Seed & Bean: funky festival chocolate

Continuing on from my last post, here is another blog entry I did for YOU magazine. Yes, essentially re-blogging myself does make me a lazy blogger, but the sheer beauty and deliciousness of the chocolate makes up for that (I hope).

Gone are the days of the lowly humdrum chocolate bar. Now, it seems, chocoholics are on the hunt for the funkiest flavours and jazziest packaging and the latest offerings from Seed & Bean provide just that.

As the official chocolate bar of this year’s Glastonbury Festival and with packaging featuring the psychedelic retro designs of artist Matt Lyons, this is chocolate at its most stylish.

The smooth and delicious treats come in three flavours: Milk Chocolate with Cornish Sea Salt and West Indies Lime, White Chocolate Raspberry and Vanilla, and Dark Chocolate with Sicilian Hazelnut. The white chocolate option, which tastes like real raspberry ice-cream, was a big hit in the YOU office.

To top it all off Seed & Bean also have top eco credentials, as the UK’s only 100% ethically accredited chocolate company – even their wrapping is biodegradable!

At £2.29 each, these bars will be out in shops from September, but if you can’t wait until then you can find them online now, seedandbean.co.uk.

Spring Dresses…because it’s SPRING!

Something fantastic has happened. The snow has stopped, the sun is making the odd appearance, and woolly winter coats are no longer an absolute necessity…spring has officially sprung!

And I, like everyone, am very blooming excited about this! The odd burst of bird song has me grinning upwards to the trees like a nutter and I feel the need to tell everyone I see about the good weather – “Sunshine! See? Real life sunshine!”

Anyway, to celebrate the arrival of this long-awaited season I have gathered a collection of cheery, flowery and funky dresses from some of my favourite ethical fashion ranges. So ignore the fact that most British summers are windy and rainy and spread the spring-time joy.

(Oh and I’ve been playing around with the blog and have discovered how to make a scrolling gallery – check it out!)

Vintage clothing, elaborate door knockers and my Mum.

I’m quite proud of my mum. Not only because she is the Queen of macaroni cheese (a much coveted title I know) and her multi-tasking talents reach the brink of human ability, but also because she has well and truly embraced vintage chic*!

(*Of course, by ‘vintage’ I mean ‘second-hand’, but that doesn’t sound quite so glamorous)

It seems that every time I see her she’s sporting some new item that she “just picked up from the local charity shop in my lunch break”.

But my mother has made a recent discovery and, gosh, she’s really outdone herself this time. If they allowed 50-something women into the Brownies, she’d be sewing the I’m-a-vintage-QUEEN badge onto her sash as I type.

Molly’s Den is not just a charity shop, it is an Aladdin’s cave bursting with vintage, second-hand, antique, upcycled goods including, but not limited to, furniture, clothing, books, pin-up pictures, ornaments, records, wedding dresses, kitchen utensils, and random elaborate door knockers!

As I have frequented this two-floor 16,000 square ft warehouse during my last two visits home, I thought it was only right to dedicate a blog to it and the many wonders found inside.

What I particularly like is how out of place it feels. Molly’s Den would be quite at home in some trendy back street of Islington or Camden, but instead its home is a small industrial estate in a corner of Dorset. It makes a country girl proud!

I could have wondered around it for hours and, of course, that’s exactly what Mum and I did.

Some top buys so far include a cute shirt for work and a vintage cream jug with the spout painted like a fox’s head – Mum was particularly proud of that one.

Plus, to top it off, there’s cake! Gosh, I love Dorset.

Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Fortnight couldn’t have come about at a better time, could it really?

The horsemeat scandal – that little hiccup that has occupied our newspapers and screens over the last couple of months – although disgraceful and disgusting and lots of other ‘d’ words, has had one positive outcome at least: more people are considering where their food has come from.

There’s been a surge in those opting for smaller butchers selling locally-produced meat. Shoppers are obviously starting to realise food does not magically materialise in store fridges and shelves, neither has it been plucked ready-made from some massive mutant orchards found behind supermarkets (Lasagne trees? Burger bushes?). It has in fact, more often than not, taken a long journey to reach our trolleys . Of course people did know this before, (I hope!), but when strolling around the super-sized supermarkets it’s easy to forget. This recent scandal has forced us to face facts and question the origin of the food and drink we’re consuming.

But not all the things we love can be found locally, and that is exactly why it’s a perfect time for Fairtrade Fortnight. While we’re all pondering where our dinner has come from, why not also ask ourselves who the people involved in sourcing it were and whether they received a fair wage?

A decade ago Fairtrade products were few and far between – Fairtrade Fortnight used to mean finding a few more Divine bars for sale – but now you can find the little green and blue label stamped on a huge variety of products throughout the aisles, priced at little or no more than their less karma-friendly alternatives.

So why not turn the current horse scandal into more of a positive and less of a nag (yes I know, I am hilarious) and, this Fairtrade Fortnight, start questioning not only the source of your dinner, but also whether those people doing the sourcing were fairly treated?

For more info and to sign their petition calling for David Cameron to champion the world’s smallholder farmers head to http://step.fairtrade.org.uk/.

Wrappings of goodness.

If you want an ethical alternative to wrapping paper or just haven’t had the time/ money to pick some up, then why not try wrapping the goods up in good ol’ fashioned newspaper and jazzing it up with some coloured tape?

My photography skills may not be award-winning, but I think it creates rather cute, quirky presents (and is a little kinder to the environment, of course!). I only hope that my sister agreed – Happy Birthday sis!

You could use anything really – ribbons, coloured glue, painted pasta… – and finding newspaper pages with stories and images the birthday girl or guy would like is a nice touch too.

(NB. Check all newspaper clippings for horrific, un-birthday-ish stories and images; that would not create the fun festive feeling you’re going for!)

Nancy Dee

I was recently hit by a desperate urge to shop.  It happens every so often, doesn’t it?  Suddenly your wardrobe feels disturbingly empty and everyone you pass seems to be dressed head to toe in the shiniest and most beautiful attire! …well hopefully it’s not just me.

So, rather than heading over to my nearest high street, I reached for my laptop and scoured the many beautiful ethical clothing ranges that can be found online – many of which also have jolly good sales going on at the moment.

One such site that currently has a top sale is Nancy Dee.  The sustainable British-manufactured clothing company makes its gorgeous garments from a range of renewable natural sources from soya beans and bamboo.

Pretty clothes, good ethics, and low costs! Needless to say, my shopping urge is thoroughly satisfied.

(All images: nancydee.co.uk)

What a corker!

I can’t tell you exactly when it all started, but at some point in my life I began to collect corks… as you do.

During the many hours spent mulling over beautiful, crafty blogs, I have come across a great number of great cork projects.

So, obviously, I started collecting them – just picking them up whenever I saw fit, telling myself that they were only going to be thrown away anyway and I was going to make a masterpiece out of them. A masterpiece!!

Well, needless to say, the masterpiece still hasn’t quite happened and, instead, I have a draw full of clandestine corks.

So I thought I’d scour the web to find some of my favourite cork-orientated craft ideas.  Several hours after starting the search, I can say, or rather type, with confidence that today’s young cork entrepreneur really is bloody spoilt for choice!

(L to R): 1) Cork ornaments/ pendants 2) Place card holders 3) Classic cork board 4) Pretty little stamps 5) Trivet and coasters 6) Hand decorated key rings

Waste not, want not.

One of the many, many new things I have learnt since leaving studentdom and entering the land of ‘full-time work’ is how much quicker food goes off when one doesn’t spend 85 percent of their time inside the house!

This is how, when last weekend arrived, I discovered in the kitchen a couple of browning, sad-looking bananas and, (the middle-class Brit that I am), a whole punnet of strawberries that had seen better days.

Not to be deterred, I decided that rather than chucking this perfectly fine, but maybe a little squishy, fruit in the bin I was going to craft cakey-goodness out of them.  Putting them to good use, whilst simultaneously cancelling-out any nutritional benefit the fruit would have on its own!

Thus, a batch of strawberry cupcakes and a dozen banana muffins were born!!

The cupcakes were a variation of the raspberry ones I recently made, and I found the recipe for banana muffins here, both of which I’d definitely recommend.

Then, of course I fobbed them off on my friends, family, and work colleagues.  So, a reason to bake, avoid lovely fruity items going to waste, consume some cake, and the chance to butter-up my new work colleagues – brilliant stuff!

Gosh, cake is great, right?

People Tree

Anybody that has experienced the joy that is my old blog could probably tell quite quickly how much I bloody love People Tree.

I bought my first proper piece of ethical clothing from here – a long-sleeved red and white striped t-shirt that I wear pretty much all the time –  so I have always seen People Tree as something of a sturdy classic.

The clothes, that are crafted using fairtrade and organic methods, are not only full of eco-osity, and really lovely to look at, but are also so very comfortable to wear, and reasonably priced.

Basically, it’s safe to say that I’m a fan.

So the other day, when I found out People Tree were having a sample sale at their office over Brick Lane way, I trotted along pretty sharpish in the hunt for new office gear – one thing I have recently learnt: a student wardrobe is in no way suitable for an office job.

I bagged myself a cheeky new office dress, with considerable help from the Ethical Stylist Lucy Harvey, after which a lady with a camera accosted me, and subsequently put the photo up on facebook and twitter.

I was a little mortified, and yet, I’ve still uploaded the photo below.  I look so truly professional and at ease – can you tell which one is me?

So go, check out the website if you’d like – they’ve got a sale on at the moment!

(Image source for all [apart from that last stunner]: People Tree)

Raspberry and cream cupcakes

Another rainy day activity for today.  These little beauties are easy to make, nice to look at, pretty darn tasty (if I do say so myself), and being home-made means you avoid the silly shop prices and the excess plastic packaging, so these are both economical and ethical!

On a wet, London-y Saturday afternoon I found this great recipe online and immediately, with wooden spoon and an upbeat attitude in hand, I set about it!

It might not actually be sunny outside, but by jove, we can still eat summer fruits and pretend it is!