Are you my mom, Imperial Tortoise?

As a person that draws pattern all day every day I have a love/hate relationship with graphic prints and textiles and greeting cards and everything in the world that's covered in pattern which is now everything.  Kleenex boxes, the actual facial tissue itself, toothbrushes, kitchen knives, lampshades, strollers, airplanes, whatever, just put a pattern on it and charge more.

Patterns are like family.  I love them enough to be intimately involved with them from inception to completion but after work I don't want to hear, talk, look, smell, fondle or even sense an organized collection of lines anywhere within 50 feet of me.  Like, I love you but don't call me after 5 or on the weekends.  Ever.

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Actually, I spend significantly more time with patterns than my family so analyze that.  I also try to avoid putting something I designed in my own house. If feels very incestuous...

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But sometimes I'm overwhelmed with familial guilt pulled by the siren song of fresh graphics courtesy of ye olde internet and can't resist a picture dump.

Urban Caligraphy

These are probably the opposite of David Hicks/ "Imperial Trellis" which is perfectly fine by me.  Imperial Trellis is the cage where my soul would be trapped inside in hell.

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But I like an Imperial Turtle.  Or Tortoise?!  I'm dumb, I don't know. 

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I tend to be drawn to patterns that look like they've been around for a few thousand years (even if they went through a hipster filter before the tattoo approval process).  It let's me off the hook for trying to reinvent the wheel or something.

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Or I like patterns that look infinite and not like designed at all.   It's visual zen for my overworked eyes and placates my Virgo attention-to-detail.

Guido Macofico

Of course, Mother Nature does some pretty badass designing but she's a pro so I'll let her heavy-handedness pass on occasion.  Aren't triangles and diamonds a little over trend right now anyway, hhmm?  Try reading Refinery29 once in a while, Mother Nature.

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Robert Cartwright

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I also prefer patterns that I could not or would not design.  Not that I'm a super great designer of amazing awesomeness by any means, but everybody has their wheelhouse of tricks.  My tricks include the design equivalent of drunk herky so I guess that leaves me pretty open to y'alls shit.

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And open to skulls and smart backlighting.

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somewhere here

And open to a cartoon bag and gold pants.  When Target knocks them all off, of course.

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I could certainly deal with seeing this type of pattern every day.  I might be inclined to trade some relatives for it.  It could be my new family.

Love me?

(high five if you got the Boogie Nights reference in the title)

Damn dirty apes have to take a bath somewhere.

I'm politically hungover from the debate on Tuesday night so we're keeping it simple today.  SIMPLY JUNGLE.

Designed by Ana Donahue and photographed by Michael J. Lee from the Junior League showhouse in Boston. 

I'm aesthetically allergic to many of the things in this bathroom: that wallpaper I've always hated (sorry design bloggers), upholstered pieces in a tiny bathroom and putting purple and green together.  But after I saw this bathroom on Pinterest I lost my shit today.  I can't stop staring at it.  I want a bathroom with a jungle up top.  It's like the mullet of walls - business down low and jungle party upstairs.  A reverse Brazilian.  

Except you can trash every single accessory in the foreground and that plant on the left.  You have jungle wallpaper, for chrissakes, you can cut that shit out.

However, if there was a Tarzan-like man hanging out in that tub then you can keep your shitty accessories because I'd be too distracted.  I must have jungle men in loincloths on the brain after recently seeing the poster for the new Tarzan movie coming out next year with your least favorite sparkle-dicked vampire, Kellan Lutz.  However, he might be perfect for that roll because there is very little dialogue for a character raised by apes and based on the Twilight movies I think Kellan might have ape brain.

My favorite Tarzan movie and the only one of any value as you can tell from the exceptionally long title is 'Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes' from 1984 starring Christopher Lambert, Andie McDowell and a lot of sexual grunting noises that in no way affected my young, impressionable mind.

Between Beastmaster, Greystoke and Conan the Barbarian I saw a lot of loincloths in the '80s.  Good for a girl under 10.  

But for me there can be only one.  (Highlander joke!)

Um... was this was supposed to be about a bathroom?  I can't seem to remember...  political hangover and all.

*grunt*

It's summertime and the living is saucy.

I can't remember what day it is anymore (because of heat and cocktails) but I think I remember large sparkly explosions in the sky recently so I'm going to say it's before Christmas.  


If you're like me you're probably drunk on okra from the farmer's market and laying on the couch without pants and have been since omigawd February?  If that's the case, #1 you should tweet a Madame up sometime so we can talk about how much we hate pants and #2  I think you might like to zone out even harder to these trend forecast videos from WGSN I found via Busy Being Fabulous.


I can zone out so hard I need a time machine so I can go back to 1996 and be in the X Games.



I know that no one else really cares about trend forecasting like I do but I think it's fascinating.  Maybe that's because I think everything's fascinating when I'm okra drunk...  I don't have the energy to talk about the merits of trend forecasting but making zoned out videos about color and pattern is basically my dream job so SHUT YOUR GAWDDAMN FACEHOLE!




It seems like the colors here happen to be largely orangey pank in the top video and kinda  grey and black in the bottom... JUST like my post from Monday!   And y'all just thought I was cuckoo for volcanoes.   Instead I'm just cuckoo for stretching any random bit of media I find into making me seem cooler than I am.


Perhaps another X Games event I would destroy.


Have a trippy weekend, y'all.  I'm going to be doing this on Saturday:

I think my nerd is showing. Hi five if you love Gwen Cooper.

Guess I should put on pants.

Mother Nature gets a lot of things right except for underwear.

Just like all super powerful lady persons that cross each others' paths, Madame Sunday and Mother Nature have tipped our bonnets to our respective fabulosity and worked out a deal.  She does her best to make my life miserable with tornadoes, sunburns, Bermuda grass, allergies and plagues of locusts and I agree to stay inside as much as possible.  

Don't tell her but I haven't been keeping up my end of the bargain and have been spending all my time outside this Spring.  Granted, the blogging sauce has been suffering and my sinuses were trying to fuck me over something serious last week but I persevered.

In fact, the herb garden that I planted a few weeks ago is alive. IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!  I think it might be time for Mother Nature and I to renegotiate our deal considering my black thumb of death has a green tint to it.

Unless it's gangrene which totally sounds like something that bitch would do.  

To make a peace offering in hopes of warding off gangrenous limbs, let's pay homage to some of Mother Nature's finest loin fruits.

New colors for the Ranch.  TIME TO REPAINT EVERTHANG!!

And by 'finest things' I mean 'vomitous things' that better never make their way across my path except in two dimensions because they're really purty.  

Only a real lady SOB would make the prettiest colors and patterns on the most horrendous things.  

Ok, butterflies get a pass...

But these fuckers don't.  It's like art for Buffalo Bill's freaknasty dungeon.  Hope you're proud of yourself, Mother Nature!  Serial killers really dig your shit.

I would squish you in a hot second as long as I thought you wouldn't make that stomach-churning meaty squishing noise.  But not after I admired your markings.  Maybe sketched them.  AHAHAHAHAHA I don't sketch anymore.  I mean I'd take a photo and Instagram it. #21stCenturyMadame

I'm gonna make that my new color palette for my bedroom.  Isn't that what you always here decorators say?  "Pull from nature and group your Kirkland's accessories in threes!" 

I fucking hate things that jump.  But not more than the Kirkland's smell.

But I'm totally cool with things that have pinchers and are cobalt.  Beetles are the most alien architecture badasses of the bug world and they're okay in book.  

If I was a good blogger I'd hit you with a really smart paragraph about scarab beetles but that seems like a lot of work for someone drinking boxed wine and not wearing pants.  You'll just have to Wikipedia it on your own.

Don't feel like you have to wear pants while you do it though.  No judgment here.

Early 20th century Pochoir Prints from E.A. Seguy via BibliOdyssey

No judgment except for things with long antennae that make me dry heave.  Why can't you just make cool things without all the nasty, Mother Nature??!  


Well you're not the only one with amazing powers of design!  Check out these cool man-made patterns on the backs of these Swiss beetles:

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger via Wissenskunst

Booyah!  Well... they were caused by radiation from nuclear power plants (and disasters like Chernobyl) but who's really keeping track of those things?  Just artists and scientists all over the world.  Who are probably wearing pants all the time.  *eyeroll*

But don't underestimate the beautifully destructive powers of humans, Mother Nature.  We got game!!

And hopefully a bountiful herb garden in a few months so please let's observe the new treaty rules where I don't die from a lightening strike or a really bad mosquito bite.  We're both adults here.

Well one of us is a awesomely sessy Madame adult who spits in the face of pants and the other one wears granny panties made of palm leaves and molted bird feathers or whatever the fuck it is she wears.  

I tell you what, it sure as shit better not be basil leaves plucked from my garden...

No Claritin can save me from this.

Hey guess what time of the year it is, saucy readers?!  It's that special time of the year when Mother Nature shortens her skirts, is forced to shave her legs in somewhat regular intervals and blesses us with her colorful bounty.  


It's Springtime, y'all!  Let's get our blossoms on.

I really love these in multiples. Erwan Frontin via Honestly WTF

I love it how every year when Spring hits people say "Hey I think florals and pastels are going to be big this season!" and then I'm blown away by their powers of observation.  I can't wait to hear what you think is going to happen this fall, oh amazing trendforecaster of brilliance!  Do you think it might be the colors of leaves and chunky knits?

I will admit that most of my time these past two weeks has been spent in the yard joyfully playing in dirt (and a small bit of crying but that was really because of the Bermuda grass) and trying to steal plants from the local nursery so I've had flowers (and escape plans) on the brain.  

So let's get this obligatory blog post about Spring out of the way and enjoy this season's floral orgasmisplosion until the fucking devil heat of summer makes me hate the outdoors and long for some rusty garden shears to impale myself on just for the cool relief of death.  

Anthropologie

Floral on floral on stripe?  Let's do dis.

Just to be safe, maybe someone could bring me a Pop-Ice and a box fan around mid-July... to help prevent my impending suicide in my shriveled and thirsty garden.

I'm kidding.  Bring me a gawddamn margarita.  For the water-retaining powers of salt, of course.

Helen Birch

I call this beauty a study in 'petalicular efflusion.'  It's a science-sounding term I just made up for the copious amounts of sexy petals.  Also, because it sounds really smart.

I didn't think I could like that wallpaper but I do... via Design Manifest

Despite this season's sensational dose of petalicular efflusion, I'm not much of a flower person.  I try to get a bouquet a few times a year to freshen up the Ranch but the anxiety over arranging it correctly to coordinate with my coffee table stylings usually outweighs whatever pleasure gazing at its beauty brings me. 

Flawrs (as we pronounce them down here in the South) are pretty and all, but pretty is rarely an adjective in and of itself that will produce a squee from me. 

But these are purty flawrs...

So you can keep your boring and pretty roses and daisies, future gentlemen callers!  You're much more likely to have me shave my legs at somewhat regular intervals and show you my bounty if you were to woo me with a burrito and box of wine.  Or a nice painting OF flowers...  I'm complicated like that.

However if you insist on bringing me organic offerings, please make it interesting and architectural.  Or just weird. I like weird.  

Paintings by Lulie Wallace via Design*Sponge

But just so you know, a plate of brownies puts me in a state of ecstasy really damn fast...

Just like this picture!

from Fine Little Day but the horrible person on Pinterest didn't keep the source. Horrible. Ideas?

I'm awesome at segues!


But getting back to the flawrs at hand, I'm having a recent affair with really horrible tacky flower patterns.

Corey Olsen via Booooooom

I love this time travel back to 1991.  Hand to gawd, I had that picture album in middle school.  If there is a picture of me wearing some leggings in there, I will shit my leggings.

Better yet, let's wear this shit!  

Risch blazer here

Double-breasted pink and salmon floral blazer?  Uh, only if it's in a cabbage rose print your grandma would wear, amiright?!

I have been spending a lot of time at thrift stores lately scouring the racks for old floral dresses from the '90s and it has been marvelous.  I really peaked at the age of 13/14 back in 1993 so I've vowed to return to that era of flowing polyester dresses.  Just look at this gem of a print I recently acquired:

Oh, ugly print dress...  I promise I won't wear you with combat boots this time.  But you will get some action from these booties I scored for $20.  And a black blazer because I'm professional.  And to really complete the ode to the '90s, probably some free Clinique lipstick that's almost my color that I'll get during one of their giveaways.

But we ain't done yet.  If you really want to commit to this florals this Springs go big or go home:

ASOS

Not gonna lie, I might have had this outfit at one point during the early '90s but I bet it had a matching vest instead of a blazer.  It was probably more of a "taper leg" than a skinny pant...  And I had a spiral perm... 

Why did I give that shit away only to spend my weekends trolling every thrift store in the tri-state area for the same thing?!  Curses!  
Being that I'm a lady with refined and impeccable tastes (and over 30), I probably will stick to ONE piece of floral orgasmisplosion at a time (ahem).  And I refuse to fall victim to the floral cutoff short trend even if Rachel Bilson gives it a thumbs up.  I have standards.

Low, low, tacky standards.  

Without those I will turn into this:

Cecilia Paredes via Honestly WTF

Fantastic, but not really the office appropriate look I was going for.

Andres Valerio via Forgotten Hopes

We are the sick youth, indeed.


Probably from seasonal allergies.