green chile and chipotle tortilla roll ups recipe

You know those amazing recipes from childhood that you just know by heart? The kind that aren't written down anywhere but are etched deeply into your brain? This is one of those.

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made these tortilla roll ups. Some folks call these "pinwheels." They are a fantastic party appetizer. A real crowd pleaser. And they are sooooooo simple and take just a few ingredients.

I of course couldn't leave well enough alone, though, so I added a special spicy ingredient.

tooth fairy pillow DIY - Star Wars style

My friend Jenny from high school reached out to me last week with an interesting request. Her oldest son, Dylan, was about to lose his first tooth. He is a very light sleeper, so the traditional tooth fairy method of sneaking into his room and slipping money from under his precious little head just wasn't going to work for them. Her request was for a tooth fairy pillow to hang on the door knob. Brilliant.

She said that he likes red, blue, yellow, and Star Wars, and left the rest up to me. Then creativity immediately struck.

Storm Toother!

(see what I did there?)

sunday stitch vol. 15 - sittin' on top of the world

It's finished! It's finally finished!

Talk about a labor of love. This, my friends, is Max's baby quilt.

Baby quilt? But doesn't he turn 1 in a few weeks?

Yes. Thanks for pointing that out. 

My sweet baby Max turns 1 in November, and I managed to squeak this baby quilt in while he is still technically a baby. I saw this quilt pattern in the book Let's Sew Together, and fell madly in love. It was the entire reason I bought the book. Thus far I've used the patterns in the book to make this robot and this rag doll, but the world map quilt is my masterpiece.

A few helpful notes on this pattern if you are wanting to undertake this project:

time to simplify (again)

Simplify has been my mantra for 2014 (hence the blog name simply crafted). We did a HUGE purge of stuff back in January. Our entire guest room was filled to the brim with clothes, shoes, knick knacs, and who knows what else. We had just moved into this house 8 months before and purged then. And now it's time to purge again.

Where does all this stuff come from?

About twice a year I find myself stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in our house. More stuff = more stress = more things to clean and put away = less time for the fun stuff.

This most recent urge to purge was brought on by two things:

My closet. I wear the same things over and over. I "never have anything to wear." Except that I do. Maryam over at hi-and-hello posted recently about her capsule wardrobe experiment, and that was the last push I needed. More on this later.

All the toys. This is a touchy subject. I'm grateful that my boys have toys and things to play with. I'm grateful for the loved ones who have purchased them for us and all of the love and kind feelings behind them. But it's a continual source of stress and fighting. The 3 year old doesn't want to clean them up. Ever. I don't want to look at a messy play room that overflows into every other area of our house. And I really don't want to be the mean o'l mom that's constantly nagging about cleaning up.

Our home should be a source of calm and peace. Not stuff and stress. I feel like I spend 80% of my life just moving sh*t around from where it's ended up to where it needs to go. Maybe I'm becoming a minimalist. Probably not, but something closer to it would be nice.

Also, I worry about my kids not valuing what they have. There is little need to care for their belongings because there are just so many things. If something gets broken, who cares? There's 100 other toys to replace it.

In the last few weeks I've taken 4 Rubbermaid tubs full of toys to the garage. Henry has yet to notice. That's how much stuff he has.

I'll share more as both of these projects unfold. I hope to have all of this under control before the holidays hit and the next influx of stuff happens (Lord help us). Any helpful wardrobe ideologies or toy control tactics to share?

COULD I INTEREST YOU IN...

the things we do for beauty

the down and dirty guide to cleaning bathrooms FAST

on getting locked out, petty theft, the power of social media, and the kindness of strangers

who here likes cleaning? oh right. nobody.

sunday stitch vol. 14: hound dog is the new sock monkey

Earlier in the week I shared with you how I whipped up a fox costume for the big kid. This costume smokes that one in the speed department, clocking in at a mere 15 minutes.

Well, to be truthful, I had a bit of a head start.

2 Halloweens ago, I made Henry a sock monkey costume. And it was amazing. Sorry for the blurry photo. It was 2012 and I only had an iPhone 4 or something.

I used this tutorial, in case you want to make your own. It uses actual socks, all pieced together. A labor of love.

Cute as it was, this Halloween Henry decided that he would be The Fox and Max would be The Hound. I like making their costumes by hand, so my plan was to find a brown long sleeved onesie and brown hat to transform into a dog costume. Much like my fruitless search for orange tights for Henry, I came up disappointed.

But then, light bulb moment. A hound dog looks remarkably like a sock monkey. It just has longer ears.

BINGO.

I pulled the monkey costume from the closet and began the transformation. I removed the red patch on the bottom with my seam ripper (lest people think a hunter shot the poor dog or that he had mange or something) and removed the red pom pom from the hat. I saved them, but I'm really not sure why. Just in case, I guess?

I cut 2 dog ear shapes from brown felt, folded the monkey ears down, and top stitched to secure. Done and DONE.

These two little guys are going to be pretty darn cute on Halloween. That is, if Max keeps the hat on and Henry keeps the mask on. Otherwise they'll just be kids in brown and orange outfits and look like they have a mom that didn't try. That's really the more likely scenario. Whatever. As long as they get plenty of Snickers for me to steal.

I promise I did not ask Max to pant like a dog for the photos. He did that all on his own. He's a method actor.

Got your costumes ready? I'd love to see pictures if you whip anything up for your kids or yourselves! Post them to Simply Crafted's Facebook page.

Be sure to check out other fun sewing projects over at hi and hello.

 


YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY:

simply crafted fantastic fox costume

sunday stitch vol. 13: all hallow's leggings

cowboy vest tutorial

super hero cape tutorial