Man Made DIY

Shanghai-based multidisciplinary design studio Super Nature created this (very merry) art installation called Weaving Forest for the Detour 2011 festival in Hong Kong. The installation consists of two giant wooden reindeer sculptures and a series of smaller structures connected by long strings of yarn.   … read more

Last March, while visiting friends in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, my friend casually remarked, under his breath, with a bit of scorn, "Oh, and there's the A Christmas Story house." 

"Excuse me? Did you say the Christmas Story house?"

"Yeah," he replied, "people actually line up to go there."

"You mean, you can actually line up to go there? And see it?" 

People have different priorities, I guess. But I knew my gift to myself (well, to my relationship) come December was determined, and last weekend I went. And it was incredible. 

Couple that with some very freshly fallen snow, and a very, very good meal at a Michael Symon restaurant, and a Christmas day in Cleveland is about as festive as it gets.

Wanna see what it looks like? Good deal. Take a peak:

CGP Grey, the clever guy who brought us "What Are Continents and How Many Are There?" and "What is Daylight Savings Time and Why Do We Observe It?' sets his sights on St. Nick, exploring a brief history of Santa Claus, or rather Father Christmas and St. Nicholas, and the amalgamation they begat.

Click play to watch this fascinating video. It's three minutes very well spent:   … read more

I love a seasonal beer. My first question upon sitting down at any pub or restaurant is always, "What are your current seasonals on tap." Often, it's the only way to try something new in all but the most beer-centric of establishments.

Well, except for the winter. I'll try nearly anything in the fall, do my best to get in all the summer seasonals I can, but until a few years ago, I tended to stick with the year-round standards. Perhaps its just cause it's twenty degrees out, but I tend to find most Christmas-y beers a bit too...Christmas-y. First, nearly all winter seasonals are ales (as that's when those yeasts could traditionally ferment), and most American microbrews really, really pile on the hops, which I find to be unbalanced. And secondly, "Christmas ales" are seriously spiced, like a cookie, and I tend to appreciate a beer that tastes like beer, not gingerbread.

The stockings are hung, the plums are sugared, and you're well on your way to getting all those gifts wrapped. Now it's time for the real fun to begin, and by "real fun," I mean...cookies. 

Of course, "Cookie recipes are just about infinite, because almost anything can be shaped into a circle and baked... But the basic cookie contains three key ingredients: butter, flour and sugar. That combination has not been bettered, and it can be varied in so many ways that, really, it’s the only recipe you need.… read more

Okay, jingle bell-ers, you've got a week left. The tree is up, the presents purchased, and the fire aglow. Now, its on the really good stuff - cookie baking, gift wrapping, and watching the good Christmas movies.

And, of course, putting the final touches on the decorations. For this week is the week of adding just that extra bit of festiveness to your space. So, while you're munching candy canes, cracking up at Cousin Eddie's dickie, grab a pair of scissors, and add some comfort and joy to your spot with these easy paper craft Christmas projects.

At this point, if you haven't got your big, juicy gifts figured out, you're likely a little behind. Because now? Now is the time for the really fun stuff - the little, fun, often silly and preferably candy-based gifts you use to flesh out your giving...the stocking stuffers!

And if you're looking to break out of the M&M candy cane and new toothbrush tradition,… read more

Like Bit-O-Honey around Halloween and Peeps on Easter, egg nog is the polarizing treat of the winter holiday season. People that like it like it, but people that hate it...well, hate it.

And for the first twenty-seven years of my life, I was one of 'em. A most hating of haters. Even the smell of egg nog was enough to shrink my Christmas spirits to three sizes too small. 

But then I realized:  … read more

My friend Brittni maintains an amazing handmade marketplace and blog called papernstitch, and while I regularly appreciate her updates and the amazing artisinal objects, the picks are unabashedly, well, girly.

Except for this week, where Brittni's prepared a great collection of handmade and independently produce gifts for guys.   … read more

Dear friends -

Last holiday season (ManMade's first Christmas!), I created a mix of some of my favorite "alternative" Christmas songs, and it was a decidely huge hit with readers. The emails asking for another this year began in October, so seeing as it's the season for giving, my gift to you: the ManMade 2011 Modern Rock Holiday Mixtape!

Over the past few years, I've sorta developed an obsessive hobby of trying to find non-Andy Williams or Nat King Cole Christmas songs to soundtrack the kind of holiday that I've come to love as an adult. I've now got a collection of almost 600 (thirty-five hours worth) of holiday and winter songs by indie and modern rock artists, as well as a few classics that get ignored by soft rock stations, that have come to sound like Christmas to me. I've assembled a free playlist of some of my favorites; just click the play button below and settle in for a long winter's rocking out!  … read more

Buying gifts for food people and home chefs can be a, uh, double-edged fork. On the one hand, there are endless kitchen gadgets and tools our there to play with, but on the other, passionate home cooks are likely to already have lots of the standards.

So, with that in mind, the brilliant food minds of America's Test Kitchen offer this great list of essentials, perfect for stocking gifts, as they all clock in at under $50.   … read more

I love discovering new cocktail recipes, and unique ways to coax different, unique flavors with classic spirits.

But, these days, discovering "new cocktails" on the internet usually means "new fandangled drinks that use a bunch of specialty liqueurs and spirits you don't have and aren't gonna buy a whole bottle of to try a new drink."

So, with that in mind, I decided to come up with five tasty, holiday-ish cocktails using stuff you can find in an average liquor cabinet. Of course, that varies from home to home, but these stick to spirits you've heard of, I promise. Plus, each features a bit of festive pomegranate flavor courtesy of our homemade grenadine recipe.

These'll work for Christmas, New Year's Eve, and, frankly speaking, Tuesday afternoons if you're feeling festive. These are all tested and approved recipes from the ManMade kitchens and friends...that was a fun day at the office.

Shall we?

Pop quiz! What is grenadine?

Until a few years ago, I woulda said, "Um...it's that cherry stuff they put in my lemon-lime soda as a kid."

And I would have been wrong.

See, the "grenad-" in grenadine, and the "grenad-" in grenade are actually the same etymological root, and refer to a fruit that has little to do with cherries:… read more

The holiday season is full of awesome seasonal sounds - Phil Spector/The Ronette's perfect version of Sleigh Ride, plenty of Darlene Love, and the whole of ManMade's modern holiday mixtape. (2011 edition coming this week!)

But it also means the less-desirable holiday music...the schmaltz, the breathy vocals, the Josh Groban.    … read more

The clever Michele of Michele Made Me shows you how to cut these intricate, colorful snowflake, created from something we all have way too much of already...   … read more

There's only one thing better than getting a nice, tall stack of gifts...getting a nice, tall stack of cheeseburgerly wrapped gifts. The project is the first effort of Gift Couture,… read more

While there are plenty of cool, affordable tech gifts to give your friends and family this season, there are a few you should avoid. Cause they're bad. Like, worse than coal.   … read more

Design überblog Core77 are sharing their holiday shopping recommendations, featuring, not what else?, seventy-seven creative tools and design gifts for makers and artists.   … read more

Last season, artist Chris McVeigh offered plans for a very fine LEGO Death Star ornament, and this year, he continues the cheer with the Millenium Falcon!   … read more

Heads up, cool kids: Math is way hip. Particularly, geometry, facets, and gem shapes have been everywhere designy for the last two years, and there's no reason the holidays shouldn't be included in the trend.

Case in point: this geometric garland. It looks nice and handmade, is holiday-neutral, and the colors are winter-y enough that you could leave it up through February.