Life as Beth

I love Christmas, and each year I'm always counting down the days for the big special day. Something I also love doing is the decorating. But for the past few years, I've never really gone out and bought nice looking Christmas decorations and ornaments. This year has to be the first year I've looked around properly and bought decorations that I love. I thought I would share them on here with you, and just by looking at the photos makes me have all the festive feels.

Something else that is different this year is our tree. We finally own a real Christmas tree for the first time ever. I have always loved the look of the real trees but never experienced having one. I was luckily offered one this year, and I jumped at the chance. I received it from The Christmas Forest, and it was delivered to us. It's a 6 foot Christmas tree, and I really do love it. I've gone for the minimal decoration this year, no tinsel on the tree, just gold and white baubles with some cool white lights.

* We were kindly gifted a tree. All words, images and opinions are our own.

Something I love to do is go shopping to buy gifts for people who mean a lot to me. Mother's Day is just around the corner, and I was given some vouchers to spend at B&M stores to see what I could buy for Mother's Day. The first that came to my head was to make a hamper and to buy things to fill it. For the past couple of years now I have been making my own hampers for my Mother-in-law and my Nain for Mother's Day. It's something I've always enjoyed making as I think putting a lot of thought into a gift, makes it that extra special. So, what did I buy as Mother's Day gifts from hampers?

- Box of chocolate
- Mug
- Candle
- Set of 2 wooden boxes
- Artificial plant
- Large Mug

There's a large selection of chocolates in B&M at the moment, as well as throughout the year. A box of chocolate is always a great gift to buy someone for a special occasion. I went for Thornton's Mints because my partners Mam loves mint chocolates. These were only £3.99 which I personally thought wasn't too bad considering they are a lot dearer in other stores.

The two mugs were my absolute favourite. One mug was from their gorgeous Mother's Day range. It says 'Mum in a million' on the front with confetti coming down all around. The mug itself is quite large and great quality too. It was priced at £2.99. The other large mug with polka dots all around with the quote 'Life is Beautiful' with a yellow circle background was £2.99 and again, great quality. I thought it looked extra great as a pot for the artificial plant. The plant was around £2.99, and I absolutely love plant. I thought the mug gave the plant that extra touch.

The LED Candle light really caught my eye. I tend to go for gifts that you can use around the house, not ones that get used once and thrown away the next. I thought this candle looked really lovely and the price was even better, at just £3.99. As well as the light, I bought 2 sets of wooden boxes to hold the items in. They were painted in a shabby white with hearts cut out around the sides. I thought they looked really pretty for hamper boxes, and they could also get re-used afterwards too.