Ellie Kate | Leeds Lifestyle, Food, Beauty and Fashion Blog

You may have noticed that things have changed a bit around here. I hope you like it! The biggest change of course is the change in blog name, which I've kept short and simple - much like before, but much easier to pronounce! My old blog name, "misellyre", was an anagram of my name; so, it made sense to me to use my name from now on. Not particularly memorable, maybe, but I'm very happy with my blog name change and I now no longer have to struggle when telling people what it is! With this has obviously come a change in URL - so, if you have this blog saved to any bookmarks or lists, please update them from www.misellyre.co.uk to www.ellie-kate.co.uk. If you're following my blog on Bloglovin, you don't need to do anything as everything has been transferred across. I have also changed my social media accounts to match - these links can be found in the sidebar on the right hand side.

Along with this, I've also changed the design of this blog. It's not drastically different (hence why it didn't take me anywhere near as long as last time, as I already had the codes in place), but a bit cleaner overall. Please let me know if you spot something that's not working as it should! It should also work on mobile devices; it's not perfect, but you should be able to view content without any problems.

I really hope that you all like the changes as much as I do. As for blog posts from now on, I've got some personal matters going on at the moment, that mean that I won't be writing any new posts for a while. I don't want to, nor do I intend to go into details about it (The people who matter most to me know what's going on), but I will hopefully be writing posts again within the next month or so. This blog has really helped me recently, as it's given me something to focus on, and I don't want to let it disappear into nothingness. I've got a new camera to play with, and intend to be out taking pictures as much as I can! To cut a long story short, bear with me and follow me on Twitter if you want to keep up with my goings-on.

The first thing that I will say is that I'm late. Yes, yes, I know I said 17th October, but things weren't quite right and you know how life goes. Still, 10 days behind schedule (A schedule that I'm sure no one cared about except for me!) is not as bad as it could have been, so let's say no more about it.

Yesterday, I realised that it's been over two weeks since I last updated this blog. Erm, oops. I certainly wasn't planning for this to happen - it's been a really busy and strange couple of weeks. In between family members being in hospitals, one of my dogs being ill, driving lessons and sorting out things at work, I completely lost track of time. Life just sometimes throws everything at you at once - so apologies that my blog has had to suffer. I have not been idle, however! I've been working hard on creating an entirely new layout - and to say that it's taking longer than I expected is an understatement! I want to get it completely finished and live all in one go, rather than taking what could end up being a couple of months if I did it in fits and starts. So, this means that I am putting this blog on hiatus for two weeks as from today. There will be no posts from me throughout that time, but I can assure you that I am busy working away "behind the scenes" - I'm going cross eyed from staring at HTML every evening!

When I come back, I want to start afresh and really get this blog to where I want it to be - and for me an integral step in that process is creating a new layout and rebranding myself, in a way. After my hiatus I hope to be posting at least twice a week, if not more, and really focus myself on the lifestyle blog that I want this to be. I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you are too!

You may have noticed - or maybe you haven't - that I've been a bit sporadic with my blog posts over the last couple of months, maybe more. You may recall that not that long ago, I wrote a lengthy post about how I wanted things to change for my blog - focusing more on lifestyle posts and less on beauty. I feel like that a lot of people are doing this recently, and there's probably a few reasons as to why but that's down to speculation. In truth, for me? Beauty blogging no longer excites me. Yes, I still love going to Boots and spending an excessive amount of time at the cosmetics stands, and I still love wearing make up, but to sit down and blog about those products is not something that I enjoy anymore. I put so much pressure on myself to create the perfect image, or to write about new products as quickly as I can, that somewhere along the line I fell out of love with the whole idea. Also, truthfully, beauty blogging can become an expensive habit - I don't have the means to buy new beauty products every month, and I feel like I need to sometimes just to keep up with everyone else. I know that it's not the be-all-and-end-all, to write about new products, but it's definitely a contributing factor for me. I also struggle to find beauty favourites every month (You may have noticed that the last couple of months are missing from my usual monthly line-up) as I don't try enough new products to write about, I often don't have the time to paint my nails, my empty products drawer is getting out of hand, blah blah blah... the list goes on.

I'm going to point out straightaway that this is going to be a long, rambly post - so if that's not what you're here for, then you might want to move along! I don't know where I'm going to go with this, to be honest.

A few weeks ago, I started to think more about my blog. I've been blogging for two years now, and I was thinking about where it's heading, and what I've achieved with it so far, and whether as a whole, I was happy with it. This prompted me to create a blog survey, which to be honest, has not had as many responses as I would have liked. However, the responses that I have had have been quite interesting. I was mainly looking for feedback about my photography, and I'm pleased to see that in general, people seem to like them. But, as time has gone on, what worried me so much became less worrisome, and I decided to just calm down a little about the photos. I'm very much a perfectionist when it comes to my images, and if something isn't right, I'll either work at it until it is or I'll just pack it in altogether. More recently, I've been trying to care less about the finer details and appreciate the bigger picture (Haha, get it? Sorry...). My thoughts have moved on; now, I'm thinking about the content of my blog, and what people enjoy, and whether I enjoy creating that content - is it worthwhile for me?

As much as I love beauty, it's becoming a very saturated world. There are literally thousands of beauty bloggers out there, who love beauty as much as I do and all have something worthwhile to say. It's becoming more and more difficult to make yourself stand out from the crowd, and there have been times where I've felt a bit disheartened and overwhelmed by it all. It's easy to get caught up in the whirlwind, and wonder why this blogger got sent a product to review and why that one didn't - what makes that one more worthy than the other? Number of followers, quality of content, engagement on social media, what? It's hard to pinpoint, but the average beauty blogger on the street now has to work incredibly hard to keep the blog fresh and exciting - more so perhaps than some of the very popular ones now did back when they started their blogs. That isn't to say that the "big" bloggers don't work very hard on their blogs, quite the opposite - but it's easy to see how "small" bloggers get lost among the massive sea of content.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and what it means for me. Sure, there are some days where I struggle to break double figures for pageviews on a post, and yes, there have been times where that's made me feel really down. Especially when I've worked really hard on that content. When it gets me down, it's easy to forget that there are still people out there looking at my content - whether that's 8 or 800, they are still real, human people (I hope) and that is quite important. On some days, I don't care about how many followers I have, and on other days it's the most important thing in the world. It's a fickle game. I started to think about why that is, and what it was about my blog that was making me feel the way I did. The more I looked at my blog, when I was feeling down about it, the more I realised what the problem was. My content didn't excite me. If it didn't excite me, then why should anyone else take an interest?

I was stuck in a rut with blogging for a while, and there had been many a night where I'd written a blog post just because I felt like I had to. Everyone gets that feeling once in a while, and there might be occasions where that feeling is justified (Writing about a product that's been sent for review, for example). However, I was starting to feel like that with every post, and the lack of pageviews and interaction I was getting was living proof of that. However, one weekend I was due to go out for the day with Martin and his family, and I decided to take my camera along for the ride, and put up the photos on my blog. That post was actually The Hepworth and Wakefield Festival of Food, Drink & Rhubarb, and I had more fun writing that post than I had done in a very long time. Not only that, but it exceeded my expectations in terms of pageviews and I sensed that something was about to change. After that, I started to incorporate more lifestyle posts into my blog, and much like the first, they were well received and I thoroughly enjoyed writing them. I had found my passion for blogging again.

Writing about everything in my life, from restaurants that I've visited, to days out, to music and films I enjoy and everything in between, is what I want my blog to be about. That still includes beauty; because as I said earlier, I still love beauty and everything that goes with it. But, I want to focus more on what makes my life enjoyable, and not just worrying about the next random beauty product that I'm going to review from my stash of photos. Over the last few months, I've been exploring my local city, Leeds, and finding out more about what it has to offer. I've lived there for pretty much all of my life (I was born in Somerset but moved up here when I was a baby), and I've never really taken the time to explore my home city properly. Sometimes, this extends to the very broad area of West Yorkshire, and I hope that in the future - when I have a car and am able to drive myself around - that I continue to explore into West Yorkshire and beyond, and I want to take you guys with me. But, for now, I am happy to find places in and around Leeds and aim to show you guys what is great - and what isn't so great.

With these new changes, I feel that I need to rebrand myself and my blog. When I started out two years ago, I wanted a name that didn't tie me down to beauty blogging, and allowed me to create whatever I wanted. After a lot of deliberation I went with "Misellyre", which is an anagram of my name (Now you know!). The problem that I didn't foresee, that when actually meeting people face-to-face, the name is impossible to pronounce. I know what it should sound like to me - mees-ell-ee-riar - but I appreciate now that it's damn near impossible for anyone else. I sometimes get called Miss Ellyre in emails too, which annoys me no end! So, I now have the task of deciding upon a new name and with that, probably a new layout, domain name and even possibly a move to a different platform too. It's quite a lot to think about, and one that I can't do all in one go, so when you will see these changes happen is anyone's guess. But, be assured, that over the next few weeks and months, you will start to see some changes.

I feel like that I've written a whole load of confusing nonsense, and that it doesn't make any sense at all, so I shall summarise. This blog will no longer be a beauty blog in the primary instance, and instead will focus more on what you could call "lifestyle" posts, based around Leeds and extending into West Yorkshire - and also any travelling I do as well. I will still blog about beauty fairly often, including reviews, monthly favourites, hauls and products that generally I feel deserve a mention or a post of their own. I will also still be posting things like hauls of any description, Wednesday Wishlists and anything fashion related, such as OOTDs, as I very much enjoy writing those. Just be aware that from now on, you will start to see less beauty related posts than you're perhaps used to, and more lifestyle posts instead. The changes will be gradual, and chances are not many of you will notice enough to care, but I feel obliged to tell you guys about it - as without you, I wouldn't have a blog to start with!

I appreciate that what I'm setting out to do is not everyone's cup of tea - and if you wish to unfollow/unsubscribe from my posts, then that is completely up to you and I promise that I won't hold a grudge! If you decide to stick with me, and see where this takes me, then I hope that you enjoy what you see. I really care about my blog, probably far more than I should do considering it's just a hobby, but it's my baby and I want to see it grow. It's going to be a bit of a learning curve for me, and to be completely honest I don't really know where or when to start - but it will be fun trying (I think)!

Hi guys,

If you follow me on Twitter, you will already be aware of this, so sorry for repeating myself! For those of you that don't, I've been told that I'm spending four days away next week (From Tuesday to Friday) in Glasgow for work. This was - and still is to be honest - a last minute arrangement and has thrown me off-kilter a bit!

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm having a bit of a blogger's block at the moment. So, I thought that instead of forcing myself to post something that I'm not happy with, I will give myself a break and hopefully come back renewed and with some great content for you guys to read. With me being away in Bruges only last week, I expected to be fully back into the blogging swing of things by now, but life is full of surprises, isn't it?

I'm sure you guys won't miss me too much - if you notice me being gone at all! I am aiming to be blogging again next Sunday (6th), where I will no doubt be showing you my "Week in Instagram" as usual. After that, expect a few posts about my trip to Bruges!

Thank you for sticking with me guys and for supporting my blog, and I'll see you hopefully very soon. I hope that you are all having a great weekend and have a good week!

Wetherspoons have started to include these delicious beers on their menu; I found a submission for this website in Sainsbury's car park; if you ever see these, buy them - they're amazing!; Holly fast asleep on her bed; beef brisket sandwich at The Pit; what I wore today for a quick jaunt into town.

It's been a bit quiet on this blog over the last week - if you follow me on Twitter, you will have seen me mention it. Without going into detail, a member of my family got taken into hospital twice in the space of a few days, which you can imagine was a bit stressful. I wasn't at work for two days this week because of it, and I really wasn't in the mood for blogging. However, everything is fine and back to normal now, so I'm back to blogging as of tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me!

Went bowling on Monday with work and had to wear the horrible shoes; my nails for this week; the Spiced Orange Yankee Candle wax tart smells absolutely amazing; Zak getting all snuggly with his soft toy; went to the Trafford Centre on Saturday; very tasty deli board from Wetherspoons, of all places; Forever 21 shamelessly ripping off Ted Baker; put some Love2Shop vouchers towards buying this (So excited!!); delicious brunch that Martin made me today.

Yesterday, you saw my 2014 blogging resolutions and how I plan to achieve them. Well, today we're going to look at back the resolutions I made in 2013 and see how well I did with them. In all honesty, I did forget about them from time to time, but over time a couple did make it into a routine so they were easier to keep up. Let's take a look at what those resolutions were.


Yeah... not off to a great start with this one. I still find it really hard to find time to comment on other people's blogs, which is really quite awful when you think about it. From time to time I do remember that I wanted to make an effort and then do so, however I soon slip back into my old ways. A compromise that I found about halfway through the year was liking posts on Bloglovin'; it's not quite the same and doesn't have the personal touch that a comment does, however I feel a little bit better for doing it. I will continue to try and comment as much as I can, but no promises will be made this time!



I did really quite well with this all through the year. Seeing as I don't start work until 1pm most days, there really is no excuse for me not to get up and take a chunk of photos before I go to work. Even getting up an hour earlier helps - it's amazing how many photos you can take in an hour! There have been a few times when I've slipped up in favour of an extra hour in bed, but generally speaking I think that I achieved this one. For as long as my work pattern continues as it does, I will continue to stick to this schedule that I have for taking the photos that I need for my blog.



Looking back over the year, it doesn't seem that I have done that many but compared to the year before, I think I've not done too badly. I love doing OOTD posts, but finding that right moment to get some pictures taken is so difficult! If me and Martin are out with friends, it's a bit awkward to stop and take some photos - I think that they think that I'm a bit self-obsessed! Ideally, I would get some photos taken before I went out and take them myself, but finding the time and the space to do so is a continuing issue. That, and I don't want the same background in each image every time!



Well, this failed massively, didn't it? However, over the course of the year I realised that at the moment, it's not practical for me to start a Youtube channel. Living at home with my immediate family presents its own problems, and one of those is lack of privacy. I can't really film myself talking to the camera, to have someone walk in on me and asked what on earth I'm doing! That, and space is an issue too so this idea is going to have to take a back seat until me and Martin are able to move in together.


I like to think that I made more of an effort with taking part this year, but in all honesty most of the time I fell way short. The time of the chats (8pm on Wednesdays and Sundays) are unfortunately very impractical for me; I finish work at 8pm during the week, and on Sundays - as I mentioned in the post at the time - I'm usually travelling back from Martin's or he's still with me. I have remembered more during the year to take part and they have been rewarding in so many ways. When life doesn't get in the way, I will try and remember even more this coming year!

Well, here it is - my first blog post of 2014! I hope that you all had a fantastic New Year. Mine was pretty good; I went to Martin's and drank beer with a friend of ours. We ended up going to the pub and saw in the New Year by watching the fireworks across the fields near Martin's house, which was a bit random but quite fun nevertheless! I'm back with some blogging resolutions, with what I hope to achieve over this next year. So, without further ado, let's jump right in...


I'll elaborate on this a bit. With my job, I'm often working into the evenings and often late nights, which means that by the time I get home, I don't really have any time to get a blog post up. I often fail to get one in before midnight, by which time no one is reading them until the next day anyway! I'm sure that it's affecting my blog's success, so with that in mind I'm going to start scheduling posts to go up the next day. In theory, you won't see any change - it just means that I will have written the post the night before, as opposed to on that particular day. I will aim to schedule them for lunchtime (So between 12-2pm usually) and hopefully cause myself a little less stress in the evenings!


Again, this is down to my job. I work a full five days a week, and on weekends I like to spend time with Martin and/or my friends, not cooped up in my room blogging. I usually post on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with my "Week in Instagram" posts on Sunday. I like to take Monday off unless there's a particularly pressing post (I use that night to catch up with TV and Youtube videos!), and on Fridays I'm usually at Martin's or Martin is at mine, so it isn't really practical. I will sometimes post on Saturdays, but it will probably be instead of posting on one of the days during the week - it depends what I'm up to that particular weekend! I think that four blog posts a week is completely reasonable and totally doable.


I love reading about what people have got up to with their spare time - trips, restaurants they've visited, anything like that and in general they're pretty well received by the beauty blogging community. With that in mind I aim to write more about what I get up to, along with any shopping experiences (Like the one I wrote recently about Primark in Trinity Leeds) and anything of that nature. I know I have my "Week in Instagram" posts, but I would like to start taking more pictures of my life - they're nice to look back on, after all and hopefully you guys would enjoy seeing them too. If you have any suggestions about any lifestyle posts you'd like to see then wing them my way!


This is one that has been on my mind for a few months now. Ever since I've started blogging, I've always used my windowsill to place products on to take pictures of, but over time it has developed it's problems. By far the biggest one is the size - it's nowhere near big enough for some of the products I want to talk about and I admit to having to sacrifice a blog post idea because of it. However that is going to change this year - I'm going to invest in some proper lighting, a semi-portable studio and some more interesting backdrops - the plain white is starting to grate on me!


This will be quite a difficult one to stick to, because of timing. I depend on natural light (for the time being!) for my images, and as you all know in winter it gets particularly difficult to find that window of opportunity to take images. If that doesn't come, then I have to leave it for another day. However, if I stick to my previous resolution then that problem will become obsolete, and I can take pictures whenever I need to. I don't have a large room to store my things in, in fact my room is very small so any unnecessary packaging like boxes really doesn't have a place in there. If I aim to get any pictures of new products taken within a couple of days, then I can put them away where they're meant to be nice and quickly.

I think that all of these resolutions are quite reasonable, and I'm looking forward to having a better organised blog in 2014. I had a great first, full year with my blog in 2013 and I want to keep it that way. Hopefully by making these little improvements here and there, I can maintain a good blog that you guys keep coming back to again and again.

In tomorrow's post, I'm going to look back at my 2013 resolutions and see how well I did - it'll be interesting, that's for sure! I've just looked back at them now and have mixed feelings... but then you'll hear all about that tomorrow.

I realise that I'm quite behind the times here, but I eventually got around to making myself a Pinterest account. It took me a while to get the hang of it but now I'm pinning away like no one's business and my number of followers is looking a little dire to say the least. I will be adding my link to the side bar in due course, but for the time being click the link here to follow me. I'm pinning all sorts on there at the moment, as you can see but if you keep an eye on my 'Wishlist' board, you will probably get a preview of upcoming 'Wednesday Wishlist' posts... sneaky! I am also looking for lots of people to follow as my home page is looking quite bare, so any suggestions for beauty bloggers or otherwise are more than welcome.

I'm writing this from my phone, so I apologise for the lack of formatting in this very short post! Just letting you guys know that I'm taking a break from blogging this week; I have some leave from work and am spending it going backwards and forwards from Martin's house to mine. I will be back on Sunday with my usual 'Week in Instagram' post, so you can see what I've been up to on my week off, and back to regular blogging on Monday.

Well, it's been a long time coming but I have done it! After several weeks of cursing, frustration and downright hatred for HTML I proudly present to you my blog, redesigned and updated. In essence the template is the same - I really liked that so didn't want to stray far from it - but the whole look is brighter, cleaner and hopefully a little more professional. I wanted to keep the design simple, with no long waiting times for loading the page (Big pet hate of mine) so hopefully I've achieved that somewhat. The URL has also changed from misellyre.blogspot.co.uk to www.misellyre.co.uk so if you have me added in your bookmarks, please update the link! My old URL will redirect to here so it shouldn't affect anything but y'know... nice to be up to date isn't it?

Most of the changes I've been working on are ones you wouldn't necessarily notice, so I feel obliged to point them out! My "About" page has been updated slightly, and new pages have been added to the navigation in the sidebar for your perusal. Categories have been added instead of a long list of labels; the labels are still included at the end of each blog post, but if you're looking for the broad topic of "fashion" for example you can find that much easier. The comments pages on each blog post have also had a bit of a spruce up so that it's easier to navigate. Finally, my Instagram username is now "misellyre", so you can now follow my updates on there should you wish to and this will be linked in to my Twitter account.

I think that's it! Everything should be working properly but if you find something untoward (Links not working, messed-up HTML etc.), then please leave me a comment. I hope you enjoy my new blog design - let me know what you think!

Well here it is folks, the post from me that you will have seen pop up on practically every blog you follow (If you follow any that is)! As most of you will know, tomorrow - July 1st - will see the closure of Google Reader, which is how many of you follow me. As far as I am aware Google Friend Connect is staying, but I'm sure it will become null and void pretty quickly, as no one following via that method in the future will have a means to read the posts!

I've noticed that since it was announced that Google Reader would no longer be with us, that my number of followers has dramatically increased on Bloglovin'. I personally had signed up when I got my blog, but never used it for reading others. After having a bit of a browse around, it is surprisingly easy to use and more user friendly than Google Reader, which is a relief amongst all of us I'm sure. Bloglovin' also have a handy feature of transferring the blogs you read from Google Reader to their platform, which I have already done and it really couldn't be easier.

So, if you would still like to follow my blog, you may do so here - see you on the other side!

Last night I was looking through my blog, and having a think about it all. I've had this blog for over a year now, something I never thought would happen and I'm thrilled that my blog has made it's own (extremely small) dent in the beauty blogging world. With it being a year old and so on I decided that I will try and give this blog a much needed update!

The layout is the first and most important thing for me. I've always preferred darker designs (Having created a few websites of my own during my youth), and whilst that is still the case I feel the need for change. Being a bit brighter will hopefully make my blog more inviting and appealing to you, and will generally work with the theme of my blog a bit better. I'm going to try to create my design by myself as much as possible, which is a tad daunting seeing as it's been a good few years since I worked my way around CSS and HTML! But I will give it my best shot and hopefully the finished outcome will be one that you guys will appreciate.

Another aspect of my blog that I was thinking about changing was my photography. Generally I'm quite pleased with my photos, but the whole "Laying the product on its back and shooting at an angle" idea is getting a bit tiresome for me. My working space is limited to my (very small) bedroom, so over the next few weeks I'm going to try and work with what I have and create some interesting images for the products I talk about. I'm still looking to keep a clean background - I'm thinking finding somewhere to stand the products up in might be enough of a change for me. But I will try whatever comes to mind and might ask for your input in the future!

Finally, I have been considering buying a domain name. Now that I think that I am in this for the long run, I want to make my blog worthwhile. It has been so benificial to keep it up, and every blog has room to grow so I'm thinking that this is the next step. However, I am completely clueless about where I can purchase a domain name - where is best? I will be researching the popular names (Go Daddy, etc) and hope to get it up and running within the next couple of months.

With everything that I have talked about above, I would love to hear your opinions and suggestions for my blog - if you have any! After all, my blog would be nothing without you guys reading it so I consider anything offered to be a great help - positive or negative. So please, fire away! I am now going to get in up to my elbows in HTML coding...

I was in two minds about writing this (very short) post, but I figured that if you don't ask, you don't get, right? My little corner of the internet may only be just over a year old, but I am extremely thankful to every single one of you who follows my blog - as well as leaving comments and generally taking an interest in what I have to say. Now the competition is obviously massive, with so many worthy bloggers who deserve to be nominated, but if you could consider my blog for nomination in the "Best New Beauty Blog" category, it would mean so much to me! Nominating is easy, all you have to do is go here, scroll to the bottom and fill in some details with my URL. I want to wish everyone who is being nominated the best of luck, and thank you so much if you decide to nominate me!