Simple Granola Bars

Once again we are heading to Nicole’s kitchen and checking in on a recipe that she tried out not long ago. She made some good for you healthy granola bars so take a look and see how she made them.

Simple Healthy Granola Bars

2½ cups of rolled oats

½ cup of coarsely chopped whole almonds

1/3 cup of honey

¼ cup of butter cut into pieces

¼ cup of packed brown sugar

½ tsp. of vanilla

¼ tsp. of salt

½ cup of dried cranberries

¼ cup + 2 tbsp. of mini chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom and sides of a 8 inch or 9 inch square baking pan with tin foil. Then spray with cooking oil or brush with melted butter.

Put the oats and almonds on a small baking sheet and cook for 5 minutes, stir and then cook for another 3-5 minutes until toasted and then pour into a mixing bowl.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter with honey, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Cook until butter melts and sugar dissolves.

Pour the butter mix over the oats and almonds and stir until well mixed. Cool for about 5 minutes and then add in the cranberries and ¼ cup of chocolate chips. Stir.

Spread and pat into the prepared pan. Press firmly to make sure it’s all packed in there. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top.

Cover and then refrigerate for 2 hours before cutting into bars.

Turtlette - Turtle Backpack Tags

We are starting a slow wind down of our Summer theme and this week we are looking at a shade called “Turtlette” by Tarte. I know you’re thinking green but this shade is actually metallic silver. Maybe they had a Silverback Turtle in mind? It’s a nice party shade.

We thought we’d do something for back to school. We had some of our key rings leftover from our Father’s Day post so we decided to make use of those and we are making turtle shaped nametags for kid’s backpacks.

There are a couple designs that we came up with so take a look below and see how to make your very own turtle backpack tag.

The first one is very easy and simple. All you need is a turtle template. We chose this one...

You will also need some green felt and some twine.

We printed the turtle so that when it was cut out it was about 4 inches long. Then we traced the turtle with a felt pen onto the felt and cut it out.

Instead of an eye we made a little hole where the eye would be and we strung through some twine. To make sure that the twine knot is secure, you can put white glue or clear nail polish on the knot to prevent it from coming undone.

Lastly, we wrote a name (with a felt pen r Sharpie) on the body of the turtle.

Our second turtle is a foam turtle.

We found another turtle template and printed that and cut it out. We actually printed it twice (more on that later). It measures about 4 ½ inches.

On a quick shop at the Dollar store, we bought some light green foam sheets and then also found a darker green foam sheet. The darker green was sparkly and also had an adhesive backing.

On the lighter green foam sheet, we traced the outline of the turtle. We used a black felt pen, it smudged slightly but we were able to fix it by wiping it off with a damp paper towel. You can use a regular ball point pen if you prefer or even a pencil might work.

Now cut that turtle out.

Next on that other turtle that we printed, we cut out just the shell pieces. We had six of them.

Then we traced those onto our sparkly foam. To keep track of them all, we numbered them so that we knew where to put them when we attached them to the turtle.

After tracing them all, cut out all of the shell pieces.

Punch some black “eyes” from a black foam piece (you could also use googly eyes) and glue them on with a glue stick and then attach the the foam shell pieces to the turtle.

When that’s all complete, we grabbed some floral wire and pushed that through one of the legs. Then we twisted it like a chain (feel free to use a chain if you have one) and then attached the end to the key ring.

Write the name of your child on the back in felt pen and you’re done.