muu muu summer dress tutorial

We have entered the season of birthday parties. Henry's party a couple of weeks ago ushered us in, and we have a birthday party for 2-3 year olds nearly every weekend from now until June. Pray for me. I'm kidding (kind of).

This past weekend was a particularly special birthday shindig. Henry's girlfriend, Adalyn, turned three. Just look at these lovebirds. They will absolutely get married one day. It's a fact.

Well, a girl as special as Adalyn deserved an extra special present. And since we've decided to shut down the baby factory over here, there will be no little girls in this house to make dresses for. What do do with my giant stash of fabric? Obviously make a dress (or two) for Ady.

refined rustic or bright farmhouse: which would you choose?

The beautiful thing about my new gig as a stay at home momma is that I now have time to help all of those family and friends who have been hitting me up for design advice for the last 10 years, patiently waiting until I had some free time (which I never did). Well now I do!

The 'rents of one of my best gals from college have this ranch house south of Dallas. And when I say "ranch house" I don't mean like how I live in a ranch house. I mean a legit house on a ranch, roaming cattle and all.

They needed a bit of inspiration for their 90s bathroom. The rest of their home has been updated throughout the years and definitely fits with the ranching vibe. They want the bathroom to make sense with the rest of the house, but taken up a notch (or ten).

Here are the two concepts I dreamed up:

Refined Rustic

Textured stone, rich woods, antiqued metals, rustic touches. This is a space where you want to unwind at the end of a long day. The beauty of this space is in the natural materials. But instead of being literal or hokey (no longhorns up on these walls), it's been classed up a bit with clean sophisticated lines and contemporary touches.

Bright Farmhouse

Bright and cheerful, open and airy, with classic and industrial touches. This is the room that greets you like a breath of fresh air in the morning and energizes you to start your day.

Which would you choose?

For more inspiration and information on where to buy, check out the refined rustic and bright farmhouse boards on Pinterest.


You might also enjoy:

kim's living room

thar she blows! boys' bath update

why every piece can't be your favorite piece

house tour: part 2

jack & coke float

Ever had one of those days where having ice cream OR having a drink just wasn't going to cut it? Yeah, that's been about every day since Henry's 3rd birthday for me. People told me 3 was going to be a doozie, and boy, were they right. So I decided to reward myself for not eating my young.

I put my thinking cap on and came up with an idea. The most amazing idea that anyone has ever had EVER. Take my favorite drink and add it to (one of my) favorite dessert. 

Jack? Good. Coke? Good. Ice Cream? GOOD.

I'm not sure if this totally qualifies as a "recipe" since there are only 3 ingredients, but let's just go with it.

easy weeknight tomatillo chicken enchiladas and cilantro-lime rice

I love me some chicken enchiladas. And I mean looooooove. Texas girl, born and bread, it doesn't get any better than a spicy chicken enchilada smothered in cheese and sauce. 

My mouth just totally filled with saliva writing that sentence.

I've been determined for years to recreate restaurant style enchiladas at home. And you know what I found out? The reason they taste so much better at the restaurant is because they soften the tortillas in bubbling oil before they fill them. DUH, fat frying makes everything taste better. I made them like that once at home, and boy they were yummy, but I just don't have the energy to add the extra step of frying my tortillas one at a time to soften them before I roll them. Also, I could probably stand to save the calories.

I was marathon watching the Food Network one blissful day before I had children and stumbled upon Tyler Florence's Ultimate Chicken Enchilada recipe.

Pros-  No frying of tortillas. Amazingly delicious. 

Cons - Takes for flipping EVER. Make my own roasted tomatillo salsa? Ain't nobody got time for that (sorry, Tyler).


Since then it's been my personal mission to find a way to have enchiladas at home, without frying anything, and without sucking up my entire Sunday afternoon.

If this speaks to your heart (and stomach), then girlfriend (or boyfriend), this is the recipe for you. It's 4 steps, and can be done on a weekday. Arriba!

simple boy shorts tutorial

Yeah, I'll explain that photo in a bit.

Henry has quickly adapted to a stay at home lifestyle. He only wants to wear soft pants. We call them "comfies." It's the child's version of yoga pants.

In light of his new found love of fashion and since the temperatures are rising in Texas, I thought it was about time to sew this kid some shorts. I've never attempted boy clothes before, and I totally winged this project. That's how I roll.

I took a pair of last year's sleep shorts to use as a go-by and made a pattern. I enlarged the shorts to fit a now bigger child with a little bit of room to grow. The pattern is approximately a 4T and you can download it for free here. Feel free to make them longer or shorter or smaller or bigger based on a pair of your kid's shorts that fit well.

The goods:

• 1/2 yd of t-shirt knit fabric
• 3/4" elastic (I used fun colorful elastic because I wanted it exposed. Got it at JoAnn's). I needed 21" based on H's waistline
• Coordinating thread

the down and dirty guide to cleaning bathrooms FAST

I really don't like cleaning. I think everyone kind of feels that way, but I particularly despise it. If I won the lottery, the very first thing I would do once the check cleared would be to hire a cleaning service. It's just not my thing.

Which is why I have crafted cleaning systems to make it as quick and painless as possible while still being effective. And as far as bathroom cleaning goes, I have it down to a science. I can get all 2.5 of my bathrooms cleaned in 30 minutes flat. For those logistical people out there, I do the downstairs powder room first (5-10 minutes) and then both upstairs bathrooms at the same time (20 minutes). They are right next to each other and I have found it's more efficient to walk back and forth rather doing each step outlined below than cleaning each one from start to finish.

So if you are lazy like me and totally grossed out by cleaning bathrooms, you're going to need to clean them every week. Yes, I know this is the opposite of what you want to do, but trust me, the more often you do it, the faster and less disgusting it is. Bathrooms get gross fast, especially if you live in a house full of boys like I do + a wicked case of postpartum hair loss.

spice up your entry way

I love one-day DIY projects. I get the satisfaction of a job well done without having to give up an entire weekend (or more). This project definitely qualifies. 

If you saw the house tour, you may have noticed that our entry is a bit...drab. The double doors open onto a little landing that is at the crossroads of all of the downstairs traffic and our stairs. There is no room for a great console table/mirror combo that would make the space visually interesting. Just the front doors and a closet. No wow factor whatsoever. Oh, go ahead and ignore the super hero capes along the stairs. That's another project.

Enter last week's mini-makeover project. 

super hero cape tutorial

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Our house has been overtaken by super heroes. Henry is officially obsessed with all things super. So naturally when I asked him what kind of birthday party he wanted when he turned 3, it had to be Super Hero themed. 

Since I harbor a deep loathing for Party City - have you been in one of those? It's like a friggin' labyrinth in the seventh circle of Hades - we are having a homemade version. More akin to the Adam West style campy super heroes that I loved to watch on Nick at Night as a kid. By now you all know of my great love affair for all things 1960s. Sidebar, it just occurred to me that I may have subconsciously named my second born after Maxwell Smart, which also came on Nick at Night. Whoops. At least I didn't name him Joe Friday. 

At any rate, I wanted to come up with a party favor that: 

1. Didn't cost a ton of money. 
2. Wasn't made of cheap plastic that would break within moments of the kids leaving. 
3. If it didn't break by some miracle, wouldn't junk up my friends houses or be so loud that they all hated me. 

My solution: Super Hero capes for everyone!

You might think I'm moderately crazy for willingly volunteering to create upwards of a dozen custom capes. You may be right. Only time will tell. But I will say that they are super easy, and fast, and you only need the most basic of sewing skills. 

To the bat cave! I mean, sewing table. 

how to throw an awesome super hero party

After a month or so of prep, the big party went down this weekend. And I do mean big. At the end of the day, we had almost 40 people attend. I think I was trying to make up for the moderately pitiful 2nd birthday party Henry had last year. We were slightly homeless, staying with friends, until we closed on our current house...the day after Henry's 2nd birthday. We had a teeny tiny "party" which consisted of one guest and an ugly homemade cake with a plastic fire truck on it.

So this year, I went BIG.

I also have a pretty well known hatred for Party City, so I wanted to include as many handmade touches as possible. Mostly, because I have fun doing it. Also because it tends to be WAY cheaper.

Here's how it went down.

having it all was too much

First off, let me say that I am beyond amazed that so many of you tune into my little blog each week. My goal when I launched was to have 10 readers in the first month. Not quite 2 months in and simplyCRAFTED has passed 6,000 hits. 6,000 times someone has thought, "huh. this might be more interesting than whatever else I'm doing right now." It's humbling and I am so very grateful. Many of you have reached out through email, Facebook, phone, and even good o'l face to face conversations to tell me about how you can relate or are going through something similar to what I'm babbling about. 

I think what strikes a chord with so many of you is this epic, ongoing struggle of trying to cram everything into our lives and just not having enough time (or energy) to do it. For me, it was the pull between doing the creative work that I love vs. spending time with my family (whom I of course also love). For some of you, it may be the same age old work/life balance dilemma. For others it might be the desire to follow your own dreams vs. what others expect of you. And there are countless other combinations that I don't know about.

Whatever the reason, we all have a deep seeded need to live a fulfilling life, to find and live out our purpose, and also to pay the bills (minor detail) which drives most of us to overcommitt and over stretch ourselves to try and squeeze it all in - sometimes to the breaking point.

coffee cake muffins with vanilla cinnamon sugar topping

I've posted about 5 recipes on the blog so far. 2 of them have been muffins.

I'll stop posting about muffins when they stop being delicious.

thar she blows! boys' bath update

DIY season continues at Casa de Lenney. Next on the hit list - the boys' upstairs bath. You may remember from our house tour: part 2 that this is the only upstairs room that we haven't really touched.  This room serves as the kiddo's bath and a guest bath, so it needs to be fun for the little dudes but not over the top childish for visiting grown ups.

This bathroom has a few things going for it. It's not horribly small, the tile is basic white (no crazy pink tiles to try to battle with), and it has a skylight over the tub, so the room is bathed in natural light most of the day. Since the major surfaces are white tile (floor, tub surround, and vanity) and there's ample daylight, we can do some bolder colors in here and the room can totally handle it.

Here's what we're thinking at the moment (and some of these are freebies!):

oh yes, wait a minute mr. postman

The weather has turned, and it's DIY season in Texas. We moved into this house nearly a year ago, and as I mentioned in the house tour post, curb appeal was not what drew us here. Boring ranch. Beige on peach on beige, and in need of a major update. I was 2 months pregnant and pretty consumed with unpacking/nesting/travel for work/short bout of bed rest/nausea/toddler tantrums/exhaustion, so strangely enough, didn't make it to updating the exterior of the house. The outside hasn't seen anything more than basic maintenance (from the hubs) since we moved in. 

But no more! We don't have a ton of money to spend out front, so we starred with a seemingly small but packed-a-punch update with the mailbox. It's the first thing you see as you drive up, and, well....

Yeah. It was leaning really badly. So that was the first item to fix, followed by painting, staining, and planting. Here's how we did it. 

DIY tent + nap mat

A reader recently asked me how I created the A-frame tent in H's room from the house tour:part 2 post last month, so I'm going to share that along with the how-to on the matching nap mat. That's two..two..two tutorials in one (post)!

How the fabric for both came into our lives is a pretty interesting story. Remember the huge Missoni for Target craze? Well, some poor Dallasite must have gotten a bit carried away and bought a matching Missoni duvet, pillows, shams, and curtains. That's a whole lotta zigzag for one room. They obviously realized this and returned it all after the fad died out. I found it all on a clearance end cap, but with no bar code or price tag. The cashier couldn't find a price for it and asked, "would you take it for $10?"  Um, YES. A queen sized duvet for $10?! Perfect. I used one side for the tent and nap mat, and there was enough left over to make a sweet table runner. The back fabric will make it's debut appearance at Henry's third birthday party. Stay tuned. 

If there was no photographic evidence, I'd never believe Henry was ever that little. Or bald.