Living Analog

Tutorial Quick & Easy Tissue Paper Pouf

Posted on April 25, 2013 by CT | 7 Comments

Hey everyone. . . I’m slowly emerging from under the rock that was my huge deadline at work. Between working long days and still attempting to stay health-fully nourished and rested, I am afraid much has fallen by the wayside. I am not one of “those people” who can do a lot, e.g. thrive while they’re super-busy. I go into survival mode. Them’s the breaks.

What’s been going on with you? Last weekend was my sister’s first bridal shower which is very exciting and also very crazy — the wedding is now around 40 days away and I have a lot to get done! So why not detour into a quick tutorial, right?

Well, it’s wedding related. I had wrapped up one gift already with some cute green chevron paper (from Target) and purple ribbon only to realize I was out of purple ribbon for the second gift. That was not happening on my watch! So with minutes to spare until my ride arrived, I grabbed some tissue paper (only thing I had in purple) and went free-form with it.

#1 – Cut your tissue paper into as close to the same size rectangles as you can get and stack together. I probably did about 3″ x 5″ or so. If you cut your pieces really small it might not work as well. If you cut them really large, you’ll have to do a lot of “fluffing” later to get any fullness . . . .

#2 – Gently fold/crease in half and staple.

#3 – Cut equal-ish strips out of each side of your creased and stapled tissue paper stack.

#4 – Fluff, crinkle and pop your way into a tissue paper pouf. Use double stick tape or a loop of tape to attach to your package and you’re ready to go!

See how well it all “goes” with her invites? Purple – check. Green – check. Chevron – double check. This is nothing super fancy folks but it does give a present a little extra “pop” I think. (Also wrapping it in electric green, burn-your-eyeballs-until-you-can’t-see helps as well).

And I took the chevron theme forward onto the invite I made for another wedding-related party — the bachelorette party!!

The theme is Cinco de Mayo and I can’t wait. Ten bonus points if you can properly identify the movie quote on back (Disclaimer: you can’t play this game if you are either a) my sister or b) my mother). Here it is bigger for you:

“There’s a difference between like and love. Because I like my Skechers but I love my Prada backpack.”

“But I love my Skechers.”

“That’s because you don’t have a Prada backpack.”

We’re headed up to Iowa this weekend for another shower. More to follow!

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Posted in D.I.Y., Gifts

The story of Sophie and the bad dog adventure day . . .

Posted on April 17, 2013 by CT | 4 Comments

JT and his dad made a trip to rural Ohio this past weekend for some time with his sweet 94-year-old grandmother. With some free time on my hands, I decided it would be a good time to tackle my little basement lair, the “studio”. (See this post for the crazy before pictures.) It’s a tiny room with two concrete walls and concrete floors. I’m going to add an area rug over the concrete to warm it up but I wanted to paint all the concrete first. . . seal it up and clean it up. I am using the same Porch & Patio floor paint we used on the living room fireplace and am so excited to have a white floor somewhere in this house!
This weekend was a little windy and Sophie had been hiding out in the basement due to her fear of the “Windman”. After painting myself out of the studio (I’m doing half the floor at a time and then shifting all the furniture/clutter/mess/junk back over) I came back downstairs to find that little Miss Sophie had visited my newly painted floor.

Caught with paint on her paws! She was not a happy camper. I took her out the basement back door and hustled her into the car. It was off to Four Muddy Paws for a self-service dog wash.

Poor thing. The only place she had any paint was on her paws and really I wasn’t too worried about her tracking it around the house because it was already pretty dry when I found her but I was worried about her licking it off her feet. Plus, she smelled, well, like a dog so a bath is never a bad idea. Four Muddy Paws is great – the tub is elevated and they have stairs for big dogs to climb in. They have everything already there – aprons for the people, doggy shampoo and conditioner, brushes, combs, eye wipes and towels. Plus they have the little reverse vacuum “blow dryer” system which Sophie tolerated with only a few grimaces in my direction. I think it’s a little less stressful for the dogs to get washed by us rather than groomed by someone they don’t know so I prefer to do it that way but since it’s not at our house, there’s no mess to clean up!

The doggy adventure rounded out with Miss Sophie making a quick trip to Home Depot for some more paint. Well behaved dogs on leashes are allowed in our store and she was pretty pooped out from her bath so we scooted through the store (no pictures, I was in a rush and I had Sophie in one hand and spray paint in the other) before heading back home. I had been texting the pictures to JT in Ohio so he had a real-time adventure (and lots of laughs) with us. It was both a quiet and a crazy weekend but at least a little progress was made on my studio!

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Posted in Basement, Dogs, Studio

About to hit the Terrible Twos

Posted on April 13, 2013 by CT | 10 Comments

Living Analog has a two-year birthday at the beginning of May. Actually I already got my “happy anniversary” thing from WordPress because we joined up in April but didn’t have any published posts until May. I’m trying to figure out a little something to do for this little milestone . . . . (maybe something involving a giveaway?)

So here’s a part of what I came up with: Let’s Chat.

Part of what I like about blog land is feeling like I know the person posting the content. Even though you may never meet in real life and they may have no idea you ~~stalk~~ read their blog, there’s a camaraderie there. I went looking for some current picture of me or me and JT to put in here and there is almost a total dearth. We’re not “in the picture” people. I’m trying to work on that. So what you see above was actually shot for our engagement pictures over 8 years ago! I cropped Mr. Husband out because he looks a lot different and may not want to be overshared on the internet. The little guy next to me is Shenanigan, we hadn’t yet adopted Sophie.

So. Let’s Chat. Any burning questions out there? Here’s a fun fact – JT and I met and began dating when we were 17. So getting married when we were 24 wasn’t too crazy. And now we’re 32 and rapidly approaching the tipping point of the “I’ve known you longer than I haven’t known you”.

Here’s photographic proof, straight out of the 90s for you: our first high school dance together (homecoming) about a month into this whole crazy thing. Be warned, this picture is hilarious. And horrible. Both, equally.

Can’t you tell from my facial expression that I love being photographed, even then when I actually weighed what it says I weigh on my driver’s license?

Here’s something a lot of people wonder about: where are all the kids? Shouldn’t we have popped out one or two after eight great years of marriage? Having children is something that JT and I have talked about and think about but we’ve decided it’s not the right choice for us right now. I know better than to say “never”. Never say never — why? — because you never know what the future may hold. We don’t hate kids — I think my friends and cousins have some pretty cute ones and we’ve even baby-sat (once!). It just might not be in the cards for us. And I’m okay with that. (Read what Portia de Rossi said about it here).It’s been harder for other people to accept which I understand but also causes me a lot of anxiety. Also some people may think this is more of a decision that I made and JT is going along with but really this is very, very much a joint decision. And I don’t know why, but it really bothers me when people ask “Why don’t you have kids?”. There are some people (not my friends or family) who should NOT have had kids for various reasons. We never look at a person who is a really crappy parent and say “Why DID you have kids?” (to their face at least).

Well, that was a deep one. Let’s lighten up. Did anyone else watch the one and only season of “My So-Called Life” and love it? I think I’m a 90s girl at heart and part of me always wanted to be Angela Chase so I could wear plaid and weird dresses and dye my hair bright red (I have actually done all those things but maybe not at the same time). And if I was Angela Chase, my boyfriend would be Jordan Catalano. Dreamy. Some say I may have married my very own “Jordan Catalano”.

Image above, Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano in his band “Frozen Embryos”. And yes, I remembered the band name. Image below taken from our freshman yearbook, JT as his 15-year-old self in his band “Fifth Columnist” (I remembered that name too, for the record.)

Sorry honey, I guess I just overshared you on the internet anyways.

If there’s anything else you guys want to chat about, hit me up with a comment or an email and I can do a follow-up overshare post. I’ve gotta tell you that work has been sucking my energy dry with a big project deadline. It will be a great project once it’s completed (in say two years) but right now I just want the construction drawings to JUST. BE. OVER. ALL.READY. Needless to say I don’t have any amazing “ta-da” home projects to share just yet. So today is just TMI. Hope you enjoyed!

Cheers – CT

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Posted in Miscellaneous Diversions

It may sound weird . . . but I kind of miss our couch. Sniff.

Posted on April 8, 2013 by CT | 4 Comments

The couch left us on Saturday, on to a new life in the “mixing lounge”.

We had this big leather baby for at least seven years — right when we bought the house, we quickly realized the sectional sofa we had in our apartment wasn’t going to fit (the chaise sat on the wrong side and couldn’t be reconfigured). So we marched on out to Value Village Furniture on Chippewa and found this thing for only $700. It was fate — that was just the amount we had squeezed out of the sectional during a Craigslist sale and we were b.r.o.k.e. having just bought our first home.

We did a lot of living on that sofa and I was a little sad to see it go even though I have a new one (sort of) waiting in the wings. It was time though. The monkeys (and JT and I) had worn the seats down a little (it was probably bonded leather) and there is a ring on one of the arms from a too hot coffee mug.

Up next is the Danish Daybeds but . . . I still don’t have the upholstery fabric picked out! Trouble.

Once the sofa left, the room was looking a little bare and the floors were looking really dirty. I threw all the small items in the kitchen and herded the dogs into the hallway and decided to try out the Bona floorcare system from Home Depot. (Cameron is hiding in the bedroom because he isn’t as accustomed to large furniture rearranging as Sophie and Shenanigan).

I had another wood floor cleaner I was using but the floor never really looked shiny clean. It turns out what I was probably missing was some wax or polish.

Here’s another view of the living room/dining room while it was emptied out. The Bona system worked well but I think I almost need to do a few more coats of the polish to build up and fill in more of the cracks and crevasses in the floor.

I looked through the post I did back in December of 2011 when we got the Danish Daybeds and here was the floor plan I had posted:

Everything has changed! Back to the drawing board!!

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Posted in Dogs, Furniture, Living Room

Another one about homemade art

Posted on April 6, 2013 by CT | 6 Comments

One more post about artist canvases. I’m not a painter. I never had any formal training in painting. I did have to take one drawing class in college and it was miserable. I hated the critique days and having to put my deformed and pathetic sketches up next to my classmates beautifully rendered images. But sometimes you need artwork for your house and you’re cash-strapped and you resort to painting it yourself.

Let me rewind for a minute. A few months back I picked up a little canvas at the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop. I searched high and low for the original images but to no avail — when I bought it, the canvas had a lavender background with white flowers painted on it. It looked like something I would have presented in college had I been required to take a painting class (a little amateur-ish to say the least). I felt a little bad when I jesso-ed over the canvas until I remembered it had been consigned over to St. Vincent de Paul.

Part two of this long-winded and potentially underwhelming story has to do with the brassy arc lamp I picked up at the auction at Vandeventer Vintage. I was considering giving it a new coat of (spray) paint, maybe in black to help it fit in with the living room a little better. (Read more of my angst here when we brought home a second lamp). I decided instead of painting this great vintage gem, I would bring in more brassy/gold goodness to make it feel at home.

Back to the painting. First I jesso-ed it, then I applied a few coats of a gold spray paint I had on hand. I found a cool example image on Pinterest that had large blocks of color and used that as my starting point. At first I had taped the canvas off with some 1″ painters tape we had around the house but the proportions felt weird so I “had to” order some washi tape from Etsy.

The washi tape didn’t perfectly keep the paint inside its boundaries so I had to do a little touch-up once I removed it. I took over the tulip table and spent a couple of days mixing up paint colors like a mad scientist. I used the kitchen blue color, the living room accent wall (SW Urbane Bronze) in its full hue and also lightened a few shades with white and a few new colors. JT requested “light red” and I told him he just asked for pink. However I was able to mix up a nice red-orange that seemed to satisfy his request.

The brassy/gold undercoat plus the paint colors from around the house really work to tie things all together in the living room.

Also, white fingernails! Because Easter was last Sunday, I feel like we’re in the clear for white shoe season and I celebrated by putting one of my favorite colors on my nails. Yesterday (Friday) was one of the first days it really, really felt like spring around here and everyone fled the office for City Garden at lunch. I had lunch at Lulu’s, an all-vegan food truck (so good!) and took in the sights. I know I talk about the Flaming Lips a lot, but this sculpture struck me as being very Wayne Coyne-esque.

On to the weekend everyone! I’m taking Cameron to an adoption event today at the Kirkwood Wal-Mart from 11am to 1pm. Stop by and say hi to the old guy! Cheers – CT

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Posted in Around the house, Arty, D.I.Y., Dogs, Living Room, Miscellaneous Diversions

Rearranging is my middle name.

Posted on April 3, 2013 by CT | 4 Comments

I don’t know if I was born this way or if it something I developed, but I have a real and abiding affection for rearranging our house all the time. Like last Friday at 9:00 at night. JT is trying to watch a music documentary and I’m buzzing around the house, looking for something to tinker with. Sometimes I just can’t stop!

Since Cameron joined the household, we needed a lot of clear floor space in the bedroom for dog lounging (the sleep in there in dog beds on the floor). Well, I still hadn’t gotten around to putting together that art wall and the large canvas was leaning against the wall . . . . until one night when (we think) Sophie knocked into it and toppled the whole thing over. Being the neurotic dog that she is, she was TERRIFIED. That canvas tried to eat her and she had to sleep on top of me that night to make sure it wouldn’t come back for her later.

So I found a place for it in the living room! Yep, the before I’m about to show you I had labeled as an “after” all of two weeks ago. Hold on to your seats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

There already was a substantially hung nail there from before (still hadn’t gotten around to removing/spackling/sanding/painting) and so I thought I would try the big canvas there.

I think it’s working. At least I like it and so does Husband. Although I need to get another indoor tree since I shuffled this one over here and now the other corner where it was living looks sad. Fiddle leaf fig for the win this time?

The great thing about this arrangement is how great this works as a “landing strip” (Apartment Therapy’s words, not mine) or stuff containment zone. When we come in the front door (right there to the right), we can put down our work bags, slide our shoes under the tables, drop our keys on Paul. It’s all working out great. The modem is also under the tables as well — they had to drill through the wood floor (so horrible, but before the days of wireless stuff and we used to have our TV there back forever ago when we had cable). It’s hiding in the turned over basket. The basket is pretty open weave and a lot bigger than the stuff under there so it seems to be “breathing” all right.

Anyone else keep an extra house-worth of furniture in their basement so rooms upstairs can be rearranged at a moment’s notice? There are some advantages to hoarding! Cheers – CT

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Posted in Around the house, Furniture, Living Room

Guess what arrived at Living Analog?

Posted on April 2, 2013 by CT | 8 Comments

If you guessed Flor carpet tiles, you would be correct.

Or if you guessed sweet old black lab/husky mix, you would also be correct.

Yep, Cameron our foster dog is back.

Cameron was adopted a little more than two years ago by Maggie, a sweet lady who loved him and wanted a companion around to spend her time with (she is retired). Well Maggie also has Parkinson’s disease and the time had come for her to move someplace where she could get more assistance. She looked and looked for a place where she could also take Cameron with her but didn’t have any luck. I think she delayed her move (and better care) for some more time with Cameron which makes me kind of sad.

So Cam the Man is back in the house. You can read his adoption posting on the Stray Rescue website here.

Sophie and Shenanigan are good with Cameron since he’s older and calmer like they are but really Cameron needs his own people to love him and care for him. Have you ever tried petting three dogs at one time? It doesn’t work out so well and they always seem to want attention, well, at the same time! So that’s why we are looking for a home for Cam.

Spread the word — if you know anyone looking for a sweet older gentleman to spend their days with, Cam’s their man. We love Stray Rescue and what they do for St. Louis dogs (and cats). We’ve fostered a lot in the past (see the complete story here) and know there’s a forever family out there waiting for Cameron.

And the Flor? Well we might wait a little before installing it . . . . when Cameron’s dark fur coat combines with Sophie and Shenigan’s tan furballs, it makes a marvelous mess. We are still debating whether a robot vaccuum cleaner will work in our little house or not.

Back with more later! Cheers – CT

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Posted in Dogs

Living Analog

Tutorial Quick & Easy Tissue Paper Pouf

The story of Sophie and the bad dog adventure day . . .

About to hit the Terrible Twos

It may sound weird . . . but I kind of miss our couch. Sniff.

Another one about homemade art

Rearranging is my middle name.

Guess what arrived at Living Analog?

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