Living Analog

Who’s Schmoopy?

Posted on June 11, 2013 by CT | 2 Comments

A while back we started calling my sister and her then-fiance “Schmoopy”. Why? Well because they were. Googly-eyed and smoochy, they were so disgustingly in love that the only appropriate descriptor was “Schmoopy”. And it stuck – somehow it became their pet nickname for each other. As the Matron of Honor (do I sound old or what!) I gave a toast for my sister where I wished her a lifetime of Schmooopy-ness. And I think they’ll do it!

(Another wedding picture I snagged off Facebook. The Schmoopies are Smiths.)

As a shower gift, I made a little something for the Schmoopies.

With my handy computer and a little Photoshop action, I used an 11×17 size paper to create some diner-style paper placemats. There’s a cute little print shop near us in South City called the Ink Spot. I used them for the placemats, the bachelorette invites and also for the wedding programs (fans) and guest book cards I designed. They’re super close by and I can upload the files online and call them and work through all my issues. And when I went in to pick up my stuff, I fell in love with the decor.

Above are some pictures I furtively snapped with my phone while picking up the placemats. Call me a design snob, but I totally prefer to give my business to a place that gets my aesthetic. MCM daybed with cute pillows and molded fiberglass chairs? Sold. I’ve got no skin in this game, I just thought I’d pass along a great local source for any STL people needing a printer out there.

Sister asked about framing one so I think she likes it. And I still have the file so if Schmoopys’ Kitchen Cafe ever runs out of placemats, we can reprint some more. Now that the wedding craze has passed I think I should whip some up for Living Analog as well. We just need a handy slogan . . . .

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Posted in D.I.Y., Gifts

Back with a banging backdrop!

Posted on June 5, 2013 by CT | 6 Comments

Hey everyone! The wedding of 2013 (my sister’s!) was last Saturday and I’M BACK!!!!!

So, I teased you guys a little while ago that I was trying to make this:

And . . . I did! But in purple and green (of course):

Yep, the only picture I could find (thanks to my cousin’s husband via Facebook.) Since there were two photographers following our every move, I didn’t break out a camera once. Hopefully I will have some better pictures I can share with the interwebs once my sister gets back from her honeymoon (Cozumel!) and meets with the photog. (Also, the backdrop was pretty tall but that’s my youngest cousin back there who is also the tallest person I know. So I think it looks a little smaller in the pictures than it really is. And those are a bunch (not all!) of my cousins and of course my sister in the other purple dress. Aren’t we a handsome bunch!)

So here’s how it went down, with bad iPhone pictures for illustration.

1. We picked out five different fabrics – one dark green, one light green, one dark purple, another light purple and a final one in solid purple. I cut them down to various widths ranging from 30″ wide down to 12″.

2. Spray with fabric stiffener (I used 3 bottles total of Alene’s Stiffen Quick to make all these). Spray again and again. Then iron into zig zags and glue closed after throwing a few stitches in the very middle to hold it all together. (I went back to Alene and used her fabric glue pen – super fast and quick).

3. Repeat over and over. I think I ended up with ten fabric fans and one didn’t make it onto the final product (good to have some back-up, just-in-case stuff).

4. Sweet talk husband into making you the world’s largest easel. Paint the easel white. Staple gun fabric to it. Staple gun pieces of metal hanger to it and sew your fabric fan to it so it will stand up straight. Spray everything down with the rest of your fabric stiffener and pray for a miracle.

4. Make easel legs easily dissassemble-able (we used threaded screws and nuts) for transport. Rip the rest of the fabric into long ribbon strips. Bring extra everything – thread, glue, stiffen spray, double stick tape, staple gun and cross all your fingers that the dang thing will stay together at least as long as the ceremony.

5. Sister gets married. Backdrop stays together. Everyone is happy!

(This picture is from before the ceremony at a little park nearby.)

So that’s what I got. Everything went off without a hitch – except for the intended one! (thanks Jess for the joke) I’m so happy for my sister and also so jealous she is on vacation right now! What’s been going on with you guys? I feel like I was gone forever!!! I have some more wedding fun stuff to share and then it’s off to the races with some house projects. Cheers – CT

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Posted in D.I.Y., Family, Hand Crafted

TCB – New outlets!

Posted on May 21, 2013 by CT | 6 Comments

One of the joys of living in an old home is all the maintenance, replacement and just general care it needs. I’m so lucky to have a handy husband who takes on a lot of these “TCB” Tasks (as I call them, because I love Elvis and Elvis loves TCB).

The most recent TCB task that JT took on was installing new outlets all throughout the living room. The old ones were a hodge podge of colors, styles and various layers (layers!) of paint — probably not the safest thing to be plugging into. Plus, they get loosened up and the plugs don’t always stay in them . . . it can make for a weird seance-like episode when your light fixture decides to turn itself off and then on again whenever it likes.

Today is also JT’s birthday – my man is getting older. I wanted to take a chance and so very publicly tell him what an amazing husband he is. He takes on all my crazy rearranging and new/old furniture buying projects without hesitation. He loves and supports me every day. He makes me laugh. He changes outlets. He has been by my side for this crazy journey since the day we met when we were seventeen and I hope to be by his side for at least seventy more years. Happy birthday husband!

It’s also JT’s brother’s birthday — by some cosmic, karmic twist of fate they were born on the same day exactly 10 years apart. Growing up with only sisters, Shane is the brother I never had and didn’t think I would ever get. Happy birthday Shane! (He changes outlets too, just at a different house but like JT he’s also taken ladies – step back!)

(PS — The JT and me picture came from this weekend’s Webster Grooves – a retro-soul festival in Webster Groves. We came for JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound and they were awesome. You should check out their new single here. JT found this band for your listening pleasure, another reason why he’s amazing.)

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Posted in Around the house, Family

Changing it up. Again. And again.

Posted on May 20, 2013 by CT | 5 Comments

I don’t know how many more times I can post about changes in the living room before you guys gather your pitchforks and torches and chase me from the interwebs but here goes nothing.

We’ve been living with a chair party since the couch left.

(Mostly all of) the chairs I’ve hoarded came out to play. It was making me feel old though because JT would end up in the “man chair” (the Baumritter lounger with the “Cover Your Lover” blanket on it currently) and I would end up on the Kroehler white vinyl swivel chair, side-by-side like we had suddenly turned into our grandparents in “their chairs”. I mean everyone’s grandparents did that right — there was a “his” and “hers” chair and don’t you dare sit in it if Grandma or Grandpa were around. Our original plan was to clear out the old tan sofa to make room for the Danish Daybeds but . . . . after getting some prices to have the foam redone and cushion covers made it was a jaw-dropping, I-better-learn-how-to-sew-right-now kind of price. (In reality, the quotes weren’t bad, they’re just out of our budget right now.)

So, what’s in our budget that would allow me to occaisonally sit next to my husband? This little gem from Craigslist.

I had scouted the “list” and found a few options that could work for us, including a Karlstad (Ikea) sofa that looked almost brand new but this guy just tugged at my retro/vintage heartstrings.

I mean, look at it!

It turned out to be in a third floor apartment (no elevator) near Wash U. The scale was such that JT and I could easily heft it down the stairs and it fit into the Saturn with the back door all the way closed. So it’s not nearly as big/long as our outgoing sofa but it will nicely fill a void until I get some courage and tackle those daybeds. Now JT and I can morph back into 32 (and 33 – happy early birthday honey!) year-olds rather than the old people we had become.

Here it is at home and cleaned up a little (good old Howard’s Feed and Wax on the legs and some vinyl cleaner on the seat).

There’s a few tears and age spots here and there but overall I really like it. It’s a little less white than the ad pictures showed — it is more of a subtle yellow with avocado undertones and almost matches our Eames rocker perfectly. I’ll be back with another (!) post on how we rearranged the living room a few times to get “Newbie” (as I have named the sofa) to fit into our life and home.

Here are some outtakes of what happens when I try to take furniture photos. Dogs. Everywhere. Cameron is apparently not camera-shy at all, but very interested in being front and center in all photos. That dog is funny weird (in a good way).

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Posted in Dogs, Living Room

Purple meets green. A bridal shower.

Posted on May 14, 2013 by CT | 10 Comments

In case I haven’t mentioned it here a few (many) times, my sister is getting married in about two and a half weeks. That’s crazy. Let me take you back in time a few weeks to when things were a little less crazy — we headed up to Iowa for a bridal shower at our aunt’s house.

We’ve been driving the “Avenue of the Saints” since we moved to St. Louis in 1991. Things have changed a lot since then! One time I accidentally took us to Quincy on the way because they had “improved” the highways so much. Well, they “improved” the roads I guess, but not the signage.

At any rate, my aunt hosted a bridal shower at her house. In exchange for letting us use her house and to quiet some of my control-freak tendencies, they let me do a lot of the planning/making/arranging (or maybe I just took over. Sometimes it’s hard to tell). Here’s what we came up with:

We did a twist on the white wine sangria recipe I got from my friend Erin and loaded it up with purple and green things instead: green apples, limes, blueberries and raspberries. So yummy. We had light finger food like chicken salad (and chickpea salad) sandwiches, spinach brownies, stuffed mushrooms and a veggie tray. Dessert was a “wacky cake” shaped into a very large cupcake mold and frosted semi-successfully by me. The saving grace was probably the extra-large cake confetti/deco things. It didn’t look very large but it managed to serve everyone at the shower with some left over. (FYI – I found out that the “wacky cake” recipe came from the Depression when many people did not have eggs or dairy to bake with. It also comes in pretty handy for us crazy vegans.)

My mom spray-painted some soup cans to match the shower theme and these made great decorations and also little take home gifts for all our family at the end of the day. She also snagged the cool green chevron napkins on the interwebs.

So that’s a quick little blurb about our time in Iowa. Here’s my sisters and me with our Grandma just before the shower started:

(Yes, I think there’s a strong family resemblance! I hope I get the sophisticated white hair like my Gram someday – like someday in sixty years but you know what I mean.) We are the only “branch” of our family who live in Missouri — all our aunts, uncles and cousins are spread out from coast to coast. By percentage however, the highest concentration of our family is in the Des Moines area and it was so nice to be able to get together with all of them (both sides of the family at once!) for a nice shower. I think my sister really enjoyed it.

Fast forward into wedding crazy time and I am now in the process of designing cute little things for the guest book, the programs (they’re going to be fans – perfect for an outdoor wedding) and the (hopefully) ace-in-the-hole ceremony backdrop modeled off of this:

(Looks cool right? Image via this site.)

Wish me luck!

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Posted in Entertaining

Nacho Ordinary Bachelorette Party

Posted on May 7, 2013 by CT | 6 Comments

Hey interwebs! It’s me, CT, back from a work-induced blogging hiatus. We’re in full on wedding mode here at Living Analog getting ready for my little sis to say “I Do” on June 1st. Last weekend was the bachelorette party hosted by yours truly. Who wants to see some day late and dollar short ideas for a Cinco de Mayo party? Here we go.

I already showed you guys the invite the other day — this is the starting point for everything . . . . manicures . . .

margaritas . . . .

(Purple margarita recipe here – we added some Sprite because it was really strong and subbed out the Chambord for some Blackberry brandy.)

. . . and movies!

I got happy with some colored tissue paper and made a simple garland to hang around the living room and give it that festive fiesta appeal . . .

It was simple to make — cut your sheets to the same size rectangles, add fringe and stitch together on the sewing machine.

For food we did a quick and easy nacho bar and set that all up in the kitchen:

(Dessert was cinnamon twists from Taco Bell (so classy!) and some really good Mexican Hot Chocolate brownies that only I ate . . . they might have been on the spicy side. Recipe here)

After our manicures and some test your knowledge quizzes on the bride-to-be and the movie, we settled in and watched “10 Things I Hate About You” (and then “27 Dresses” to get into the wedding mood).

It wasn’t your typical bachelorette party with penis straws or strippers or scavenger hunts through bars but I thought it was more personalized to my sister, the bride. And isn’t that really what it’s all about? Many Cheers – CT

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Posted in Entertaining

JT’s Pigonse G40V Hot-Rod, Part 1!

Posted on May 5, 2013 by JT | Leave a comment

I have a Pignose G40V I bought new a few years back and have since loved it’s simplicity and durability. Due to it’s portability, and the size of the venues Grand Beauty generally plays, this amp has seen a lot of action, mic’d through our PA. I won’t claim to know the official pedigree, but it supposedly was designed by someone who had something to do with the original Fender Bassman amplifiers. This sucker is tiny, with only a 10-inch speaker, and packs a massive 40-watt punch!

: Pignose G40V

Being as cool as it is, I simply can’t leave it alone. Why? Well, it’s equipped with all Chinese parts. Don’t get me wrong- the Chinese are fine people- awesome food, impressive culture. Not necessarily the best folks to be mass-producing tone, though.

: Vintage Jensen 10 inch speaker

Step number 1 was finding an awesome speaker. CT and I happened on the Midwest Musicians Swap Meet in Saint Louis, where I found a great vintage Jensen 60′s 10-inch speaker in new housing. I also came across a couple of Soviet-era Sovtek 12AX7WB pre-amp tubes (to be seen in part 2).

: Testing polarity with D-Cell battery

Once I got the Jensen home, I had to figure out which terminal was positive, as neither one was marked. I used an old trick, where you electrical-tape both the positive and negative ends of a D-Cell (or 9-volt) battery with wire, and then connect to each wire to a terminal. When the speaker “sucks in” on connection, you have negative polarity. Reverse the wires, and you should see a “push out” of the speaker on connection. This will be your positive polarity, and you can now mark on the casing the + and – terminals, and connect it to your amplifier.

: Jensen speaker mounted in the Pignose

The mounting holes lined up great, and connections were secured. Success! Now my Pignose has a vintage Jensen speaker, rather than the cheap Chinese stock that it came with. Stay tuned for part 2, where I attempt to replace and bias the existing Chinese tubes with Soviet-era, mean-ass Sovteks!

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Posted in Guitars, Music related

Tagged Jensen speaker, Pignose G40V

Living Analog

Who’s Schmoopy?

Back with a banging backdrop!

TCB – New outlets!

Changing it up. Again. And again.

Purple meets green. A bridal shower.

Nacho Ordinary Bachelorette Party

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