Fairtrade Fortnight - Vegan Banana Bread

One of our favourite past times is playing around with healthy and low sugar baking, personally I also love Vegan baking, even though I am vegetarian and not vegan I do eat as little dairy as possible and when it comes to baking I love making healthier vegan versions of things. With it being Fairtrade fortnight we thought we would play around with one of our favourite recipes to create a no-added sugar naturally sweetened banana bread that really brought out the flavour of the lovely fair-trade bananas we bought. It turned out to be a real success with the little man and John loving the light and subtle sweet tasting loaf and Mr A not only enjoyed it as a midday snack but also for breakfast and with some much fruit goodness in it we couldn't say no. So if your looking for something guilt-free, easy to make and perfect with coffee here is our recipe 3 Large fairtrade bananas, mashed 75ml sunflower oil 30 ml Rice syrup 125g Wholegrain Spelt flour 100g self-raisin......

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Style Sunday - simple accessories

Oh the bliss of summer sales and with hopefully a lot more sun to come, why not stock up on a few little bits and bobs to add a little oomph to your outfit. I am always one to re-use and re-style, simply because I have a strong ethos for ethical practise and one should not waste not want not, although even my collection of accessories can be exhausted and it's nice to add something new every now and then. As usual I am very much into my earthy, African, organic inspirations as the moment and here are a few of the things I am loving... Braintree clothing - summer style I recently came across Braintree , a lovely feel good fashion company that makes lovely, simple and stylish organic clothing and fair-trade jewellery. It was born in Sydney, Australia and is now located in London with a philosophy and designing and making timeless fashion while caring for the environment. Both of these pieces below are made in Kenya with recycled materials, love them... Njomoku ring - £15 ......

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Our festival fashion

So we had an amazing time at Wychwood and the great thing about festivals is the colourful fashion, anything goes at festivals and I have to say we were lucky with the weather, which meant hats, shades and floaty fabrics. Here are some shots of my fave outfits from that weekend... So in the outfit above I am rocking a Coco Love Top, Next jeans, Vans, SXUC glasses and festival bought straw hat. John was pleased to finally use his Ralph Lauren bucket hat and is also wearing a Levis jumper and RayBan glasses. Both styles are relaxed and fairly practical as we were there with a toddler after all. Even when the weather is dry when there are a lot of people walking over the same area it causes mud so on the last day I wore my lovely yellow wellies from Boden and a HM dress paired with some fairtrade accessories - a beaded hair band and wooden earrings. Our full review of the festival will be coming soon... I have joined this post up with #YoloMondays   and Style E......

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Visionary Soap review and giveaway

So today, May 11th is World Fairtrade day and as you may already know we love anything ethical, fairtrade or good for our planet on Side Street Style so I am really happy to be able to bring you a review and giveaway of the Fairtrade, organic and Vegan soap company that is Visionary Soap . They are real leaders in the ethically produced beauty products market and have a real conscious when it comes to what they do and put back into the community. All their products carry the fairtrade mark and they have some serious eco credentials as none of their products contain palm out, synthetic dyes, fragrances, parabens, sodium laureth, alcohol or animal products and are also GMO and gluten free and of course cruelty free. So what are their products made of - simply with the finest vegetable oils, butter, essential oils and botanicals. They have a great selection of not only soaps but also Organic bath and body oil, lip balms, Shea butter bath melts, gardeners range, body butt......

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Eco tips for Life, Fashion and Family

So we are always trying to juggle being frugal, eco and up to date with what we need and it can be hard, especially with the current climate and for us personally it has been an expensive month (sob sob) so we are trying hard to save on what we don't need and trying to be ethical and sustainable the rest of the time. Here are a few things we are trying to do at the moment. Fashion 1. Upcyle and thrift - You don't necessarily need to spend loads on organic material and fair-trade clothing, although it's great if you do and I try to when fund allow, but it's equally important to recycle and give life to previously loved garments. The great thing about shopping in charity shops and vintage stores is not only can it's often be cheaper but you can often find unique items. I picked up these River Island skinny black jeans for £3 in a charity shop 2. Support local traders - we love going to craft markets and I find they are always a great place to f......

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Creative colouring and Green wearing

Recently Mr A has hit a bit of a self confidence issue when it comes to colouring in, he seems to get annoyed and upset when the colour goes out of the lines and then asks me to do the colouring and tells me he can't and we really try to promote a creative environment in the home and he loves to paint and doesn't seem have the same issues with painting, so we have been looking at ways to get him back into colouring so when Eggnog asked us to review their colouring-in Easter time tablecloth I jumped at the chance, especially when it's such a fun idea and something we could enjoy as a family. The tablecloth has ton of little and large illustrations and full's the whole kitchen table and we can sit opposite each other and enjoy the simple pleasure of putting different colours to paper. It's also a great alternative to Easter eggs and a lot more fun and healthier for you The other great thing about the tablecloth is that it's large and will take us a few......

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Annie Greenabelle Eco love

Every now and then I like to highlight  a fashion brand that not only looks good but has pretty green credentials to boot. Please note I have not been asked by AG to do this post - this is simply a brand I love and want to share with you.   Annie Greenabelle is a women's ethical clothing company using mainly organic and fair-trade cottons and only use factories that comply with the Ethical Trading Initiative. I love there Mod and vintage feel and I think there A/W collection is very accessible - they also use real people to model there lines. Here are some of my fave new pieces I love this sixties style dress Thanks for reading Side Street Style ...

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Cybher Convention Love

"because geek is the new chic" - and that is why it's important that blogger conventions like Cybher happen as more and more people are getting involved with the world of blogging - and what is even better is Cybher is for women only. I had been excited all week about going, as I managed to get a ticket to this sell-out event at the last minute. It was also taking place in the heart of London (I never need an excuse to go the big smoke), at the very swanky Northumberland, which means a mini shop for a new chic but casual outfit (needs to be comfortable as it's going to be a long day). I am also rocking my new shorter haircut Wearing - Faded shirt - Topshop, Jeans - Topshop, T-shirt - M&S Fairtrade, Necklace - House of Fraser, Brogues - Dozzy and Dee  So on Saturday morning I had to get up really early (5:15am) to get ready for the 6:25am train from Cardiff to London and already at that time of the day people where tweeting about the event and throug......

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