udandi — Cincinnati blog with crafts, recipes, DIY, home improvement projects and more!

Year of the Water Dragon

by Andi on January 24, 2012

Sunday in preparation for the Chinese New Year, I cleaned out my kitchen cupboard and freezer and made food with what I had on hand.

I came up with cream of chicken and wild rice soup, which is my most favorite soup and the most visited post on this blog thanks to being a copycat of Paneras. But actually having met there recently for business, I can say this recipe is better and so taking the time to make even if you only do it once a winter.

For whatever reason I had 1 1/2 bags of marshmallows and 8 cups of Rice Krispies so I made half chocolate Krispie treats and half regular. I’d like to claim I eat healthy, but once you read that soup recipe you’ll see that’s not true and I like having a little sweet at the end of my lunch. Honey on my yogurt or a clementine doesn’t cut it.

I also made a creamy spinach and artichoke dip, which is different than one I’ve previously posted so I should photograph it and post it.

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Recap: Startup Weekend Northern Kentucky

by Andi on January 16, 2012

in projects

I attended Startup Weekend and I got more than this t-shirt.

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

Although my undergraduate degree is Public Relations, I’m now a librarian and do not spend long periods of time with developers or designers so this was a step out of my career zone. I wanted to attend because I have an interest in entrepreneurship and was curious to try something new. I signed up not knowing anyone else attending, but that never deters me and once I arrived I started seeing familiar faces.

During dinner, I met a developer who later pitched his idea. It was voted as one of the top ideas and since the other two I voted for were not selected, I decided to join his team. We ended up having a 10-person team of developers, user interface guy, a designer and the rest like me were not developers or designers.

BuyAppt, is a service that brokers last minute cancelled appointments between customers and hair stylists in order to keep the stylists’ schedule full. While many solutions exist for booking appointments, we could not find one that offers a way to alert customers of last minute openings creating income, not a break, for the stylists.

While our team did not win, place in the top three or become the community favorite, it was an excellent experience. I highly encourage anyone, who has an interest in an event like this to do it. Like so many things in life, you get out of it, what you put into it. I look forward to following the progress of all teams and crossing paths with my teammates and other participants.

If you’re ready to sign up, the next Startup Weekend in the area is Columbus February 17-19 or if you are a Miami University student theirs is the same weekend.

The winner was Dramaville, a game where users run PR Firms, manage celebrity clients and collect Dramapoints. With the success of games like Farmville and Cityville it is easy to understand why this stood out.

The runners-up were RightingStyle and Nudge. RightStyle is Klout for blog posts using a algorithm to create a score of your blog. Nudge sends random reminders to do something good. In the live demo, someone was nudged (sent a text message) to stand up and yell I love Startup Weekend. This tied for crowd favorite, but Remember.me a service to funeral homes that allows friends to create an online scrapbook for their loved one won after a rock paper scissors showdown.

If you are interested in following the Twitter accounts of some of the people who participated, I created a BuyAppt and swnky lists. I am still populating the swnky list as I run across people who tweeted about the event.

I know I probably drove some of my twitter followers batty with my #swnky tweets, but I appreciate them cutting me some slack and taking our survey.

Thank you to the Startup Weekend Northern Kentucky organizers, sponsors, mentors and NKU for a great experience!

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1978 Sunset Crewel Christmas Tree

by Andi on January 14, 2012

in home, life, projects

After my grandfather passed away in 1977, my grandma said she was not going to put up a Christmas tree. My mom didn’t like that idea so she bought this crewel embroidery Christmas tree pattern and made it for her house.

When my grandma passed away, my mom brought the framed piece back to her house and hangs it up each Christmas. I’ve always loved this picture because it is so colorful and happy.

Recently, she was looking online and saw the kit for sale for $149! There is a coordinating kit that is a wreath for $154. Looking on eBay the prices are about the same.

I realize these kits are about 35 years old, but holy needles!

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Make It: Organized Ornament Box

by Andi on January 1, 2012

in home, projects

Today celebrates the sixth year of blogging at udandi.com and in another post I’ll do a brief history of this URL.

udandi homemade ornament storage box I started this blog in 2006 while in grad school so I could keep my family informed of what I was doing when I was taking study breaks. Over Christmas, I told my mom I was going to make an ornament organizer box from Martha Stewart in the hopes of getting all my ornaments into one box. This past week, she emailed asking if I made the box, I said I did, then she asked for a photo and I said I’ll blog about it.

Yes, my tree is smaller than the box that holds the items to decorate it, but read on because there’s more than just ornaments in that box.

Here’s why I’m not a tutorial blogger, I was so into listening to Jeopardy that I didn’t stop to take photos. But honestly, I don’t think you need to see photos of me using a box cutter or glue gun.

two level ornament storage in plastic cups

Plastic box – $6 at Target’s after Christmas sale. I was looking for one with the most rectangle, straight up and down walls so that cutting the cardboard would be easy(aka wouldn’t have to find a tape measure to measure the bottom of the box to size the cardboard).

Cardboard – I used cardboard bottoms of boxes that are used to shipped books to the library so they are plenty stiff to hold the weight of the ornaments

Plastic cups – I chose both clear, short, wide-mouth wine glasses and tall, 16oz cups
I wanted to have two compartment sizes for fitting all sizes of ornaments since this would not be used for round, glass ornament storage like Martha shows. With using two different size cups, I was able to fit a different number of cups on each cardboard piece.

udandi homemade ornament storage box After positioning the cups on the cardboard, keeping in mind that if the walls of your storage tub are not straight up and down, you will not want to place the cups (including the tops) too close to the edge, you glue them to the cardboard. I added ribbon loops to serve as handles for pulling the levels out.

After putting all my ornaments in, I have room for more. A few childhood ornaments that I probably won’t use in the next few years, but I don’t want to get rid of were left wrapped in napkins and labeled. Next year, there will be no surprises when decorating the tree and it will be very fast to put decorating and un-decorate the tree!

Notes:
Martha and LifeHacker via Re-Nest suggest using egg cartons but none of my ornaments or decorations are small enough to use this idea.

Using the original box that ornaments come only works if they’re store bought and come with boxes. The few of mine that were store-bought and had boxes took up so much room and I had two boxes for ornaments. Many of mine are homemade or come from places that display and sell ornaments off trees and no box is available. With this new organization, all my ornaments plus stocking, Santa, yarn tree and advent box fit in one box. In another box, I have my holiday plates, ceramic tree and my hot pink tree hangs out alone. Two boxes and a tree is all I need to decorate for Christmas!

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$15 hosting at DomainIt

by Andi on December 28, 2011

in site, technology

In my post Hosting by DomainIt, Thesis Theme you can read why I am a happy customer. DomainIt is celebrating 15 years of business with $15 basic hosting for one year. Use coupon code: HAPPY15 Offer expires December 31.

I’ve already talked my world traveling friend into starting a blog for extremely selfish reasons, so I can keep up with her. Follow Amanda Abroad and live through her travels.

She snapped up this deal and for less than $25 and had an easy time with the one-click WordPress install and is up and running, getting to know WordPress and the ins and outs of her first blog.

She wasn’t ready to plunge into a premium theme like Thesis but if you, click the banner below and start customizing. I only wish I had all the time to whip this blog into shape, there’s so much I could do thanks to Thesis!

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5 Least Favorite Christmas Songs

by Andi on December 26, 2011

in pop culture, shopping

Now that Christmas is over, I will share my five least favorite Christmas songs. The songs that make me cringe when I’m sitting in the dentist chair (because I always go in December) or flip the channel from the all Christmas radio channel.

Even at $.49 I will not be buying I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. The article on Kiplinger does not come up, but Dr. Elmo is a millionaire five times over from recording a song about reindeer mowing down grandma.

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