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 . . . .

2 Comments

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

6 Comments

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.)

6 Comments

Posted in Around the house, Family

Changing it up. Again. And again.

Posted on May 20, 2013 by CT | 7 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).

7 Comments

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!

10 Comments

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

6 Comments

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!

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!

7 Comments

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!

4 Comments

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

10 Comments

Posted in Miscellaneous Diversions

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

Tutorial Quick & Easy Tissue Paper Pouf

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

About to hit the Terrible Twos

Lately at Living Analog . . .

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