I was so excited to find an invitation in my inbox to the INTU Victoria Centre VIP Christmas Bloggers event! I knew it would get me right in the Christmas spirit, especially when they asked me to bring an old jumper I didn’t mind getting glitzed up!
INTU are a brand of shopping centres around the UK and this is my local one in Nottingham. They have a huge range of shops with a food court filled with a variety of restaurants for every taste.
The invite promised cocktails, nibbles and festive fun and it did not disappoint!
Upon arrival I was greeted by a lovely living room scene that was something out of a Pinterest board complete with a white Christmas tree adorned with orange and white bauballs and around the bottom were bright pink goodie bags from House of Fraser, like Christmas had come early!
There was a table filled with cocktails from Thai restaurant Thaikun in paper boxes for that street food touch, but unfortunately I forgot to take photos of these! Bad blogger!
Next up was the Super+Super station where the lovely Amy was on hand to help us decorate our Christmas jumpers! There was glitter, pom poms and felt galore with Christmas templates to create our festive pieces.
There were the cutest Popcorn boxes filled with every colour pompoms you could ever dream of and sequins and glitter everywhere.
I took an old black Boohoo jumper with me and decided to decorate it with a pompom string collar and a sparky green felt Christmas tree, decorated with pompom and sequins with a sequin string tinsel.
The lovely Amy very kindly cut my tree out for me and she is such a ninja with the glue gun we stuck it all down in record time!
No two jumpers were alike and every single blogger did such an amazing job I wanted all the jumpers! It was so lovely seeing so many creative people with such fab and festive designs.
Then it was time for the star of the show – Sloane Brothers Froyo!! How frickin amazin do these look?! Sloane Bros know how to do Froyo! Every pot of delicious frozen yoghurt was embellished with extravagant toppings and a festive candy cane!
I had toffee flavoured froyo which was topped with gingerbread men, Jaffa cakes, blueberries and animal biscuits (such a blast from the past!) and it was absolutely beautiful!
The final event was to go past the amazing Christmas tree to the Virtual Reality station!
In the centre of the INTU shopping centre there are 4 VR stations decorated like the living room of a beautiful log cabin (oh how I would love to visit one IRL) with a tele and a headset for your VR experience.
The VR they use is by HTC and the centre is one of the only ones trailing this headset to the public. For those of you who don’t know what VR is – it’s basically where you put a headset on and it feels like you’re inside the video that you’re watching. You are also given a wand with a button to press to assist your VR experience.
In this one you are stood in front of a beautiful Christmas tree and to the left there is a wooden board of decorations which you pick up using your wand and pop it onto your tree. When this is done, the right presents you with options for your tree topper – an angel, a star or the INTU bird!
Then you are given a camera to take a photo of your tree which they send to you by email straight away!
You are surrounded by a mysterious well, a cute snowman and a snowy lane with the northern lights above you in the sky. You are able to walk around and visit the scene and even throw baubauls down the lane or at the snowman! The only limitation is the space around you.
It was so much fun and a great experience, even if you do feel silly whilst doing it! There is a guide with you talking you through each bit so you know you’re safe! It’s a completely free event so if you live in Nottingham get yourself down to INTU Victoria Centre and have a go! You can even pre-book and avoid the queues.
So this was basically my first ever blogging event (I attended the Autumn/Winter fashion show but I got there so late I didn’t get to meet anyone!) and it was so lovely to meet some Nottingham bloggers, some of which I already knew from Instagram / Twitter and it was so nice to put faces to the name!
Everyone was so lovely and welcome and I cannot wait until my next Nottingham blogging event!
Thank you so much to the lovely team at INTU for inviting me to their festive event, it has officially put me in the Christmas spirit!
Thanks so much for reading ♥
