Our Favourite Pins this Month!

I don't know about you but we love Pinterest at Ellie Ellie, it is such a great place to find inspiration and our Pinterest boards include some great product ideas, recycling ideas and our own gifts that we have pinned.

Here are some of the best pins we've found this month, featuring great ideas for upcycling and redesigning everyday things into something else. All these pins are on our Flying the Flag to Redesign board. 

What do you like pinning on Pinterest?

Find Ellie Ellie on Pinterest!

www.ellieellie.co.uk 

House of the Rising Bun Cupcakes!

The lovely Laura at House of the Rising Bun sent us over one of her baking cake mixes, and as it was Holly's birthday at Ellie Ellie HQ last week, it was the perfect excuse to get baking and try out the mix. 

The cake mix arrived in a brilliantly packaged box, with a great design and all the information you needed to bake your cake clearly written on the back. Inside the box you have a cake mix and an icing mix, all you need to add is 3 eggs and butter! 

House of the rising bun was founded by Laura Stephenson, who noticed her cupboards were full of ingredients that she had only used once when baking. Her mixes use the best ingredients and apart from the eggs and butter, includes everything you need to bake the perfect cake. 

Our cake was Lemon Poppy Seed, but her other flavours include raspberry and vanilla, double chocolate and vanilla bean! 

I started by following the simple instructions written clearly on the back of the packaging, and my mixture soon looked like a yummy cake mixture, all i had to do was soften the butter and add in their cake mix packet. Simple, no need to add a teaspoon of baking powder or a cup of sugar, it's all done for you. 

Once the cake mix was blended in, i added the eggs one by one, and soon my mixture was ready to put in my cupcake cases and into the oven. 

Once the cupcakes had been in the oven, they came out looking tasty and ready to cool.  

Once they were cool i started the simple task of making my icing, which again just included adding water to the icing mix!

When i finished my icing, i simply covered my cupcakes and added some sprinkles to add some colour! 

Not only were the cupcakes easy to make, but they tasted delicious too. All the girls in the office absolutely loved them and their lemony goodness. 

The cake mix was so simple to use and meant i didn't need to rummage in my cupboards for ingredients i wouldn't ever use again. Rather than buying each individual ingredient for a cake, i think stocking your cupboard with these cake mixes is a much better idea!

Thank you House of the Rising Bun, now to try out the other flavours!  

Let's get ready for Summer!

It's (nearly) getting to that time of the year that we all love, Summer! A great time to get outdoors, hopefully with no rain, have bbq's and spruce up the garden! Here is a great list of family activities to give you some ideas of what to get up to when the sun's shining!

We are definitely going to fly a kite this summer! Our traditional diamond kite is the perfect thing!

The Charleston Festival!

The Charleston Festival is a brilliant festival in the heart of Sussex, with an extravaganza of books, ideas and performances. Charleston is located just 6 miles from Lewes in East Sussex, and is used to be the home and meeting place of writers and artists of the Bloomsbury Group! The festival includes great events throughout, such as book readings and signings and talks from authors, as well as a selection of lovely food!

Taking place in the traditional marquee in the beautiful surroundings and grounds of Charleston farmhouse, if you an avid book worm and reader you will no doubt find so many interesting things at this festival!

With an absolutely stunning garden the festival you can tuck into lunch with the lovely views and plants.

To read more about the festival and see some live festival footage visit the website!

We are heading to Glorious Goodwood!

This coming weekend, Goodwood hosts their May Festival, which will see race goers and spectators descend upon Goodwood to see some horse racing. Taking place tomorrow, Friday and Saturday the May Festival is three days of back to back high quality racing. Me and Ava will be heading to the races this Saturday and if you haven't yet made plans this will be a great day out, filled with food, friends and racing!

Located just outside of Chichester, Goodwood is easy to get to from Brighton or London so pop along and see if you can win on the horse racing! Check out our Instagram for photos of me and Ava at the races this Saturday!

To take a look at what else is going on at Goodwood this Summer see the website!

Just under 4 weeks to go!

The Ellie Ellie Team are embarking on a 13 Mile Midnight Walk this June to raise money for the Martlets Hospice! 

Being established in Sussex we are passionate about supporting our local charities and events and would like to raise as much money as possible for this great charity! If you are able to donate thank you so much for supporting us! We will keep you updated with our training progress and how our legs feel after the walk!

We are really motivated this year to support great local charities and doing our bit to support others. We were even more motivated to participate when we discovered that the Midnight Walk raised enough money last year to care for 2 patients in their own home, every day for a whole year. This year, we would be so honored if we could say we were a part of making such a huge difference to other peoples lives. 

Head over to our sponsorship page to donate to this great cause now and we promise we will do our best on the walk! 

You can find out more about the Martlets Hospice Midnight Walk here and join in! 

Ellie Ellie Wears!

The days are getting brighter (well most of the time) and the weather is starting to get warmer as Spring continues, and everybody at Ellie Ellie HQ has been dressing in more summery clothes and embracing the blue sky! Ellie Ellie Wears this week embraces the approaching summer time.

With this lovely floral blue and cream shirt from Komodo, which looks brilliant teamed with these spotty blue jeans from Joules. Patterned trousers and jeans are a must have for the coming season, with a new twist on the classic blue jean appearing.

These Bertie loafer shoes are the perfect accompaniment to this look, and would work with black jeans and a pretty dress too. Finish the look with our Ellie Ellie Recycled Aluminium Initial Heart Bracelet, which you can personalise with your chosen initial, and add more charms!

Floral Shirt: Komodo

Blue spotty jeans: Joules

Brown loafers: Bertie shoes

Recycled aluminium initial heart bracelet: Ellie Ellie 

Sshhhhh.... Sneak Peek!

I have been working on a new 'Coming Soon' feature on our website which is where you're able to see what we are launching at Ellie Ellie before it's launched! The reason for this brilliant feature? We simply don't want to keep new products and exciting new gifts a secret, we want to share them with everyone. 

Having their own snazzy megaphone, you can now see what products we will be launching, which gives you plenty of time to decide where they will best fit in your home, or who would love it as a gift (so we're helping really).  

Once the 'coming soon' megaphone has been replaced with an even snazzier 'new' megaphone, you know it is now in stock and ready to be ordered and delivered to you! 

This Strawberry Recycled Lunch Box Bag is just one of many exciting products coming to Ellie Ellie very soon... 

As always, keep your eyes peeled for our updates and sneak peeks on Instagram and Facebook too! 

Ellie Ellie's Postcard Challenge!

We have been involved in something we think is quite spectacular at Ellie Ellie recently, and if you follow us on our social media channels you may have spotted what it is. We sent a postcard out at the beginning of the year in the hope that it would travel around on an adventure and meet as many of our friends as possible!

Our postcard for this challenge came from a very very interesting and creative book by the talented Keri Smith, who has written several bestselling books and is a creative genius! Her book 'Everything is connected' is where our lovely postcard came from and includes a pad of interesting and fun postcards that you can use to send to friends, strangers, neighbours or colleagues.

Our postcard (looking very clean and un creased at the beginning of his journey in the above picture) has so far visited 8 friendly people since it left us, and continues to travel around until it is full up! Hopefully he will get back to us safely when he is completely jam packed with conversation and questions from our friends! 

Here he is on some of his journey...

Here he is having arrived at the Not on the High Street HQ! 

Arrived with the lovely Laura from Clara and Macy! 

Here with the lovely Cherry Pie Lane! 

If you want to keep up with his big adventure to every part of the country visiting friends take a look at our Instagram where we always keep a look out for him, and Facebook too! 

We also always like receiving postcards or letters from our jolly customers! You can always send us one too!

Join the Fashion Revolution!

The 24th of April 2013 was a normal day for high street shops and fashion stores throughout the world, until a factory in Dhaka Bangladesh collapsed. Killing 1133 people and injuring many many more, this was a catastrophe for fashion supply chains around the world. This was because the factory that collapsed was the workplace of thousands of garment workers, making clothes for many of the shops we buy from every day. 

This year, the 24th of April marked a day full of force from many, trying to change the way people see their clothes. Fashion Revolution Day marked a year after the disaster and campaigned for people to ask stores and brands where their clothes were made and become curious about their clothes. 

The team at Ellie Ellie got involved in Fashion Revolution Day by turning our clothes #insideout, and asking questions about where our clothes were made and in what conditions! 

The power of social media and Twitter in particular saw many people tweeting the brands they were wearing to ask where their clothes came from, prompting response and recognition from many brands whose clothes were made in Dhaka Bangladesh! 

We also got behind a petition to change the labeling of clothing, to show the working conditions of the people who make the clothes, this would be such a big step forward in changing the affects our fashion culture has on many throughout the world. If you want to get involved and read more, find the petition here! 

Be curious about your clothes join in next year for Fashion Revolution Day! 

For Fabulous Foodies Out There!

The Foodies Festival arrived in Sussex on the first May bank holiday last weekend at Brighton Hove Lawns and what a great event it was. Perfect for food and drink enthusiasts, budding cooks and bakers too.

On its fourth consecutive year, each year the event brings together some of the best food around for visitors to try and sample. With cookery classes and how to sessions as well, the event catered to everybody no matter how you wanted to spend the day. 

I arrived to the glorious smell of different types of food and drink and found it hard to decide what to eat first, a lovely choice of pad Thai and satay chicken, along with freshly cooked dim sum won the contest and i was not disappointed (even going back for seconds). This was not the only tasty food on offer, with Paella, duck wraps, noodles, bbq, hog roast, olives, cheeses and chutneys on offer! 

Here are some of the pictures i snapped throughout the day!

This event is not just limited to Sussex, and the Foodies Festival visits different places throughout the summer! Find out more about where you can find the next festival here and enjoy!

A day out with the kids this Spring!

Blackberry Farm is a lovely day out for all the family in Whitesmith, East Sussex (near lewes). If you are looking for something to do for the bank holidays this month, or the weekends too this will sure delight.

The daily activities on the farm include animal handling sessions, tractor rides and pony rides, along with egg collecting and a drop slide.

There is a whole host of animals that live at the farm too and they love to see new visitors and kiddies everyday, including alpacas, llamas, Shetland ponies, donkeys and ducks as well as many more. You can also have a children's party at Blackberry farm for a lot of fun on the day!

The farm also has a new pedal go cart circuit and farm walk, which is where you can escape the excitement of the farm for some piece and quiet. The play area is a fun way for the kids to have some fun too.

Visit Blackberry Farm this May!

Ellie Ellie Wears

With Spring in full swing, the weather has been picking up here in Sussex, we hope its been the same for you if you are located somewhere else. Ellie Ellie Wears today is inspired by this glorious weather, which we hope continues. This dress from Bibico is perfect for the recent bright and sunny weather, Bibico are a brilliant fair trade clothing company, who insure their cloths are made in a safe and healthy working environment and the people making their clothes are paid a fair price.

Although it is sunny and bright outside, there is still a slight chill in the air so a cardigan (or a bigger coat if you really feel the cold) is needed. This cream one from Bibico is perfect with the dress. Add these summer sandals and your personalised map bracelet bangle for the finishing touch to the look! Summery and fun!

Dress - Bibico

Cardigan - Bibico

Sandals - Hudson

Map personalized bracelet bangle - Ellie Ellie