Editor's note: For our last week at Style Lush, I've asked the writers to share both a favorite post by another writer, from over the last three years, and a favorite post of their own. You'll see these posts linked to at the top of their new post for the week. Enjoy a stroll down Lush memory lane! By Jen As much as I wish Style Lush were not closing down, it is, so I'd like to share my favorite posts with you. First, one of mine. The first post that came to mind was the one I wrote about... Continue reading

By Jen We have two dogs that live in our house. Both are crate trained (thank goodness) so when we leave the house, we put them away in their nice little houses and they stay there until we get back. However, this also means that I have two giant dog crates in my house. One is in the laundry room and the other one is in our upstairs closet. They take up a lot of space. I’ve always ended up piling things on top of them, but being made out of wire, that doesn’t really work very well. It occurred... Continue reading

By Jen I'm back! Now be honest, did you even notice I was gone? Pretend that you did, okay? Anyway, this is what I have been doing: {All pictures in this post are mine.} That's Ryan, he has crazy eyes. (No, really. Follow me on Instagram, I do a Crazy Eyes Picture of the Day because he really does have crazy eyes.) Anyway, since this is my first post back from maternity leave, I thought I'd show you the new nursery. Here's his dresser with a changing pad on top. I got the letters from a craft store and painted... Continue reading

By Jen I’m on the lookout for a better kitchen booster seat. We have one that I spent somewhere around $15 or $20 on at Walmart or Target and I am not a huge fan. It’s this one. See that crack between the seat and the back of the seat? That’s where the seat snaps together so that it fits in a smaller box for shipping. And that’s where the seat snaps apart every time a kid leans back in it, even a moderate amount. So I basically have to reattach the seat back every single time we use it.... Continue reading

By Jen I adore shopping on Etsy. I love that my purchases support a person instead of going to a large corporation. We have gotten some absolutely adorable things on Etsy that aren’t available anywhere else. See also: my daughter in her must have “Lilo” dress for a movie that came out in 2002 and without any commercially available costumes. (Image credit: Me. Dress credit: Mommaloha) Often times, you can find lovely deals on Etsy and spend less than you would at a big box store. But other times, things on Etsy are more expensive. They aren’t made in bulk... Continue reading

By Jen A friend of mine recently asked on Facebook for app recommendations for her toddler, since they were about to go on a trip. I recommended the Sandra Boynton apps (all apps clickable from the lower right of that link). (Image credit: screenshot from my phone of Moo, Baa, LaLaLa) I am a huge fan of Sandra Boynton’s books. The apps are basically the books, being read aloud, but they are now animated and interactive. For example, when the three singing pigs say La La La, you (well, technically your child, but stop pretending you aren’t going to play... Continue reading

By Jen (Photo by me) This is my dining room table. My mom made the table runner for me out of the bridesmaid dress that my sister wore in my wedding. (I shall pause while you all say “awwww!”) Anyway, I am looking for a centerpiece to go in the middle of the table runner. After much consideration, I think I’ve decided on a Zen Garden. Obviously, not a full size outside one, but one of the small, inside a small tray type. After I find an appropriate tray, it ought to be pretty easy to put together myself. Things... Continue reading

By Jen Emily just posted about her favorite stain remover. I’d like to add a suggestion to that post that seems incredibly simple, but I didn’t think of it myself until I had been doing a lot of laundry for years and years. If you have to stain treat something with a stain stick, treat the fabric from both sides. Rub it on the stain on the outside of the garment, then turn it inside out, and hit up in the inside. I find that the stain is visible from both sides almost all of the time (particularly on greasy... Continue reading

By Jen I know we've discussed underwear before on Style Lush, but I am having an underwear problem and I am hoping some of our genius readers can help. I have two main problems: A) Sensitive skin and B) Extreme cheapness. I last bought underwear when I was in college (I know!) and that was something like twelve years ago (I KNOW!) I had less actual money then but also a lot fewer places to spend it, so I went to Victoria Secret and bought basically every pattern they sold. This was great and it lasted me until now. (Well,... Continue reading

By Jen On a whim, I recently downloaded the Duck Duck Moose app Princess Fairy Tale Maker for my three year old. {Image from iTunes} Obviously, this is an app that is going to appeal to girls more than boys, but my daughter is in love. Basically, this app acts kind of like a giant sticker book. There are tons of different characters and backgrounds and you can use it to design your own stories. The characters can be moved around, reversed, and have their size changed. You can also manipulate the pictures by coloring and special effects. (The one... Continue reading

By Jen I am not a huge fan of plastic in general and I don't really like it around food. So last summer, I purchased a couple of LunchBots Stainless Steel Containers for our picnic lunches. (Image from LunchBots) I am a pretty big fan of these. They have worked perfectly for our picnic lunches in the park and have held up beautifully since last year. We have the LunchBot Duo Orange (the one in the picture) and the Eco Green, the larger one. If I had unlimited money, I would buy lots more of these, and even without unlimited... Continue reading

By Jen Like Kristie posted about a while back, my family has been using Dr Bronner's castile soap for years. The bottles last forever (I think we are on bottle three in about three years of using it) and it works on everything. I use in in every bathroom and in the kitchen for hands, dishes, and counter-tops. Basically, if it needs soap, in our house it is this soap. The only thing I don't like about it is that it really works best if used in a foaming hand soap dispenser. And those aren't exactly prevalent, except for the... Continue reading

By Jen I desperately need new kitchen towels. My current ones are kind of embarassing. The only problem is that I can never find any that I like and I am not ever motivated enough to look very hard. (Photo from Williams-Sonoma) My main problem is that I want a towel that is both nice looking and functional and most afforable towels seem to be either one or the other. I want them to be absorbant right away, instead of when they are years old, faded and torn. Have you found the perfect kitchen towel and where can I get... Continue reading

By Jen I usually tell people I live in Atlanta when they ask. But honestly, I live much closer to the Alabama border than I do to Atlanta proper. In other words, I live out in the middle of nowhere. It's a very suburban middle of nowhere. My little town is called Villa Rica. (And pay close attention -- you pronounce that as if you have never even heard of the Spanish language. It's VIL-A RICK-A. It took me a whole month to pronounce it the local way when we first moved here.) My town was founded during Georgia's gold... Continue reading

By Jen Have you seen the iTSO Storage System at Target? (Photo from Target.com) It is a cube system, just like most of the other storage systems out there today. But this one is sold in separate, single cubes that snap together, so it is fully customizable. The actual cubes are plastic, instead of wood, so they aren't as nice looking as I like to have in my main house. But the bins that fit inside the cubes are the best I've seen anywhere. They are far sturdier than the normal fabric bins. They are made of a very tough... Continue reading

By Jen So, I am in the process of decorating a nursery at the moment. And since the path to this baby was a rather long, bumpy road, I have pretty much been decorating this nursery in my head for the last two years. I do have an older daughter, but we didn't have a nursery for her and just stuck her crib in our room. Now that we live in a different house, I have a dedicated room for a nursery before the baby even gets here. Basically, what this boils down to is that I have been obsessing... Continue reading

By Jen A'Dell wrote about her water table last year on Style Lush, but I think that water tables are such a spectacular summer staple that they need mentioning again. We bought a water table this year and it is one of the few things my three year old will play with for hours at a time. Not only that, but she will do nearly anything to be permitted water table time. Did you hear that? It is good for bribes! We have a simple store bought table that I am quite pleased with. (Photo from Toys R Us) But... Continue reading

By Jen (Photo from allaboutcleaners.com) I have a really bad habit of doing the laundry and then letting a clean load just sit there in the dryer until I am properly motivated to put it away. That's not just me, right? Anyway, that clean load gets all wrinkled and I sometimes end up washing things again so that I can avoid ironing them. (I, um, do not iron. Pretty much ever.) About a year ago, I came up with an idea to try to avoid this. We normally have about three loads of clothing laundry a week, on average. Two... Continue reading

By Jen Like Jonna said when she wrote her toilet seat post, for a certain audience, this is going to be awesome. The rest of you won't care at all. My daughter is really tall for her age, but she's still only three years old. So she cannot reach the top of the towel rack in the bathroom where the hand towels are. She can reach the bottom of the towels. So when she needs to dry her hands, she pulls the towels down. And then obviously cannot put them back up herself. I solved this by buying her a... Continue reading

By Jen There has been a lot of talk lately about chalkboard paint and how glorious it is for labeling things. I totally agree and I have used it in my own house. However, sometimes I don't want to put paint on something permanently. So imagine my delight when I discovered chalkboard Contact Paper. (Photo from: Amazon.com) It works like regular contact paper, so you can remove it or readjust it. You can also cut it out in any shape you'd like. I borrowed a scrapbooking punch from a friend and punched dozens of little scalloped circles out of mine.... Continue reading

By Jen Since I told you about a toy I hate last week, it only seemed fair to show you a toy we love this week. We recently purchased a Melissa & Doug Magnetic Dress Up Set. My three year old loves it. Basically, it is a set of paper dolls, only instead of being paper that wrinkles and tears, the dolls and clothes are made out of wood. And instead of those little flimsy paper tabs that you fold over the doll, the wood is backed with magnets, so the clothes go on nicely and stay on well. It's... Continue reading

By Jen My daughter has these tiny little princess dolls that come with stretchy plastic clothes. In theory, it is a great idea- plastic clothes that you can change! Different tiny outfits! But in reality, it is awful. The clothes do stretch, but they also snap and break. The dolls have these tiny little arms that bend very easily, which means that trying to force them into a sticky dress arm is almost impossible. My three year old cannot get most of the clothes on herself, but she almost can, so she keeps trying and ends up in tears of... Continue reading