Jikana Damaru

Hotel Chocolat Review & Giveaway

I was recently sent The Classic Christmas Gift Basket to review, which was filled with Tiddly Reindeer milk chocolate, Cinnamon Almonds, Orange Nice Spice Puddles, 6 Alternative Mince Pies and Winter Liquid Chocolat. After sampling all the chocolate goodies, I am now keeping the rest for my Christmas Eve party.

The reindeer are super cute and are a lovely solid milky chocolate, perfect for the little ones to have with a glass of milk as a Christmas treat. For the grown ups, I will be serving the delicious alternative mince pies, that are milk chocolate cups filled with praline and salted caramel, and mugs of hot chocolate made with the heavenly liquid chocolat which has been given a winter twist with orange, chilli and spices. The Puddles are large, subtly spiced milk chocolate buttons with the warming flavour of orange and chilli and they will be served in mini latte cups. In mini bowls I plan to serve the caramelized Californian whole almonds dipped in milk chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. A chocolatey Christmas alternative to tea and cakes!

I'm also so pleased to announce a giveaway of The Seasonal Sixty Tin of Chocolates from Hotel Chocolat, worth £50!

To enter, please visit Hotel Chocolat and then leave a comment below this post letting me know what delicious chocolates you would like to give or receive this Christmas. The giveaway ends on Saturday, January 7th 2012 at 10pm (GMT) and I will randomly select and announce a winner on Sunday, January 8th.

To increase your chances of winning this fabulous prize, you can gain one additional entry for doing each of the following:

tweeting about this giveaway
blogging about it
following the Torie Jayne blog
following Torie Jayne on Twitter

For the first two, please leave a comment below with the link to your tweet or blog post.

This giveaway is open to UK readers.

Good luck and have a sweet day!

$100 Shopbop giveaway winner

My contest ended yesterday and I just picked a winner using random.org and I am delighted to announce the winner of the Shopbop Giveaway is...

Purple Larkspur, who would like to put her voucher towards the Alexis Bittar liquid collar. Please e-mail me your details.

Congratulations Purple Larkspur, you will receive $100 worth of store credit for Shopbop.

Thank you to all of you sweets that entered, to my loyal followers and new friends.

Have a sweet day!

She of no Christmas Tree....

This year, I have no Christmas tree. Nothing. Nada. Nothing with which to place presents under; nothing twinkling from fairy-lit branches groaning from the weight of glass baubles. No folks, this year my home is almost barren of Christmas decoration!

To be honest, I had serious misgivings about having a Christmas tree long before I dragged the box out while my son was sleeping at the beginning of December. When I pulled the bag of decorations out and onto the kitchen table, I felt nervous.

At the same age, I was able to wedge the tree behind two armchairs so that my daughter could look... but not touch. And it worked, for the better part. But I know boy-o better than that. The boy can leap tall buildings with a single bound; Ive seen him do it. And an armchair would be simply a launching pad to greater heights. No, short of suspending the tree from the roof there is no option to have it at ground and intact 5 minuteds later.

With apprehension, I added a few wayward felt decorations to the tree. Maybe I could get away with a minimal approach this year?

But I knew better.

And sure enough. Once sonny-boy awoke from his afternoon slumber he was like a bee to the honeypot. Decorations as far as the eye could see. Christmas lights wrapped around little neck.

Glass baubles - ones carefully brought back from Europe years ago - smashed into smithereens. The kitchen table, as it would turn out, was not high enough.

And the tree? Within 24 hours, knocked to the ground, decorations spilling under every piece of furniture.

So, I packed it all away. Call me a defeatist. But I could not think of what else to do!

But there was plenty I could have done of course, much more creative than the glass hurricane vessel of colourful baubles I've arranged on the table as a Christmas compromise. But how am I to lay the presents on Christmas eve out on the kitchen table under a hurricane vessel?!
I ask you.

Too late, I discovered some alternatives I should have considered. That maybe next year I WILL consider. But next year is next year. Maybe my son will have matured. Maybe my son will have lost interest. Maybe my son will have moved on from his relentless passion for destruction. And maybe pigs will fly.

If you are in the same predicament, you too might gain some inspiration from some of these alternatives to the 'traditional' notion of a Christmas tree. All of which you can make yourself. All of which you can find here:

What say you? Do your young kids allow a Christmas tree to sit unscathed on your living room floor? Or are you forced to seek alternatives like moi? Do share!! xx

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

This week on Flickr Faves Sunday, I bring you my Flickr mosaic, "It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!", all of which I have shared, or will be sharing here on Torie Jayne. Now I must dash, as I still have plenty to do!

So, in case you missed them....

Have a sweet day!

taking a deep breath

life has been crazy busy {as I am sure it is for everyone at this time of year}
& in between the trips to the library, Christmas concerts, swimming lessons, the morning rush to get to school on time, wrapping presents, making phone calls, photo sessions, & the rest of the daily life routine, I have been trying to take some deep breaths & appreciate the moments of resting.

today is the only day for the coming weeks we have no plans.
I am still in my pj's {at 11.38am} & the girls are keeping them selves entertained {for another 10mins before they need something?!} while my husband is working away on his shed rennovation!

my next job is to make some final lists for the week ahead & make sure the lead up to Christmas day is a peaceful one!!

chrissy lights and washing whites

Ye olde washing machine has died. We're told the part is hard to source and probably won't be here before Christmas. But it's cheaper than buying a new one. I could tolerate the wait if we didn't have a newborn who has it coming out both ends! So now I'm hand-washing like a pioneer woman and running the odd load over to a friends house. Thanks, Susie! Amidst the chaos, we finally got the tree up and discovered that the lights make for a pretty effective baby soothing device. Which is handy now that we've lost our best white noise maker. Other than that, life is good.

How about about you, friends? Got an electrical/mechanical catastrophe to share?

Dee Puddy Seasonal accents

Today on label love I am sharing with you some lovely seasonal accents from online store, Dee Puddy. How cute are the little family of deer?

Have a sweet day!