Purging, pastels and polaroids.

I'm doing some deep fall cleaning around ye olde ModSauce blog and posting a bunch of old, half-finished and probably all-around lame things in the near future.  Aren't you excited??!!!  Sometimes a girl just needs to purge whether it's a closet of last year's ill-fitting clothes, a blog dashboard or vomiting up a few too many cocktails.  So buckle up readers for a few awkward posts of that not-quite-right shirt that looked so good on the clearance rack in March/omigodwhydidihavethatlastshot type of blogging this week.  I'm gonna spaz out with my vag out blogging style!!!!!!  (I'm not)

To get started I'm posting a bunch of small conversations that I've been having with myself that really should have been kept private but what's the point of having an anonymous blog if you can't rant about dumb things and embarrass yourself on occasion?!   


For instance I can't hold it in any longer that I hate these chairs:

I love vintage and ugly things - especially together - but these chairs really make me want to projectile vomit directly in someone's face (that kind of purging isn't fun).  All I see is Farrah Fawcett hair wings and forced charm.  If you're wanting something eccentric and quirky I think you can do better.

Even if you try to make it all cutesy like this:

here and WTF is going on with that giant plant????

...it still looks dumb.  But I see these about every week in thrift stores down here so if you happen to be in love with them I'll mail you one.  Shipping is one jizzilion dollars.

..........

In related vintage recycles that makes my vag spazz (and not in the good way):

here

I don't care if they're super hawt right now and Kate Moss has a pair she wears with her high waisted jeans you look like a jackhole wearing them.  So does she.  Super sweaty toes and cold cracked heels are the most fucktarded combo ever.  And no one ever really looks good walking in mules of any kind anyway.   EVAR!   I don't care how comfy those birks are you CANNOT run in them and if you're going to buy ugly elephantine shoes for comfort you sure as shit need to make sure you can outrun a criminal in them because they need to at least have a purpose other than than showing off your striped sock collection.  [MS sidebar: you can't run in flip flops or stilettos either but those are cute and sexy and that purpose totally trumps practicality because cute shoes will attract people to you and THEY'LL save you from bad people.  Proven fact.]  This goes for those feathered mules too because even though you might think they're sexy they're not.  You look like an unimaginative housewife pretending to be saucy while clomping around with marabou on your feet and if I know one thing about dudes it's that they probably aren't looking at your feet lurve feathered shoes that make it sound like you're a horse galloping around in the bathroom.

Fuck-me pumps are only good for one thing (and it ain't walking): 

Elvgren from somewhere...

sitting in your sheer nightie writing in your diary.

here

Or DIYing in your bra.  Duh.

........

Every time I'm restacking my junk mail on my coffee table that I call "decorating" and see this cover:

it makes me really stabby that I paid money for this magazine subscription.  FUCK YOU HB and your mauve and dusty aqua.  If you want to be on trend with the pink and blue palette this is how you do it:

from the awesome tumblr Bohemian Punk. Blue eyeliner FTW.

This might be a crazy mess (meh - I'm more lenient with fashion spreads) and she's probably wearing high-heeled clogs with this at least she's relevant for 2010 (by way of 1970's of course) and doesn't look like a Architectural Digest editorial from 1989.  This shade of pink is yellowed and the blue leans towards cobalt.  It's how you rehash the past.   The circle of life.

Are you noticing a theme yet...??

In an effort to purge a bunch of unrelated random thoughts, it turns out there is in fact a theme.  I think that means I'm insanely anal-retentive awesome.   The overall trend that lately is this psuedo-70's vibe that's all about new pastels and "crafty chic."  I don't know if I truly believe there is such a thing as crafty that's "chic" but somebody else sure does.  I think we can partly blame this:

we heart it

The polaroid camera.  It gives every piece of inane bullshit it captures immediate "personality."

here

Sometimes that's a good thing if you're a horrible picture taker like me but lately I just see a lot of vintage sweetness and spools of thread elevated from Martha Stewart stylized craft editorial to artsy photograph of hodge podge granny hoarding.

And of course the polaroid camera was a hipster favorite and we all know that hipsters are the real mavens of trend cycles.  

via ffffound

And etsy style of course...

A RAINBOW YOU SAY????!!!!

I would set a baby panda on fire for anything coconut but I swear to gawd if I see another gawddamn picture of a tinted 'macaron' I will take that burning panda and shove it up your ass.  IT'S JUST A COOKIE MUTHERFUCKERS!!!!

last three from here

here

Ditto the cookie rant for cherry blossom pictures because I've really reached my quota for these.

I will admit sometimes I feel a little pastel-y but let's just blame it on an occasional surge of estrogen.  Sweetness and dewdrops and granny glam are fine if that's your thang but this new surge of it doesn't feel authentic to me.   I'll take it any day of the week and twice on Sundays over shabby chic but pastels are still pastels.  They still need something bigger/darker/grittier to ground them otherwise it's still just lace and ruffles and bunnies.  But now you can process it with iphone app and then BLAMMO!!  You just became infinitely groovier!!  Or add a few stitched flowers to it = one-of-a-kind eccentricity!!!!  But that's precisely the issue - real personality doesn't come from a photoshop filter (I don't think...?!) and while the 70's were groovetastic and it's fun to be nostalgic sometimes (what trend isn't to some extent?) it's an applied aesthetic.  

Everything looks cooler from behind the filtered haze of my yellowed aviator glasses and polaroid viewfinder but once you take that away it feels ironic that we're being nostalgic about another decade of recession, high unemployment, an unpopular war all with a liberal president thrown in there somewhere.  But I don't really know anything about the 70's because I wasn't alive then and that's a whole lot of episodes of Charlie's Angels I have to watch and I don't really have that kind of time so y'all can tell me I'm dumb if you want.  If you want a burning baby panda shoved up your ass...  

But I guess not everything viewed through a yellowed haze has to be cookies and flowers - I'm quite partial to these "pastel-esque" graphics.

here

And if you like your polaroids way nastier there's always Pornaroids.  I did not make that up and yes it is NSFW obviously.  Porn is where trends go to die. Or is it where they are born??!!!!!!  *DUN, DUN, DUUUNNNNNNN*

Think about that mystery of life while I write in my diary...

Kitchen Tawlk

Soooo....  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I've got a kitchen to remodel.  I'm still searching through the dregs of Chattavegas to find a contractor so while my days are spent hiding sharp objects from myself so I don't slit my wrists once the constant wine buzz wears off let's talk about other prettier things to distract me.   

Specifically kitchens with white cabinets... 



absolute panty explosion via Desire to Inspire

Cuz I want one.  There are tons of white accents in the ModSauce Ranch (including but not limited to Charlemagne) and white seems to always blend nicely in an older home or look crisp for a more contemporary feel and works for anything in between.  There's also no way in hell you can nicely coordinate my purty hardwood floors and wood trim in the rest of the house with anything my kitchen budget can afford.  So white it is. 

And I'm gonna get one with the help of this dude:




Look how cute we are together!

Meet Nick from Cupboards.  You might already know him because you probably found this blog through his Twitter @cupboards.  Even though Nick is three hours away in Alabama he assured me that long-distance kitchen design is not as impossible as my wormhole diagram illustrated.  In fact it's rather common which was a surprise to me because I'm scared of kitchen "showrooms" and had resigned myself to a bland Home Depot kitchen a long time ago.  Not that there's anything wrong with a Home Depot kitchen because broke ass beggers like me can't be choosers.  Or CAN we...???!!!!  Nick is showing me the way of kitchen designers that don't wear aprons and that schmucks like me CAN afford them. 

Coburn Architecture via Desire to Inspire

MS: Hey Nick I know I live in the ghetto but can you throw in that fridge for me too?! kthanxbye

Look at all that yummy whiteness Nick!  LOOK AT IT!!!!


2 from Hus & Hem via Desire to Inspire

MS: Hey Nick don't forget to include the brick oven fireplace in the center of my 100 square foot kitchen. 

Nick: Sure.  You can use it to burn that wallpaper.

Skona Hem via Desire to Inspire

MS: Ok I know this kitchen isn't white but can we hold hands and bask in its sheer awesomeness for a minute?

Nick: Stop touching me.


2 from kitchendesigner.org's photostream





here

MS: Hey Nick guess who....

Nick: Candice Olson.

MS: Damn you're good!  I'll take this but with 87% less Candice.



The Estate of Thing's photostream

 But I'll take 100% of this.



here

MS: Fucking fuck I need to laminate this picture because this is straight up kitchen porn for me.  Can I have everything in this picture times twelve?

Nick: You said your budget was $50...

MS: So we need to subtract .50 for the laminating and then we're good to go right?

here

MS: Hey Nick can we...

Nick: No.

Boston Design Guide here

MS: Ok but what about...

Nick: No.  But I'll throw in the flowers.

MS: SQUUEEEEE!!

Stay tuned as the process unravels. 

Or one of US unravels first.  My bet's on me because I'm barely hanging by a thread as it is.

Carpe Diem: The Sunday Glitter Gulch Story.

Despite the fact that I post about a lot of collage on this blog I do appreciate all kinds of art because I'm well-rounded and edumicated.  But this post is not about proving to you that I am those fancy things.  It's about collage.   

Cool collages with vintage-y things by Robert Mars via Notpaper.   

He also has a book for purchase which is such a coincidence since Christmas is about two days away, y'all.  START SHOPPING SLACKASSES!!!!

If collages don't do it for you L@@K!!  

A nipple!!  

Also, I'm changing the name of this blog to Sunday's Glitter Gulch.

Have you bought that book yet?!  WTF??   All my presents are already wrapped in coordinating packaging and under my impeccably decorated glitter tree that smells like little baby jeezus and cinnamon pinecones!!  

Every day I used to pass a great vintage sign at an abandoned seven room hotel known as the Peach Motel (best sleazy hotel name ever).  Trees and weeds were growing unfettered all around the sign until eventually all you could see was 'Pea Mo' which made me love it even more and I vowed to bring the Camera of Amazing Awesomeness to document it.  I vowed for about a year but before I could actually get my slackass out of the car and do it someone tore it down to sell the lot.  Sadness.  

Moral of the story: never put off tomorrow what you could do today whether it's Christmas shopping or hugging your sleazy neighborhood crack whore hotel like it's the last.  

The Madame is like a Southern archeologist of weird shit: Part 2

Continuing on our journey from yesterday we are slowly trying to make our way up to the bell tower.

I want to go to there.

We don't know how to get there but we can see it.  I will not be bested by a tree house!

Oh look a kitty...!!

In a sitting area with nice carpet floors.  So relaxing and...

OMIGOD IT'S A FUCKING WOOD BURNING STOVE!!!  The art is a nice homey touch but won't help when you're BURNING ALIVE IN A HOUSE MADE OF FIREWOOD!!!!

In a closet room next to the little "living room" is the other kitty.  He looks pissed but I find this scene infinitely awesome.

And a matching doggie.  But this one's alive.  I think...  He was pointing the way up to this:

Just a normal bathtub on a deck about 7 stories up.   A bathtub painted with an OCTOPUSSY!!  I'm not sure how it got there but I bet it was the exact same way the pyramids were built....  SCIENTOLOGISTS!!!  Don't tell Horace because I bet it would really cramp his Jesus style. 

But look we're so close now!!  

Ok just a few more steps up this narrow hallway of possible doom...

I don't even know if I'm looking up or down but I still smell that damn camp fire and it makes me nervous...

Black and white is artsy fartsy

??? but I like it and it's real high so I know I'm closer to jeezus.

Ta daaahh!!  We made it!  Up in the bell tower it's breezy (you can tell because the whole thing sways like it's rocking you to sleep) and peaceful because you can't hear the redneck kids yelling way down below.  It really did feel like a secret tree house now.  And in the last few stairwells and specifically in the tower itself much of the graffiti was memorializing lost friends and loved ones.  Much nicer than the "Ashley sux dix" variety in the chapel area.  

But what's this...??

Just the best landscaping you've ever seen.  I think that's an American flag that some volunteers are helping to maintain.  I'm putting one in the ModSauce ranch immediately.  

You could then climb a tiny ladder to ring the bell but I think everyone was motion sick from the swaying and wanted to get down immediately...


So now what...??


TO THE BASEMENT!!!

There were a few floors below the chapel on the ground where the materials were housed until future use.

B&W for artsy basement contemplation...

I squee hard for abandoned furniture and things...


And so we move to the backyard...

5 story lawn chair swing

I didn't get a chance to ride because the hippies were being stingy and it also looked like a chair of death.  And that's saying a lot considering I just survived a 10 story fire hazard.

Nothing makes Jesus happier than graffiti in a doorway that opens onto a 3 story drop straight to the ground.  But it's easy to make fun of all this until you look at those balconies and remember that every single piece of wood in this 10,000+ square foot place was specifically placed by hand in each position for a reason known solely to the builder.  It all feels rather awesomely insane.  

But a thoughtful type of insanity where windows line up on a wall that is supported by a rock foundation. 

Being that this is a church I would have liked to write a stunning essay on the idea of sacred space and the rapture of buildings but I was mentally exhausted and really sweaty from the fear of dying, still distracted by redneck kids running around like heathens jacked up on Mountain Dew (ok that was me...) and somewhere somebody was hammering really loudly in an ongoing push to keep adding on to this place.  I didn't really have a moment for reflection because I spent a lot of time trying to find the nearest exit in case of emergency.  (It was usually a running leap off of the nearest balcony you could find.)  But it does boggle the mind to think about a man building his tree ark with no plan (that I'm aware of), no schematics, just a hammer and a few hundred thousand nails as a constant prayer for the last 17 years.   Awesomely insane or not that is a dedication to be respected and rewarded with an extra bag of combos and Mountain Dew.