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How to make the best Christmas hamper!

Stuck for present ideas this Christmas?

Are you tired of giving away the same old gift set and socks? Do you wish to give something extra special to your loved ones this Christmas? Or maybe you are feeling brave enough to be crafty? If any of that seems familiar to you, then making your own Christmas hamper may just be the best gift idea!

Creating your own hamper can serve as a unique present, plus you can also tailor it to your loved one’s preferences. For example, you could create a chocolate-themed hamper for a sweet tooth or a spiced-themed hamper for those who like a bit of heat.

If you wish to make something all-encompassing, then keep reading!

Christmas hamper

What do I need to make a homemade Christmas hamper?

So now you’re wondering, how do I get started? Well, it’s just as simple as buying the following items from any craft store!

A wicker basket with a lid

Buying one with a lid means that the recipient cannot see what’s inside till the big day.

Packing material to cushion your Christmas hamper treats

There are different ways to protect your hamper goodies such as using shredded paper and ‘packaging peanuts’. You can even use popcorn too!

Ribbon

To decorate the wicker basket, you may wish to wrap it around in ribbon and finish with a bow on top of the lid.

Adhesive [optional]

By using any adhesive such as glue dots for example, will help secure the ribbon when tied around the wicker basket.

A label and some twine

A Christmas gift wouldn’t be without a label to let your loved ones’ know who their gift is from.

What to include in a homemade Christmas hamper?

If you want to make something a little more universal for your recipient, here are some ideas of what to include…

Hot beverages

The festive season is the best time of year to curl up on the sofa with a cosy blanket and a warm drink. So why not indulge them with some tea, coffee or some luxurious cocoa to brighten up their day?

Sweet treats

We all know that the best companion to a warm beverage on a chilly Winter’s day is a home-baked treat! So you may feel like adding some brownies, shortbread or, biscotti. The food magazine, Delish, is a great source of inspiration for some sweet treats to add to your Christmas hamper.

You could also add other confectionary such as the recipient’s favourite sweets or some decadent truffles!

biscotti

Spirits and cordials

A festive hamper would not be one without treating somebody to some fine wine and liqueurs. If you want to add a more personal touch to the hamper, you could make your own liqueur. For example, you could experiment with making some raspberry vodka or limoncello.

However, if you are giving the hamper to someone who isn’t so keen on booze, then feel free to include cordial as an alternative. We love BBC Good Food’s recipes for rhubarb cordial and raspberry cordial.

Savoury delicacies

If home-baked sweet treats are the best companion to a warm beverage, then savoury nibbles are the perfect accompaniment with a cool glass of pinot grigio or the refreshing taste of raspberry cordial!

You could make some homemade cheese twists to add to the hamper, or if you’re feeling a little lazy you could instead gift some savoury snacks such as crackers, nuts and popcorn. Also, you could put a continental twist on the hamper by adding some delicious antipasti.

Condiments

At last, you can complete your Christmas hamper with some jams, chutneys, and hot sauces. If you feel up to spending time in the kitchen, we highly recommend trying Nigella’s chilli jam recipe!

sweet chilli and pepper jam

Finally…

We hope you enjoy making your own hamper this festive season. At Glove Poppit HQ, we all wish you a Merry Christmas this year!

How to make the best Christmas hamper! Read More »

How to protect your dry hands from handwashing

handwashing-with-soap

My personal experience with eczema

Now that handwashing is more important than ever, it’s safe to say that everyone has been suffering from dry hands.

But how are you supposed to regularly wash your hands when you suffer from eczema?

Like many across the UK, I suffer from eczema, which tends to be triggered by handwashing and sanitisers. So after hearing the government’s advice on staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was worried about the effects of excessive handwashing on my hands. Plus, I didn’t want to rely on using steroid creams due to the side effects of overusing them.

I realised I needed to take extra care of my hands, so I tried many different things! Therefore, I wanted to share five tips that have worked for me so you can protect your dry hands from handwashing!

Five tips for caring for your dry hands from handwashing

1.     Invest in a quick drying microfibre towel

The quick drying and absorbent material ensures that the towel won’t be soggy and irritable to your skin.

2.     Use paper towels or tissues to dry your hands when you’re in public bathrooms

The heat and air from hand dryers can really leave your skin feeling dehydrated, therefore it might be handy to manually dry your hands.

3.     Using an emoilent moisturiser after washing like E45, Diprobase, Oilatum… etc.

I recommend using emollient moisturisers like the ones mentioned since they create a soothing protective barrier which prevents moisture loss.

4.     Leave your favourite moisturiser beside the sink

I found this to be a great way to remind you to moisturise your hands, since I tend to struggle of getting into the habit of doing so.

5.     Hanging up your washing up gloves on the Glove Poppit!

In the past, I’ve tended to leave my gloves hanging in the sink, but found that this leads them to become soggy inside. After using the Glove Poppit, I’ve found this to be a reliable way of preventing the gloves from being wet, leaving my hands free of inflammation when I come to use them next.

Dry skin saviours that we love for protecting our hands at Glove Poppit HQ

At Glove Poppit, we thought we would all share our favourite products for caring and protecting our hands…

Helen says, “My favourite hand cream is Body Shop Hemp hand cream, it has an interesting aroma and is highly effective.“

Anna recommends, “I love Palmer’s Shea Butter Formula Raw shea body lotion, it is so soothing and smells amazing!“

Reem suggests, “My trusted product is Nivea Soft hand cream, it’s super affordable. Plus, my mum who suffers from eczema swears by it too.”

What about you? Have you got any tips that have saved your hands from excessive handwashing during the pandemic?

Let us know in the comments!

How to protect your dry hands from handwashing Read More »

reem-and-anna

Just a little update at Glove Poppit HQ…

What’s been happening at Glove Poppit recently?

With the ongoing pandemic making work busier than ever, it is safe to say that this year flown by! With our increasing commitment towards work outside of Glove Poppit, we have undertaken two MSc Digital Marketing students from Robert Gordon University (RGU) to support us. We are grateful for the commitment and aid that they have given us so far.

We introduce to you, Reem and Anna…

reem-and-anna
Reem (left) and Anna (right)

Reem – Social Media Coordinator

Reem will be supporting the Glove Poppit social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

How did you hear of the internship?

I have heard about it through RGU’s placement office, after a successful interview, I began to work with Glove Poppit in April.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Glove Poppit HQ?

The best part of working in GP HQ is creative environment and flexibility of work.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like to read social media articles and blogs. I also like to research new trends in social media marketing.

What would you do if you didn’t work in marketing?

I would be a children’s doctor. I previously studied medicine, but in during my first month of medical college I got scared of blood in first month and decided to leave.

reem-standing
Reem

Anna – Content Coordinator

Anna will be responsible for contributing towards the Glove Poppit website’s blog.

How did you hear of the internship?

Reem and I have been friends throughout completing our master’s degree at RGU and have worked together on coursework. So, when Reem told me that she was encouraged to bring on other students to support the Glove Poppit, I said yes!

What is your favourite thing about working at Glove Poppit HQ?

My favourite thing about working at Glove Poppit HQ is that my efforts have been recognised by Helen and Reem. I also like how we all support one another, and that we are all open to each other’s feedback and ideas.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I really enjoy trying new recipes and cooking in general, so stay tuned for more foodie-based topics on the Glove Poppit blog!

What would you do if you didn’t work in marketing?

If I could, I would love to become a photographer.

anna-standing
Anna

Just a little update at Glove Poppit HQ… Read More »

Pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween…

Delicious pumpkin recipes that aren’t soup

You could say it’s a little bit frightening to find out that 12.8 million pumpkins are expected be uneaten during this Halloween in the UK! Thanks to the tradition of coming together to carve our beloved Jack O’Lanterns, we forget that pumpkin can be a nutritious addition to our meals. For example, pumpkin is found to be rich in Vitamin A which supports the body’s immune system.

Even when using them in dishes, it is easy to resort to cooking classics such as pumpkin pie or pumpkin soup. However, the vegetable is much more versatile than that, and can be incorporated into comforting stews or fresh salads.

Cooking with pumpkins

Whether you decide to pick your pumpkin from a supermarket or the local pumpkin patch, it’s important that you pick the best for your dish!

Cutting pumpkins can occasionally stain your hands, so it may be handy to use a pair of gloves to protect your hands from turning orange! You can then wash them for next time and prolong their wear by using the Glove Poppit to hang them up to dry.

Once you are finished preparing pumpkin, you can then use the peelings for garden compost.

Pumpkin salad

This dish incorporates sweet and savoury flavours with the addition of crunchy textures to make a substantial side. Feel free to substitute the nuts with croutons.

Serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

Salad

1/2 cup of chopped dried cranberries

1 medium sized pumpkin

5 cups of chopped spinach leaves

¼ cup of walnuts, roughly chopped

¼ cup of cashews, roughly chopped

Dressing

1 and 1/2 tbsp of Extra virgin olive oil

2 and 1/2 tbsp of Brown miso paste

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp of honey

Method

  1. Preheat oven at 200c, meanwhile peel and chop pumpkin into 2cm chunks
  2. placing them into a roasting tray  and  roast them in the oven at
  3. When the pumpkin is cooked, combine it with chopped spinach, walnuts, cashews, and dried cranberries into a serving bowl
  4. Whisk honey, olive oil, miso paste, and lemon juice together into a small bowl to form dressing
  5. Pour dressing into the serving bowl, then toss the bowl so the salad is coated with dressing

Pumpkin and chickpea coconut curry

Serves 4

With the months becoming a colder, a spicy curry  can provide warm and nourishing meal to your day. This dish is best served with a bowl of fluffy rice or quinoa

Ingredients

5cm piece of fresh ginger, minced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

10 dried curry leaves

3 stalks of lemon grass, white part grated

1 small red chilli, chopped

1 tsp of mustard seeds

2 tsp of turmeric powder

1 medium sized white onion chopped

1 tins of light coconut milk

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

½ cup of vegetable stock

2 tins of chickpeas

1 medium sized pumpkin

1 bunch of fresh coriander, chopped fir garnishing

1 bunch of fresh mint, chopped for garnishing

1 lime cut into wedges for serving

Method

  1. Chop and peel the pumpkin into 2cm chunks
  2. Cook pumpkin chunks in a roasting tray at 200c in the oven for 30 minutes
  3. Fry the ginger, garlic, chilli, lemongrass and onion at a medium heat until soft,
  4. Add the mustard seeds and curry leaves to the spice mixture, and fry until the curry leaves go crispy. Add the turmeric powder, tomatoes, vegetable stock and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and add the cooked pumpkin and chickpeas. Cover with a lid and simmer for 25 minutes.
  5. Garnish with chopped mint and coriander leaves and fresh lime wedges

Pumpkin seeds

Finally, don’t forget to keep the seeds from your pumpkins! As you can use them to make a crispy, healthy snack. You can either eat the whole pumpkin seed (containing the white outer shell), or you can crack open the shell and just eat the green inner pumpkin seed. Seeds once cooked can then be stored for up to three months.

Use the following seasoning blends can be used to season your seeds for nibbling.

Cooking the seeds

  1.  Boil the seeds in water for 15 minutes
  2. Drain the seeds using a sieve and clean the flesh off of the seeds
  3. Pat the seeds dry with a paper towel, preheating the oven for 150c
  4. If flavouring the seeds, toss them in olive oil and the seasoning blend
  5. Spread the seeds in an even layer on a tray lined with parchment paper
  6. Roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes, moving them every 10 minutes
  7. The seeds will be ready to take out when they change to a golden brown colour
  8. Leave them to fully cool down, if still chewy then roast them for a further 5-10 minutes

Seasoning blends

Classic savoury mix

½tbsp of Smoked paprika

½ tbsp of Garlic powder

1 tsp of Salt

1 tbsp of Parmesan cheese

Pumpkin spice mix

¼ tsp of ground cinnamon

¼ tsp of nutmeg

¼ tsp of ground ginger

¼ tsp of ground cloves

¾ tsp of brown sugar

Spicy curry mix

¾ tsp of cumin

1 tsp of salt

½ tsp of ground coriander

¾ tsp of ground turmeric

½ tsp of ground cardamom

½ tsp of cayenne pepper

½ of ground cinnamon

¾ tsp of ground ginger

Pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween… Read More »

Help save the environment from the comfort of your kitchen

Protecting the environment is fast becoming a top priority at home and we are always looking for ways to help ease the process.

An estimated 12 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean each year and, in April 2018, single use plastics were condemned by prime minister, Theresa May, as a “scourge” on our planet.

Reducing waste and making careful decisions about what we buy, alongside reusing household goods can all have a major impact the amount of waste being sent to our already brimming landfills and protect the environment.

According to statistics from Greener Scotland, cutting back waste at home can also save us a whopping £470 on food bills per year.

With this in mind, Glove Poppit can certainly lend a helping hand when it comes to going green at home.

You can use it to dry rubber gloves for the kitchen alongside sports and gardening gloves.

Along with its customised add-on drying plate, it can also air dry anything from food storage bags and swim caps, to wooden spoons and paint brushes.

By reusing goods with the aid of Glove Poppit, you can help reduce the amount of plastic waste at home.

And now the sunny weather is finally here, it’s good to know it can be used as a handy travel item, helping us to be kind to the environment whether we are home or away.

Help save the environment from the comfort of your kitchen Read More »

New Glove Poppit Drying Plate

We are really pleased to now be able to offer you the Glove Poppit Plus.

You can now dry even more items on your Glove Poppit with the new drying plate.


Glove Poppit drying plate

How to use the drying plate

The drying plate can be easily placed over the arms, so the holes are aligned with the arms and the plate held in place. The natural shaping of the holes and arms means the plate sits at the top or half way down the arms depending on which holes are selected.  The rounded holes can then be used to hold items in place for maximum drying. 

Bags are held open by the drying plate sitting at the top of the arms and thus maximising the drying effect of the stand.

A washed plastic bag held open whilst drying

The drying plate can be used for drying lots of items, not just plastic bags. It was designed to sit at two levels – at the top of the arms or half way down. These options give lots of drying options.

Sports bottle drying on the drying plate after being washed.

Items such as brushes, spoons, water bottle tubes can be held in place as they dry with the drying plate at the half way point. Bottles can either sit on the top of the arms or sit on the plate. No more bottles falling over on the draining board! Bottles can now be fully dried out reducing the risk of dirty water remaining inside.

The drying plate dries all kinds of items such as brushes, spoons, utensils
and paint brushes!

New Glove Poppit Drying Plate Read More »

How to make a winning wildlife garden

We have won the wildlife category of the city garden in bloom competition and have been runners up several times.

Plants for a wildlife garden

We have tried to ensure the garden is full of wildlife garden friendly plants that pollinators love, throughout the year. Plants such as

Snowdrops, Buddleias, Sedum, teasels, wildflowers, clover, Hespera (Hesperis)

Seed heads and plant material are left in place as long as possible. Birds love feeding off the seed heads.

Pond

Garden pond

Just a small pond will be great in any garden. Ours is about 1m square. We have built ledges to sit plants on and we have a bog area extending out the one end. We have also tried to slope the pond towards the bog area so that animals can climb out. It is amazing how wildlife benefits and starts to use even just a small pond. Its one of the best things we have included in our garden.

Our favourite plant is the Marsh Marigold with its intense splash of yellow very early in the year. And of course with the link to the Glove Poppit and yellow household gloves.

Bird feeding

We put out peanuts for the Woodpeckers and seeds for the other birds, blue tits, great tits, and sparrows, we also use a slice of an old tree trunk as a feeding platform for breadcrumbs etc for the crows.

Bird bath

Bird bath

The bird bath is situated near the flower border and hedge so birds can fly between the bath and the safety of the hedge. We fill it regularly using old large milk bottles and try to use rain water. We often hear a splashing commotion and realise that a group of birds are having their sailing bath. Pigeons are really amusing as they take up the whole bath and sit with one wing raised airing and drying it out. The crows are also very inventive as they bring hard stale pieces of bread to the bath for soaking, flipping the piece over so each side is wet and becomes moist enough to eat.

Bug hotel

A neat bug hotel was given to us as a present and we have hung it from our fence. We also made one from an old small box and packed it with hollow plant tubes, old pine cones, bits of straw etc.

Wood pile

Wood pile

We keep larger branches from our pruning efforts and stack them up in a permanent pile at the side of the garden. This pile is left year on year so the wood slowly rots and as a home to whatever chooses to use it. We occasionally tidy it, replacing fallen sticks on top but generally leave it alone. Rotting wood is excellent wildlife gardens giving a home for fungi and bugs.

Long grass areas

Long grass patches have been created and are a permanent feature, perhaps mowing them completely away once a year. We have now determined where we want them and how they might fit sculpturally in with the shape of the beds so they add to the wildlife garden features. Clover starts to grow and a range of grasses as we move through the months. The neighbours cat often likes to lie on these long areas relaxing in the warmth from the grass.

Compost and leaf mold piles

Compost is made every year in a large bin and we have made wired framed leaf mold piles. We turn the compost early in the year and use a large tarpaulin to empty the contents onto, removing the hard woody parts that have not rotted down and ensuring the material at the top is placed back into the bottom of the compost bin. We use the tarpaulin again when we want to empty out the bin and distribute the compost round thewildlife garden.

Fences

Animal friendly fence

Our fences were fitted with gaps at the bottom for hedgehogs to move from garden to garden

We replaced fences the other year but put in a slatted one so that the wind can work it’s way through. We ensured that there was a gap at the bottom for animals such as hedgehogs to move freely.

No chemicals 

We try hard to not use any chemicals in the wildlife garden. We have made our own nettle feed in the past, stored in old bottles and added to the watering can. We use seaweed feed and make our own compost.

How to make a winning wildlife garden Read More »