Cookie dough bars

Jake’s parents came over for coffee on Saturday. I had decided to make blueberry quark pie, but then came over these cookie dough bars on Pinterest and just had to make them.

They were soooo good. By the time I thought of taking a picture they had been mostly devoured. I sent a few for Jake’s brothers and a few to friends and everyone raved about them. I’m pretty sure these go to the recipes I’ll be making over and over again.

Click here for the recipe. Instead of the peanut butter toping I just melted two chocolate bars, one milk and one white chocolate and made swirls.

Pattern for a Granny Square Blanket

I’ve made two granny square blankets

an ombre grey one

and a black one.
For those who asked, here’s a pattern. Each square represents one granny square. The black one is the same, except all grey squares are done on black.

DIY Cloud Placemats Tutorial

Here’s a fast and easy tutorial for cloud shaped placemats. These are perfect for kids because not only are they cute, but they are plastic and easy to wipe clean.

I made these for my nephews, and thought I’d take a few pictures during the process.

What you need is a basic placemat. Plastic is good because it wont fray when you cut it. It can be any colour. These were for two boys aged one and three, so I chose blue. But I think with white colour or a nice pattern, even grown ups could use these.

You’ll also need paper for the pattern. You could also draw directly onto the backside of the placemats, but I wanted to keep them clean and decided to make a separate pattern.

I didn't have big enough paper for the mat, so I taped three sheets together.

After that place the mat on top of the paper and draw around the edges.

Now you have a basic pattern you can use as a guide, when you draw your cloud.

I wanted the placemat to be as big as possible, so I left one side untouched and just made very simple cloud shape on top. It wont matter if you make mistakes at this point.

When I was happy with the shape, I cut it out. Now you have a cloud pattern, you can use to make several placemats. I saved mine, in case I want to make more in the future.

Then just place the pattern on top of the wrong side of the placemat and draw it on to it. I made two that were mirror images of each other.

The picture isn’t the clearest, but hopefully you can see the lines faintly there.

Then just cut along the pattern and you have a cloud shaped placemat! It’s very easy, really. And once you have the pattern, it’s just a matter of drawing and cutting.

The boys really seem to like them!