Throughout 2012, Ellen photographed at sunset a Kentucky coffeetree located on Boise's Military Reserve above St. Luke's Hospital. To commemorate the city's sesquicentennial, she combined a number of the resulting images into "150 Boise Sunsets: Pod Tree on Eagle Ridge." In 2013, the work was shown in "Local Color Boise 150," a juried exhibition by the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance; in 2014, it was chosen for the collection of the Boise Visual Chronicle and is now on permanent display on the third floor of Boise City Hall. Ellen also took part in a Berber-style jewelry-making workshop taught by Dore Stockhausen in Morocco in May 2014, and joined friends in June 2014 to see the Rolling Stones in Berlin and Paris.