Sunday 29 March 2015

The Perfect Family Easter

Easter is fast approaching (how is it that time already) and it is the best time to spend with friends and family, having an Easter egg hunt and playing family games. What is your favourite game?

Our traditional sports day games, including the potato sack race, badminton and rounders set will get the family competition going this Easter holidays. Why not start a Easter Olympics tournament, taking on all the games with all the family? The added extras, a whistle for the referee, a finish line and medals are great for keeping the games on track!



You could also see who can keep their kite flying the longest too! 




Wednesday 25 March 2015

Fun Gender Announcements

We'd like to introduce you to our Baby Gender Announcement Cracker! Launched in the Autumn last year, our cracker is an innovative way to reveal the gender of your baby. Whether you want to reveal the news to your friends or family, this cracker is a fun way to do it, featuring either blue or pink confetti for a boy or girl!


Since we launched the cracker, we've had a look at other ways people announce the gender of their expectant babies, here are a few of our favourites! 




Did you reveal the gender of your baby a special and fun way?


Friday 20 March 2015

Be Happy!

We are ones for a celebration day at Ellie Ellie, and today is no different as we celebrate The International Day of Happiness! We are going to be thinking about all the things that make us happy today, including being part of the fantastic team here and getting to work in our beautiful Hove office!

Happy Happiness Day!


You can get involved with the celebrations by posting a picture of what makes you happy and using the #happinessday! Tens of thousands of people got involved last year on social media and quickly, over 13 million people has seen an authentic image of happiness from someone! This year will be no different, with thousands of people getting involved from all over Europe!

Get involved!

Sunday 15 March 2015

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums out there! We hope you are enjoying a lovely family day. We are digging into our Mother's Day cookies! What are your Mother's Day traditions?



Friday 13 March 2015

Last Minute Mother's Day Ideas!

Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday and we have the best shortbread recipe for you to try out, baking for mum is such a special way to give your mum a lovely (and delicious) gift!

Our Message in a Cookie Cutter Set is perfect for you to write special messages to mum on your biscuits!


These paper flowers are also easy to make and would make a great table decoration for Mother's Day breakfast or lunch, an easy last minute thing to do!



Wednesday 11 March 2015

Ellie Ellie Wears

Spring is fast approaching (where has the year gone) and we've used a pop of colour for Ellie Ellie wears! These monochrome jeans from Topshop can be matched with just about any colour, and we've matched them with this mustard yellow cardigan from Boden. Our new monochrome pencil necklace is great to complete the monochrome look. With these boots from clarks being cosy and comfy as winter comes to an end!


Mustard cardigan: Boden clothing
Monochrome pencil necklace: Ellie Ellie
Grey patterned jeans: Topshop
Black boots: Clarks 


Sunday 8 March 2015

Breakfast in bed for Mum!

Mother's Day is approaching which means there is plenty of time to still get prepared to pamper mum on Sunday the 15th of March. We have put together some of our best Mother's Day products to offer our customers a Breakfast in bed Bundle.

Included in our bundle is our Mum Appreciation Day Balloon and card set, 1 chalkboard door hanger, 2 of small heart dishes and 1 of our Mother's Day Memory notebooks. This bundle is perfect for a family Sunday morning! Cook mum something in the heart dishes, and then sit with her while you both answer the questions in your own memory notebook! 

A cup of tea in her favourite mug would be great too! 



Friday 6 March 2015

1001 Little Ways to save our Planet!

As you may know, we are big advocates or recycling and reusing (with many of our products being recycled themselves). One of our books in our Ellie Ellie is this little gem: '1001 little ways to save our planet'! 


Some of the brilliant tips inside include: 

- Get Loose: Next time you're in the fruit and vegetable section of your supermarket, put fruit and vegetables into your basket loose rather than automatically reaching for a plastic bag. If you really need one, keep it and reuse it next time. 

- Unplug your Equipment: If your electrical equipment doesn't have a sleep function (not that this is not the same as standby, which uses energy), make sure you turn it off and unplug it when it's not in use. 

- Peg a Wooden Line: For eco-friendly outdoor clothes' drying, make sure you use wooden pegs (clothes pins) and not plastic ones. 

- Draught a Plan: To prevent draughts coming in through external doors, buy a fabric wadding-stuffed draught excluder that lies across the bottom of the doorframe and prevents wind from coming in underneath! 

These are such small steps you could make for a much greener planet, if you do something small each day we can work to create a much more eco-friendly world! 

Have you made any small changes to make the world a greener place? 

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Memories with Mum!

We've got an exciting new gift just in time for Mother's Day, and this is no ordinary gift. These notebooks are a great present from the little ones to Mum this Mother's Day. Designed to document all the things they love about their Mum!

Over the years the Children can fill their notebooks in, capturing their favourite memories and storing them in a keepsake for Mum to cherish for years to come.


As the children get older, they can look back and smile about all the amazing things they have done together as a family!

We hope you enjoy creating memories this Mother's Day!

Sunday 1 March 2015

A Recipe for Mum!

We got into the kitchen to bake an absolutely scrumptious recipe for Mothers's Day, classic (and very moreish) shortbread biscuits, with red and pink icing just for Mum! We used three simple ingredients for this recipe, 300 grams plain flour, 200 grams margarine and 100 grams caster sugar.


Firstly, preheat your own to 160C before you start baking, this will get it lovely and toasty for your shortbread's to cook.

Secondly, cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl and gradually mix in the flour. When you start mixing in the flour, using your hands to knead the mixture together into a smooth doughy ball.







Next, lightly flour a clean surface and roll out your mixture using a rolling pin to about half a cm thick. 



Cut out your shapes, we used our Message in a Cookie Cutter Set and cut out heart shapes! 




And then pop them into the oven for 15 minutes, while you prepare the icing!

We used ready made icing for the look we wanted, and the icing easily rolls out. We used our cookie cutters again, this time adding messages to print the icing.



Once the shortbread is out the oven, set aside to cool and mix up a little bit of icing sugar and water, this will act as a glue so you can put your icing onto your shortbreads!



Happy Baking!