Another Visit to the Ideal Home Show at Christmas

Today, I had a lovely day out with my friend at the Ideal Home Show at Christmas at Earl's Court in London.

This was the second time I'd visited this show, once again courtesy of some free tickets I managed to get from Moneysupermarket.com.  It makes for a good day out at very little cost with a good friend, giving us time to chat and catch up with each other's news.

The show itself is packed with stalls selling all number of things from Christmas decorations, home wares, gifts, clothes, jewellery, food, drink, to mention just a few.  We always get slightly overwhelmed by the number of stalls when we first walk in and are often pleased to arrive at one of the stages where entertainment is provided.  We stopped off for a while and had a drink and watched a dance group, then wandered off again intending to return for a fashion catwalk show, but sadly never quite managed to catch it at the right time.  We did watch an interview with Amy Childs of TOWIE fame who had a stall at the show selling her perfumes and fashion designs and caught the end of a few demonstrations on the handmade stage, but other than that most of our time was spent wandering around the show, taking in the various sights.

I do prefer the Christmas show, as opposed to the show in March, as I like the festive feel of it and I can always look out for a few stocking fillers.  On this occasion I did buy a couple of gifts, one being some doggy popcorn for our pooch, which I'm hoping she will like in her Christmas stocking.

There were quite a few photo opportunities at the show. 

You could have your photo taken with Santa. 

Why should children get all the fun?

 

 

Or you could become a human snow

globe like these ladies, which I thought was great fun.

 

 

 

There were several rooms designed by Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen that were interesting to look at.  I think Little Bird would have liked this room complete with it's own unicorn head.  Very fairy-tale.

 

I personally liked the room below, because I loved the use of colour.  It looked so bohemian and colourful with dark walls and feathers on the table.

 

 

I also liked the knitted throw in this room.  This is exactly what I'd like to knit with my new big needles.

 

There was also an ice rink at the show that you could skate on if you wanted to, it was bang in the centre of the exhibition hall.  This photo was taken from the floor above with a flash, hence why so dark.  It wasn't this dark in actuality.

As neither of us spent a lot of money, we had a lovely frugal festive day out.