I've had a Star Wars kind of year. Having made the choice to turn our house into Endor for an Ewok birthday party, I undertook the misguided task of designing and sewing 25 plush Ewok dolls, and a handful of light sabers that are now so beat up they look like limp noodles. My best creation was the Yoda pillow that I made Jasper, I have to say that one was something (it's hard to make a pillow look like a 900 year old man).
Read MoreI used to have an office. I had to give it up in order to house a child, so I guess it went to a good cause. I kept a desk in our living room for the past year and it caused a fair amount of design dithering, shifting art, moving furniture, hand wringing, hemming and hawing. It finally occurred to me what I was missing was having my own room, not a bedroom, I like to share that, but a Don Draper style office to retreat to (minus the creepy locked drawer).
Read MoreWhen I was working on Saturdays I used to get up and make pancakes for my little guy so that we could have some special time before I left for the day. It was our thing. Here's our family's Oatmeal Pancake recipe, best eaten outside in your jammies with a little Nick Drake.
Read MoreAbout ten years ago I walked into the San Francisco Anthropologie and looked up at a ray of fabric buttterflies stretching across their top floor ceiling. Some short time later, I gathered the materials and made a smaller scale version for my apartment. Now their clothes and accessories are coveted by just about every girl I know, but my favorite thing about Anthropologie is the the ambiance, the way you can feel the warm scent from the burning candles, the day dreamy music, and the hand crafted art installations they call visual merchandising. They sell all sorts of fancy and unattainable things, but the store is full of pieces constructed out of paper and wire and rope meant to feel that way. I have this smart and stylish friend named Valerie, who recently posted a link to a beautiful Rhodadendron chandelier from Anthropologie and it got me thinking...it's been a while.
Read MoreIt was a windy drive down Hwy 1 with two impatient passengers, but once we arrived at the center of town and got out of the car time seemed to stop. There's a fantastic general store with an attached cafe that opens onto an expansive lawn. It just so happened that day the lawn was also home to a 70's rock jam band; this was not lost on me. We sat and ate our too big sandwiches(I may have had a glass of white wine)and enjoyed the scene before pushing off to the berry patches down the road. The place we go to has both olallieberries and strawberries ripe for the picking. With a little instruction the kids were off, although my younger son spent the majority of our time there eating fruit off the plants. Four buckets and one very stained shirt later we'd had ourselves a day. Jam is in the works.
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.
