs, aprons, tool kits and gardening gifts. I received a press release recently where these kind of gifts were really inexpensive with the dad mugs ranging from £0.97p to £3.52. Aprons from £3.96, dad drink glasses from £2.43, tool kits from £5 and gardening kits from £7.97. I can't find these online, but if you have a Tesco store near you that sells more than food, I'd definitely recommend taking a look. Browsing the net, I also noticed that Tesco have other gifts that are just as pleasing when it comes to the price. Here are a few that took my fancy:

 Gillette Fusion Proglide Shaving Set £6.

                                                  Nivea Shave Gift Pack £3.50.

  Lynx Africa Body Spray and Shower Gel £2.50.

                                                Adidas Man Ice Dive Duo £2.50.

David Beckham Instinct EDT Spray £10.

All pictures are courtesy of Tesco.

See what I mean...how reasonable are those prices?! There are a range of gifts with similar prices, so I'd definitely recommend having a look in your local Tesco or here. I live near a Morrisons and I always notice they tend to have a similar range of gifts at decent prices. I think most supermarkets do to be honest, so if you aren't sure what to buy but want to have a browse at a few things, pop into your local supermarket, they are bound to have a "section" dedicated to a few ideal gifts for Father's Day.

I also found some cards that I thought were a little different. They are from Find Me A Gift, which is an amazing website, you can guarantee to find a gift on there for any occasion. The cards are called "custom cards" and the basic jist of them is that they are cards with lots of different words on them and you can blank out the words you don't want on the front of the cards to reveal a custom made message for any occasion. For those of you that like to buy things that are a little different, I think these are fab! They are currently £3.74 for a pack of three.

Picture courtesy of Find Me A Gift.

£20 or under...

I came across something that I think dads would get a lot of use out of, it is a shower shaving mirror with radio. This looks amazing and I'm sure if there are females in the household, they will also get some use out of this, he, he. Share and share alike! It has a fog-less mirror, an LED light, a universal razor holder, a clock and an FM radio...love it! It also has suckers attached so you can attach it to bathroom tiles for example, but it does have an extendable support for free standing use. It is £15.99, but if you find some items you like for Father's Day on Find Me A Gift, they are currently offering 20% off everything.

Picture courtesy of Find Me A Gift.

Buy A Gift also have some fab gift ideas. They do have some bespoke gifts, but their website is based on experiences for any occasion. You can find Father's Day gifts ranging from up to £25 to over £250! So whatever budget you have, there is sure to be something you think will be ideal for your dad. A few more inexpensive experiences that I feel would be ideal are:

                                 Winery and Brewery Tour for Two £13.50.

Afternoon Tea for Two £15.

Pictures are courtesy of Buy A Gift.

There are a lot of experiences to choose from, so whether you have an action dad, a foodie dad, a sporty dad or a cultural dad you are sure to find something perfect :-).

£20 +...

I love websites that have a lot to offer and Gift Wrapped & Gorgeous is another fave of mine. I love the hampers that they sell and if you're looking for something a little different for your dad, I'm sure one of the hampers will put a smile to his face. You can find sweet hampers, chocolate hampers, retro hampers, 80's hampers, comedy DVD hampers, pampering hampers and more amongst the range with a few being under £20 but most being just over or more.

Deluxe Men's Retro Hamper £44.99.

80's DVD and Snacks Hamper £28.99.

Pictures are courtesy of Gift Wrapped & Gorgeous.

The hampers come with a variety of items in them and some even let you choose certain items, for example those with a DVD included, allow you to choose from a list of DVDs so you can really match the hamper to your Father's personality. I think this kind of gift is unique and maybe something that your dad won't expect but it'll sure bring a smile to his face...especially if he is a child at heart with all the sweets! A free personalised gift card is included with each hamper so you can send it straight to your dad if you wish. Imagine his face when he receives a big box and opens it to reveal a load of goodies!

For those Father's who have a bit more of a grown-up taste then you might want to try something a bit more luxurious at Fine Food Store. They offer hampers and gifts and a couple of my favourites for a Father are:

 Ravenous Delights Vintage Box £39.95. Gents Vintage Gift Chest £89.99.

Pictures are courtesy of Fine Food Store.

I absolutely adore the boxes that come with these, definitely my cup of tea, I'd have to use my daughter charm on my dad to let me keep the box he, he. I love their vintage design! With a mixture of sweet, savoury and a nice wine I think these gifts are fab and definitely ones I feel dads would be really grateful to receive. The more expensive of the two (above) comes with some pampering goodies from Clarins (for men), which I think is a perfect little touch. They have a lot to choose from so take a peek, I'm sure you will find something to suit your dad :-).

Last but not least, I thought I'd add a bit of clothing into the mix. Luxurious, comfortable pyjamas and robes! At The Pyjama Store there are some gorgeous robes and pj's to suit most men. I know some men don't like to sleep in full on pyjama's, but for those that do these are made with cotton and the price reflects the quality. It's worth taking a look as obviously you will probably know what your dad likes, whether it be full on pj's (top and bottoms), just bottoms, just a top, robes, slippers etc. There is sure to be something on there if you have more of a bigger budget.

Bonsoir Men's Classic Retro Pyjama's £78.

Bonsoir Men's Navy Blue Robe £42.

Pictures are courtesy of The Pyjama Store.

So, there it is. Some Father's Day gift ideas that have caught my eye recently. I hope I have covered most budgets and don't forget the websites that I have mentioned have a lot more gift ideas than those I have shown, so take a look at what they have to offer :-).

To all Father's out there...have a happy Father's Day!

Much Love,

Gem XxOo

Disclaimer: The only item that has been sent to me for review consideration is the shower shaving mirror with radio, but I definitely thought it was a fab gift for Father's, so added it to my gift guide :-). Please see my disclaimer tab for more information.