St Mary's College Winter Sleep Out

Around 60 year 12 students from St Mary's College in Adelaide braved the cold of an early spring night last month.

They were kept warm by just a cardboard box, a sleeping bag and food served on biodegradable plates donated by Eco Party Box.

The students were taking part in a Winter Sleep Out to raise awareness of and experience for the themselves the life of homelessness in South Australia.

The four year 12 students organising the event were focused on preparing a healthy and sustainable meal, representative of  the menu from the Vincentian homeless centre on Whitmore square, Adelaide, which the girls visited with their Religion class. They also had a goal of maintaining the theme of "ecological spirituality".

We were delighted to be able to donate our products to help raise awareness for a good cause.

Judging by the pictures they had a great time and we think they would make great role models for the cause.

Healthy and Yummy Party Food and Drink

We've recently been on the look out for the perfect party food and drink.

Not that we'll be stocking it in our store, we don't want to do that, but just to inform our customers of where they can get something yummy and most importantly healthy for the party.

Living south of the city of Adelaide, in Port Willunga, we only had to look a few suburbs over in Willunga and a bit further south at Port Elliot for some brilliant party food and drink. 

The Carob Kitchen operates out of Port Elliot and sells a range of caffeine and gluten-free carob chocolate with no added sugar. This includes their Banjo Bears (a better Freddo frog). We recently discovered that cacao, cocoa and all milk chocolate are pretty bad for our bodies. They contain Theobromine which is a neurotoxin. So give carob chocolate a go for your next party - it's really yummy!

As far as the healthy drinks go Willunga is home to Mojo Kombucha - a certified organic health drink from Organic and Raw. Described as an ancient handmade elixir that is created by a unique fermentation recipe it is like a probiotic and flushes out the body's toxins.

So hooray for the clever people making delicious and healthy party food and drink in our part of the world!

Sunnie's Ballerina Party

Its August and in our family we are lucky to have 3 birthdays to celebrate. That means lots of cake! To start off the month our gorgeous daughter Sunnie turned 6 and she wanted a ballerina-themed party.

I started off scouring the internet for ballerina party ideas (see the collection we collated at our Pinterest link here). Our goal was to find ideas that we liked and suited our home and where possible make them eco friendly. As the Mum of the ballerina girl I went to op shops and searched the house for material and trinkets.

I found some pretty pink curtains from the local second-hand store and lots of old pink sheets in her cupboard (I was saving them to make bunting) which I used to section the storage boxes off in our small backyard shed to create a little ballet studio complete with tutu hanging from the ceiling and dance costumes for the girls to dress up in. All borrowed of course.

We invited 25 children and with siblings we had 30 little ones running around. A party with this many children isn't difficult it just takes a lot of forward planning and good organising.

As we had beautiful children with a vegan appetite coming to the party we kept the food simple, healthy and wholesome. Bliss balls, popcorn, fruit salad, coconut balls (not vegan), dried figs, corn chips, guacamole dip and pizza. I made vegan pizza as well. We had two drinking dispensers which contained water in one and homemade lemonade in the other. Plus we had apple juice and flavoured mineral water in the fridge.

Sunnie's brave Dad lead the 30 children to some fun activities which included "Ballerina Says" (like Simon Says), Musical Statues, Ballerina/Fairy Quiz and a Treasure Hunt around the garden.

A Groovy Green Fair

We were recently asked by the team at dirtgirlworld to donate a prize to a school, kindy or child care centre judged the winner of "the littlest ever world environment day eco-Carnivale" held on World Environment Day - June 5.

The winner was the Alstonville Public School in New South Wales who held a Groovy Green Fair, exceededing all expectations for the dirtgirlworld crew. Here are some details: 

"Starting when the clouds lifted flooding the school with sunshine, it was a blessed beginning to our World Environment Day event. As the gates opened, enthusiastic visitors were greeted by colourful stalls selling a variety of wares from fresh produce, plants, local gourmet delights, handmade jewellery and pottery too, cakes and slices, a monster garage sale and the list goes on and on.