DIY Valentines

My boyfriend and I decided this Valentines, we'd have a crack at making presents for each other. I have to admit, I was pretty dubious about this to start with but surprisingly  it turned out to be really fun trying to guess what he could possibly be making, while panicking at my lack of arty skills.
I trawled the internet looking for ideas, but all the craft sites seemed to be suggesting overly girlish presents which I'm fairly sure no man would want to possess, let along treasure! In the end, I resorted back to my all time favourite blogger who made these delightfully fluffy owls! They're simple to make, not too girly (I don't think?) and oh so cute, so if you get the chance have a go and make one! I've already had requests from friends for more!

The production process was simple enough- it essentially involved making a stencil, cutting out your fabric and sewing on cute, goggly owl features! I used some pretty cotton I found on ebay and felt for the details.

As you can see, I cut a stencil out of paper and then cut two of the stencil shapes out of the fabric- one for the front and one for the back of the owl.

These were the colours I used.

I sewed on the features before joining the front and back of the owl together.

Sew the front and back together inside out. This way, all the stitching is invisible when you turn him back round the right way. 

Everybody meet Hoots! I filled him with rice, but you could simply fill him with soft toy stuffing if you fancy a squishier owl. 

Hoots went down very well with my boyfriend although I had quite a hard time giving him up-he's just too cute with those big round eyes! I especially love the fact that if you decided to fill your owl with rice, you can heat him up in the microwave and snuggle with him on nippy nights. I'd definitely suggest having a go at making one of your own!

"Mars Bar Melts" v Mars Bar Cookies

Jossi and I have a long standing love affair (along it seems, with most of the blogging community) with Rose, AKA The Londoner. In case you're not already affiliated, she  blogs about food, fashion and life in general in a beautifully relatable way (even if you don't have quite the same lifestyle as her) and has inspired many (myself included) to take up blogging. Anyway, one of her posts which has always caught our eye is on mars bar melts which look deliciously sinful, so Jossi and I decided to give them a whirl.

Ours turned out to be scrumptious and the use of cake mix instead of cookie dough added an almost surprising twist- despite the fact we'd whisked up the cake batter, we still expect something much more like a cookie to come out of the oven! Maybe that was a little dim on our part?

But how do these compare to a mars bar cookie? Well, since we made our cookies from scratch, they were marginally more time consuming. Here's how we made them:

Ingredients:
one egg
120g butter
220g of fine brown sugar (caster will do if you don't have this)
200g self raising flour
two mars bars
4 or 5 marshmallows (okay we cheated a little and added these in as well...)
A pinch of salt

Very simply bung all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix. You may find it helpful to rip the marshmallows into small pieces and to chop the mars bars quite finely. When they're all incorporated, take small amounts of the dough and flatten it into cookie shapes, then pop them on a baking tray (set them a bit further apart than we did!). Put the tray in oven for about 15 mins at 180°.  Ta-da! You're done!

Okay okay, ours really aren't that pretty, but they tasted amaziiinng!

I have to admit, I'm rather more of a cookie fan- I like the subtle crunch you get when your teeth sink through one and the way they're slightly more on the chewy side than cake. The ones Joss and I baked where truly magical, if rather irregular looking. However, that's not to say I don't like the 'Mars Bar Melts' and they were definitely appreciated by my little sister when I delivered her some this weekend!

Cookies are always better with hot chocolate!

*Slurp*

We had loads of spare mixture and decided to get inventive, so we may have combined the two mixtures together and baked a cookie-melt hybrid. These were absolutely fab and definitely worth a try!