Christmas Gift Guide

So Christmas is almost upon us.

Check out these great gift ideas to make that special someone feel special.

The Basket Company

These make-your-own hampers are a great, creative idea to spice up your gift and give it that extra flair. You can ultimately add anything you like to create the perfect gift, a hamper full of favourite foods, favourite toys, favourite DVDs and games, favourite books, the list is endless!
The basket is really sturdy and will make your gifts look like they came straight out of a shop.
They have loads of other gifts including picnic baskets, storage baskets, plant pots and more.
If your gifts are missing that little something, arrange them in this hamper to create the perfect, complete present.
I'll update with pics when I've finished creating mine!

The Book of Everyone

This is a perfect, personalised gift, a book designed specifically around that one special person. It includes loads of pages based on the person's birthday and name, a lot of fun to read and a great memento.

My full review.

Snapfish

What better way to share your photos and memories by designing and personalising a calendar, something they can keep for a year and will always be useful. There are different types you can create as well as may other gifts available on the site.

My full review.

Rays of Sunshine

These are a children's charity who work to brighten up the lives of 3-18 year olds who live with serious or life-limiting illnesses. This wonderful charity have brought lots of different gifts for you to buy with 20% of proceeds going to the charity. Available are mugs, tumblers, tote bags, a key ring, a diary and a really cute teddy bear.

Available to buy at Clintons.

PicStick

This company offer the chance to make your photos into magnets. With nine available magnets, sized 50x65mm, these are a lovely gift for someone to keep in their home.

My full review and discount code.

Funky Laser

Into unique and funky jewellery? Then Funky Laser are the company to go to. They have loads of different, quirky designs that are a perfect gift this Christmas. Really great quality and something a bit different than the usual gold and silver pendants.

My full review.

Photo Panda

Create your very own bauble to hang on your Christmas tree. This would be a lovely gift, a memory that can be hung up every year to add that special, individual touch to your festive decorations. There are other gifts available like pillows, bags, blankets and much more.

Kleenex

This festive box would be a great addition as a stocking filler. Tissues are one of those necessities that always need to be around and with the Christmas designs they won't look out of place this December.

Snapfish Calendars

Snapfish are a great photo company that I use often to buy my prints. They offer a wide range of products such as prints, calendars, photo books, cards, wall art, canvas prints, mugs, animated photo gifts, jigsaw puzzles, magnets, coasters and stationary.

I was given the great opportunity to review two personalised calendars. I chose to create a classic calendar and a poster calendar. The classic calendar will go in my family home, and the poster calendar was for me and my partner.

There are a number of sizes for each calendar to choose from at different prices. The classic calendar can be 11 x 8.5", 12 x 12" or 14 x 11", and choices for the poster calendar are 15 x 10", 18 x 12", 30 x 20" and 40 x 30". There are also kitchen calendars and desk calendars available.

It was really exciting and easy to do. The website layout is very simple and I had no problem uploading photos from my computer and Facebook, though you can also upload from Flickr. It would be great in the future to see more options to upload from as I use other sites as well to store my photos.

After uploading the photos, it's as easy as choosing the layout for each month, adding any text you want, then dragging your chosen pictures to the allotted spaces. You can choose individual backgrounds for each month from the options below the calendar preview, though I chose the same one for every month as I like continuity.

A great extra on the classic calendar is being able to personalise the dates and add birthdays or other special occasions, you can also insert a little picture into the square.

At the end of the process they even offered to email you about the events you entered into the calendar, talk about great service!

The poster calendar was also really easy to make. You select up to 30 photos and they do the rest of the work for you. There is a choice for background colours or you can choose one of your own photos, I went with black as I think this makes the photos really stand out. You can choose to have a 'Featured photo', meaning having one photo more prominent than the others, and you can choose how much spacing is in between the pictures (none, thin, medium, thick). There's a shuffle button as well if you want the photos rearranged into a new order.

I would have loved to be able to move the pictures round myself on the poster calendar as it took quite a lot of shuffling to finally find an arrangement I liked, but when I did, I loved it!

And here are the finished products, don't they look great!

These are a great idea for Christmas presents, I love using my own photos in calendars to remind myself of all the great times I had the last year. With so many products to choose from there's something for everyone, and having it personalised just makes it even more special.

www.snapfish.co.uk
Snapfish on Facebook
Snapfish on Twitter

Disclaimer: I was sent the Snapfish calendars for free, but have received no other form of compensation to provide this review. 
All opinions are my own.