I've owned an electric ice cream maker for about 7 years and I've never turned the thing on. The reason it sits idle is that when it comes to making ice cream, we prefer to get our hands dirty. My always creative mother-in-law decided to have her guests make their own ice cream using coffee cans at a party she hosted and now it's a summer time staple for our family.
Read MoreWhen I considered the name of this blog* I thought about the fact that it meant a few things. To "make do" is to find a way to get by with what you have and to do that you sometimes need to be creative and sometimes you have to plan ahead. It also sets the two categories of post "make" and "do".
Read MoreI wanted to make an outdoor play space for our kids. We don't have a sprawling lawn, in fact our backyard is a eucalyptus grove, and hilly. Inspired by the architecture of some of the houses around us in the canyon, I came up with the idea of a German style A-Frame. It needed to be water tight, and we needed to keep the wildlife out so I decided to make the roof out of green house corrugated sheets, alternating clear and opaque. I had to dust off my math skills, and of course get some help constructing it from someone who knew how to build structures (Ben Jennings), but it turned out to be a 4 hour project and well worth the money $285 (comparable kits out there are upwards of $1000). When we thought about it, if you doubled it in size adults could actually sleep in it. We added a hanging chair to one of the adjacent trees, and have grand plans of putting an old playground slide into the hill and maybe even a covered sandbox. For now we have a space for the kids to hide, swing and do their thing.
Read MoreIt's pretty cliche that I tell my hair dresser things I won't tell my best friend, I know that. On my most recent visit I confessed my near complete boredom with being "a mommy", yes I said it, and how I wish I could spend more time being creative, you know "like a job" (side note, I do have a creative job). She pretty much insisted that I write this. I know I have to make a choice, put it out there or don't. I've definitely resisted blogging in the past because I thought it was self indulgent or worse, braggy, or even worse, some sort of public therapy, but worst of all I suppose I'm afraid I'm too lazy to commit. In any case, this is about the things I make and do.
Read MoreMake + Haus is the new name and online home for the blog Poppy Haus. Established in 2011, the blog archive now contains hundreds of original design projects and whole food recipes, many featured on the likes of Apartment Therapy, Martha Stewart, Design*Sponge, Curbly, and Epicurious.
