LydMc

The Sushiwoks are back and puffier than ever! Today is a very special day for the LydMc blog: it is officially the One Year Anniversary of the first blog post! Huzzah!! One whole year of delightful, nerdy, and often delicious forays into creativity!  In honor of this momentous occasion, I would like to celebrate with a craft inspired by the blog that started it all: The Sushiwoks! Yub nub! Not only were these Star Wars themed appetizers the first post on the LydMc blog, they were also the ones that put it on the map. Thanks to the awesome sharing of fellow nerds, cooks, and craftspeople (thanks, all!), the sushiwoks started making the internet rounds and page views climbed to the hundreds.  And then, one fine day when I just so happened to get my wisdom teeth out, I sit down on the couch to recover and see the views have jumped to the thousands! As it turned out, ThinkGeek posted the sushiwoks (sushi ewoks) on Facebook making the blog go viral,...

Celebrate Good News! If you're wondering why the LydMc blog updates have been a bit on the slow side recently, the causes are many-fold. Some are good, some are bad, and some are awesome. One of the awesome reasons is my latest job (nearly 8 months in now!) at Zoom.  Zoom, a newspaper/magazine hybrid with all sorts of great things going for it, is a community publication that showcases and celebrates the good that goes on in our local areas. Fundraisers, marathons, scout projects, you name it. If it's positive, Zoom is likely to cover it. As Associate Editor at Zoom, I get to process a lot of these events and even write a few of the articles. It's always exciting to hear why people are so passionate about the various causes they support, and it makes me grateful to have a job where I can help share their stories and spread their positive inspiration with others. So instead of a typical blog this week, here are links to a few of the features I've written for...

Happy Halloween! Nothing makes a party quite like a character cutout board. Sticking your head through a wooden mural to become someone else is especially advantageous for Halloween - instant costume!  My friend Erin had the brilliant idea of making a Peanuts themed one of these for the harvest festival her church was hosting this year,  but she needed a little help pulling it off. Hmm, did I hear someone say project? I'm in! Tabula Rasa From the very start, our materials for this project came together quite nicely. For instance, our canvas was actually the back of an 8' x 4' wooden board used previously by the church for a sign. For our purposes, we simply flipped it over and got to work sketching out our ideas on the back. You're a good reference, Charlie Brown. As for the art, we chose to paint the famed cast of Peanuts by Charles Schulz chilling in a pumpkin patch. Specifically, we had Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Sally and Linus (complete with ...

Ring ding ding ding ding ding ding! October is a special time of year for many reasons - autumn colors, pumpkin-flavored everything  and, of course, jack-o-lanterns! Carving your very own pumpkin is a fun and creative task in and of itself, but it doesn't have to end there. Indeed, what about the pumpkin's insides? No need to throw those delicious seeds out, try roasting them for a tasty and healthy snack! Or even better... try making a tasty and slightly less healthy twist on the classic - kettle seeds!  The Great Pumpkin First things first, to make an epic jack-o-lantern and your delicious roasted pumpkin seeds, you need a pumpkin. I chose this 18 pound beauty seen above. After selecting your prize pumpkin, it's time to gather your tools and prepare for battle. I like a classic bluntly serrated pumpkin knife for general carving, a sharper knife for detail work and a pencil for sketching my design. The toothpicks are for later. The pumpkin's maw. A n...

Yellow Sports Car!! One of the best things about getting a new car is picking out its name. New or used, a good name can give any car character for all your adventures to come. While not everybody bothers to dub their vehicle, it's really quite simple. Got a bright blue car? Call it the Tardis. Have a Mercury? Name it Freddie. A bright yellow sports car as seen above? Mine! Well, not yet, but I can enjoy what I've got in the meantime. Ninja Yellow Sports Car! When I first came into this shiny, black coupe, it had already had a few adventures of its own, and a few dents to prove it. It was a sporty little thing, complete with spoiler, sunroof, snazzy rims, darkened windows and a general aura of awesomeness, and it didn't take long for me to realize the proper name for this super car. Da na na na na na na na... Batmobile! That's right, the BATMOBILE. Indeed, the title took so well that my brother even gave me a large, stuffed Batman to be the car's ...