Exhibition alert: Su Blackwell

At Ellie Ellie, we pride ourselves on our sustainability. So we were utterly fascinated when we discovered paper artist and book sculptor Su Blackwell. Taking this idea to a whole new level, Sheffield-born Blackwell creates mesmerizing, intricately detailed, three-dimensional artwork from antique books and paper.

Her new exhibition, Dwelling, is currently at the Long and Ryle Gallery in London until 9th October. You you can expect to see three-dimensional sculptures of tree houses, cottages, and lighthouses hat tell their own story, all cut and glued from pre-loved novels and storybooks.

While some are made simply the black and white pages of text from fictional storybooks such as Blackwell's favourite Alice in Wonderland, others have a burst of colour, like this flower arrangement cut from A Field Guide to Wild Flowers in Britain.

Blackwell has also been involved with several commercial projects, using her steady hand to create exquisite work for set designs, book covers, editorials and turning to art-direction for advertisements.

Head over to her website for her full portfolio, and we'd really recommend going to see her work in person to be fully transported into a fantastical paper world!

www.ellieellie.co.uk

Recycle Week is here!

We shared these great facts last year on recycling and as it's recycle week this week, we thought we would have a recap on the benefits of recycling. During recycle week see how much of your household waste and cardboard, plastic and glass you can recycle, once you start it will become second nature to do your recycling every week!

At Ellie Ellie, we fly the flag for redesign, recycle and relove, making sure all our products promote a responsible and sentimental lifestyle. We insure all our products fit within our ethos, with our recycled jumbo bags, lunch box bags and rugs being our top recycled products. Our jumbo bags and lunch box bags are made from recycled plastic bottles and our rugs are made from recycled wool.

A lot of people wonder what their recycled plastics and glass gets turned into, here is an interesting table showing exactly how your recycling is used!

Happy Recycle Week!

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 

Some fun Redesign!

Commonly known as upcycling, our Redesign part of our Ellie Ellie ethos takes something that's been unloved and gives it a new lease of life with a little TLC! Redesigning forgotten treasures into something new, current and lovable!

Find out more about our 'Redesign, Recycle, Relove' ethos!

Here are some great redesign ideas for turning unused things in your home into something loved and useful again!

Adding crayons to a simple lamp will brighten any room!

These wine shelves made from old palettes are genius and would look good painted too!

Using an old jar as a light fitting adds an interesting twist on a normal light, mix it up with different coloured jars!

Using old maps or atlases for bunting is great for an event or if you want to add a new feature to your home!

Have you redesigned any of your things so they have a different use?

Re-love this Valentines Day

A great valentines idea, a heart wreath made from old red or pink clothing! Perfect for the home to hang up for date night this valentines day!

 

These will look great on your front door or in the house. Simply cut any old red or pink clothes into strips and wrap them up individually, sticking them at the bottom so they don't untangle, then stick to a background shape of your choice (you could make your family's initials) and hang up with ribbon! It would look great with a mixture of pink and red colours too!! They fit perfectly with Ellie Ellie's Re-love ethos!

Postal Bag Origami

We are always thinking of ways to re-use the materials we use in the office so that we can limit the impact on the environment of throwing rubbish away. Since introducing our jolly new postal bags to send out our orders in we have played around with origami and the result is a lovely Ellie Ellie boat!

Our postal bags can be recycled, but if you are up for a fun activity you can make an origami boat or hat! We are on hand to help you have a go at origami, and save the planet by recycling our new postal bags!

How to make an origami boat (that actually floats) Yipee!

1. Begin by cutting our postal bags so you have one rectangle piece (you can make two boats with both sides as well)

2. Fold the rectangle piece in half

3. Partially fold it again, which will make a crease near the top. This helps line up the corners

4. Fold down the top left and right corner

5. Fold each edge of the paper upwards, and open it up into a hat

6. To continue making the boat, bring the corners of the hat brim towards each other, the edges of the brim will be pushed forward (your squashing the hat into a square)

7. Take one lower corner of the square and fold it upwards, so the same to the other side

8. Now you have a folded triangle! Open up the folded triangle and bring the corners together, again you are squashing the triangle into a square

9. Pull the outer  corners of the square, one in each hand

10. Keep pulling to fully unfold your boat, staple the sides to keep in place!

We hope you've enjoyed creating your origami boat, the next time you receive your Ellie Ellie order you know what to do!

If origami doesn't float your boat, pop it in the recycling bin!

Have Fun!

'Re-design, Re-cycle, Re-love'

'Re-design, Re-cycle, Re-love' are three very important words here at Ellie Ellie, and we want to share out motto with you and let you know what it means to us!

 

Re-design is taking something that's been unloved and giving it a new lease of life with a little Ellie Ellie TLC. We transform forgotten treasures into something new, current and loveable.

 

Many of us remember the hours we spent wrestling over board games with our siblings, or those party games with our school friends - our products capture all those joyful memories and allows us to look back with a smile.

 

The Re-cycle aspect of our motto means taking something that's destined for a landfill and turning it into something completely different, to be used and enjoyed by one and all!

 

Recycling is gradually becoming a part of everyday home life, which is great! We push the boundaries even further by encouraging recycled gifting to spread the eco-friendly message.

Here at Ellie Ellie the 'Re-Love' aspect of our motto means taking something from our childhoods, that we have forgotten and turning it into something innovative for all to love again. You know, things like old fashioned board games or those scrumptious retro sweets that used to be the highlight of your school days.

All those things you used to treasure, we jog your memory about and look back on them with nostalgic fondness in our products.

Little Gnorm loves spreading our Ellie Ellie words of wisdom!!

Recycled and Upcycled Furniture!

Putting a new lease of life and redecorating is a great way to refresh
your home. There are some great ways to add something new to your home, by using something old and pre loved, which was previously used for something else!

The use of this chair for a new shelf and a place to hang towels is a great way to reuse this piece of furniture, that may have been thrown away or scraped.

There are so many ways to reinvent pieces of furniture that you would otherwise throw away! Here are some great ideas, including this way to reuse an old coffee table for a fun and unique shelf. It would also look great in a bright colour to add more of a feature in a room.

This use of an old shutter for a console table or hall table is a great way to upcycle an old shutter, which could also be used as a great room divider and feature piece for a room. It's simple yet interesting for a room!

Pallets are becoming more commonly used for furniture and storage and are a great way to get a vintage look in the home! This way of using them to display pictures is an innovative way for a feature in the home! They would also be great to store magazines or bits and bobs that would otherwise be lying around the house.

Finally the use of an old ladder, spruced up and painted is a simple way to inject colour to the home and a great addition to a bathroom for towels, or like this for shelving! If you decide to redecorate your home it is easy to paint and remodel to suit any room.

Have fun up-cycling and reusing furniture! A great way to relove a piece of furniture that would otherwise be chucked away!









Recycled Seating!!

There are so many ways to recycle and up-cycle products to give them a new life and we love the idea of up-cycling old bits and bobs to make crazy and functional seating!

The possibilities are endless to what you can do and we have found some fun ideas to add something unusual to your home.

We don’t know how much wine you would have to drink to make this chair out of old and up-cycled wine corks, but we bet they had a jolly old time in the process!  It would definitely make a focal point in any room!

 

With so many cars going to the scrap heap this is a genius way of making use of the thousands of seat belts that are thrown away every day. It would make a great outdoor bench or seating for the kitchen! 

What do you think?

   

Here are some other great ideas for recycled and up-cycled seating, we love the reuse of the bath for a cosy sofa seat and the boat will make a statement in any room!

 

Have you got any recycled chair ideas?

Outside with the kids: Making Bird Feeders

There are so many fun things to do with the kids outside in the summer, instead of them being trapped inside in front of the tele or on the computer! As well as going for bike rides, walking the dog, having a picnic and making a camp, creating bird feeders out of everyday cartons and bottles is a great way to teach kids about different types of birds and let them get creative!

There are many types of bird feeder, created using old cans, bottles, cartons and ribbon and also more artistic one off bird feeders using tea cups and coloured glass bottles! However, making a bird feeder with your kids is very simple, and there are two alternatives, either using a plastic bottle or carton or using ice lolly sticks.

Here is a fantastic way to create a bird feeder using your old plastic bottles, instead of throwing them away.

1. Firstly wash your plastic bottle or carton and make sure all the packaging and wrapping is removed.

2. Cut a hole in the side of the plastic bottle, large enough for birds to get at the seed, but insuring the seed won’t get wet in the rain and constantly fall out.

3. Make a few small holes in the bottom so that the rainwater can drain away.

4. Using strong string, make two small holes in the cap of the bottle and thread the string through, tying the end around a tree branch or washing line. 

Watch which birds are in your garden!

Adapted from RSPB Youth, to see full instructions click here

Add holes for wooden spoons into your bottle for great shelves for the bird to perch on while getting some bird seed.

Another great way of making a bird feeder that the kids will love is by using lolly pop sticks. 

Create a base and then layer the lolly pop sticks in a square around the base.

Use a larger stick as a perch for the birds and add string to hang! Voi la

Making bird feeders are such a great way to keep the kids entertained as well as teach them about the wildlife and birds in your garden.