Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Chrimas, y'all!

The ModSauce Ranch's Christmas card this year
It didn't work.  


But I'm watching Santa Claus: The Movie and the reindeer eat glitter manna that makes them fly so I can see where she might have picked up this idea.  

Santa Claus: The Movie might be my favorite holiday movie from the '80s because there's a hobo kid with fingerless gloves, Santa is kinda Big Poppa sessy in polka dot pirate blouses, John Lithgow plays an extra greasy evil toymaker and is an asshole who won't let Ren dance, the poppa elf at the North Pole looks like an ancient Shaolin monk and Dudley Moore is drunk the whole time.  


Maybe I'm confusing this movie with some other '80s movies...  It's still pretty awesome though.  It's nice to switch things up because after the fifth viewing of A Christmas Story even I start to wish for someone to shoot my eyes out.    


Maybe after the fifth viewing of this one I'll switch to One Magic Christmas with Mary Steenburgen and that other hobo dude.  Except this hobo is an ANGEL!!  I don't think there's as much glitter in that one but I just love some hobos around the holidays.


This post was my attempt to write one sentence to wish you a Merry Christmas and 12 paragraphs later we're finally getting there:


Glitter hugs and eggnog-induced dry-humps for all you saucy friends!  Have a Merry Chrimas, a happy non-Chrimas holiday or just a fantastic weekend for all you super pagans out there.


I'm taking a blog vacation until the new year to refuel my tanks of sauce (read: shop and nap) but I'll still be twitter twatting so fill me in on all the swag the Big Poppa in red gave you. 


See you in twenty twelve!


Update: In my drunk-on-Christmas haste, I forgot to tell you that this card was heavily inspired by a card posted by Paul Anater.  I think it was the cats.  And the fact I have a lot of Queen Victoria pictures...  I assure you I am not that clever without stealing from someone else.  

Thursday, December 22, 2011

I like to go BUCK WILD for the holidays.

CHRISTMAS!  It's the most sauciest time of the year!  Can't you just feel the sharp pang of glitter rubbing into every crevice of your body after all that gift wrapping?!  Ahhh.... Sink into it.  That's the feeling of love for your fellow human beings.  I've heard people say that the more it hurts, the more you love.

I'm kidding.  I've never heard anybody say that.  I just made it up but it sounds kinda right, huh?

It is no secret I love (unapologetically and non-painfully) the holidays.  It includes all my favorite things - glitter, twinkling things, boxes of secrets under plastic trees, disgustingly beautiful displays of tackiness, my grandmother's date pinwheel cookies, making people smile, more glittery things and all of it wrapped up with that sense of impending doom you just can't shake.

*twirling in delight*

I don't know why people hate Christmas so much.  I just ignore the parts of the holiday that I don't enjoy like when people crush up candy canes and put them on brownies or try to talk about the real meaning of the holiday.  Gross. 

I've been busy not blogging lately because I've actually been enjoying the season in real life and not just living out my wrapping paper fantasies on Pinterest.  Well, not too much...  

I've been doing lots of super fun things like driving all over the the tri-state area to find the most perfect ribbon ever to match this one tiny sheet of wrapping paper I have, eating cake for breakfast and singing/crying to Christmas songs when I'm alone in the car driving all over the tri-state area.

I also set aside about four minutes to craft some holiday decor for the dining room.
I detect a definite lack of glitter here...
I know what you're thinking - HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO CREATE SUCH A MASTERPIECE???!!?!?!  Or maybe, why...? 

Well, dear inquisitive reader, these little birds I bought for about 50 cents each at World Market a few years ago and felt they needed their own place.

That place being a dead branch I made someone crawl around in a dark forest to find for me.  I believe it's called upcycling, y'all.  

In case you were confused on how to construct this feat of engineering.

I'm not sure if this will make a reappearance next year but sometimes I just get a wild hair and I must CREATE!

I also had to get creative because I lost the box that stored my stocking holders and Charlemagne was adamant that her stocking be put up.

So we had to improvise and use these vintage Dansk candle holders that were laying around.  She said that would be ok.

I couldn't be bothered to actually decorate the rest of the mantle because I was so busy putting birds on a dead branch.  Maybe I'll get around to hauling out the 30 feet of mantle garland next year...  I'm not exaggerating, it's 30 feet.  I should start working on it in October if I actually want it done by Christmas.

But I did manage to get some gifts wrapped!  Squee!


Ribbon not styled, the table was just messy...


 I'm a huge believer of twine and raffia especially for dude gifts.  However, twine smells like it was soaked in gasoline prior to packaging so I might suggest letting it air out for a bit or spraying it with Axe body spray.  Because it's for a dude.  But I'm pretty sure the ladies like it too so you could be safe for anyone.


There were a few other glittery baubles strewn about the house but they aren't as exciting as what I stare at every night.
More singing and crying...  Looks better in person.
Obviously I believe in big traditional fake trees (but not so much in proper night photography...).  I also tell myself I'll do a more modern-looking tree every year but fuck it.  I have no self control when it comes to the holidays and rather enjoy it that way.  Leaving a shiny ornament in a dark storage box is like leaving an adorable puppy in a cage at the pound to die.  You'd have to have a lump of coal where your heart is!  Obviously my heart is made of rainbows and cake icing.  (Sticky and sweet?)   


I'll probably get a real tree one year but for now the fake ones do quite nice.  Particularly because I actually put my tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving this year and that's a long ass time for a real tree to look perfect.  This may make me sound like a crazy person but I assure you it left my entire Thanksgiving holiday free to eat, spend time with family and plan the bird/twig/vase thing.


I needed a lot of time and pie for that one...  I'll draw you diagram if you want to attempt one for next year.


I hope y'all have a holiday that is full of as much or as little glitter as your prefer.  And by glitter I mean cake for breakfast of course...


It helps to make your heart sticky and sweet for 2012.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Dear Santa,

I know you are the wisest of the magi so I don't even need to tell you that I've been a very good girl this year in all the sauciest ways.  So when I look underneath the tree this year I pray to the little baby jeebus in the manger wearing a gold diaper that I find a beautifully wrapped package that would make Martha Stewart shit her granny prison panties and then take that shit and bake a wonderfully delicious cake with it.  Then I want to open that box and find the strength not to cut a bitch who ever wears this outfit anywhere within a 50 miles of me:

Considering this picture has been reblogged almost 9000 times on tumblr I feel like this is a gift that will no doubt prove useful to humanity as it will prevent me from being a serial killer every time I walk by an Urban Outfitters.  

Although perhaps a bigger gift to humanity WOULD be for me to kill all those who dare to bring back (even ironically) the CK sweatshirt and acid-washed jeans of my youth.  This headless person chose not to include Doc Martens which, if I'm being honest, is an oversight but it will make me steal her shoes once I finish stealing her life.  

Really, Santa, it's up to you which path your choose but there better be some kind of solution to this problem come December 25th.

Peace be with you,

Your devoted child of glitter - 

Madame Sunday/Lacy/possible serial killer

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Sunday Set. Yep, nothing but some pretty pictures here... *whistles*

Artist?
Look at all these cool things I found on the internet this week!  LOOK AT IT!

Sao Paulo via Nowness
(Pssstt.... hey laaaadies and twisluts!  Let's gab a minute.  I figure while everyone else is looking at pictures we can secretly talk about Breaking Dawn since everyone should have seen it by now.  Possibly multiple times...  I don't judge.  Seriously, I don't.  I watch Twilight movies for chrissake.  It's all so so horrible it makes me love it.  I only saw it about a week ago so the theater was nearly empty which really allowed us audience members to bond when we all laughed together at the shitty acting.  Seriously, there were guffaws when Jacob imprinted.  Probably because even in fantasy scenarios the wig budget for this franchise is less than the amount of money I spend on caviar facials. (That would be $0)  And because of his, you know, homosensuality.)

here but...?
Delicious!!!!



fucking sexy tile from Pinterest but source?
(Ok we're back.  I was actually going to do some moodboards and fake decorate some Breaking Dawn rooms being that this is a pseudo-design blog but I realized that I could only fake decorate the honeymoon room on Isle Esme and I don't really like"island" decor so that was out.  Besides, it would have just been a bed and mosquito netting and a toaster oven on the nightstand because seriously - no one wants cold diamond dick no matter how much it jizzes glitter.  Be a gentleman, Edward.  Toast that wang like you're reheating some 100 year old pizza before you get it anywhere near Bella's awkward vag.  

Hold on... I think the other people are starting to wonder.)

Hannah Whitaker via Invisible House
Omigawd is that a perfectly coordinated snake?????!!!

(Ok I think we bought some time.  Even without the pizza/wang reheating, I didn't care too much about sexy sex times because nothing happens when Mormon virgins get married of course and I've already read enough disgustingly filthy fan fiction to completely create that moment much better in my head.   It's a good thing I didn't decide to fake decorate a room because I don't know how to simulate a broken headboard on Olioboard...  only in my brain.  Because of the chains, archery equipment and steampunk goth tractor of course... Thank you fan fiction.  Oddly enough, most of the people in the theater seemed to be cougars and their young dates until I realized it was more likely middle-aged moms and their sons which made the anticipatory silence about the honeymoon really really gross.  I tried to break the awkwardness by rustling around in the large bag of white cheddar popcorn I snuck into the theater.  It wasn't as good as the goodie bags of vodka-soaked gummi bears I made for New Moon but still finger-licking good.)

via Because I'm Addicted


via Michael Paukner. Buy it here.
Wow, this print sure inspires a LOT of discussion regarding the ancient study of the 'harmony of the spheres' - it might be a good idea to start from the beginning and discuss all of it.  Now.


via Aqua Velvet
Make sure to include analysis of the Dymaxion House too.

(My readers love that shit - ok I love it too - but I like discussing vampirical C-sections more because damn.  *riiip*  Did they use the hair and makeup team for sound effects also?  I can't wait to see what kind of fuckery happens with that little weirdo baby in the next movie.  I also can't wait to see Bella turn into one of the X-men because that will be awesome.  And by awesome I mean terrible because the whole thing will probably be awesomely terrible.) 

Gary Hume
And that's why I love it.  

Uh... Love the ART.  Yes, I was totally talking about the art.

Feel free to talk about how much you also love/hate ART or even the Dymaxion harmony of spheres in the comments...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

This makes me exceedingly happy.

Tequila makes the sun rise in my soul.
The ModSauce Ranch had guests this weekend to celebrate an early Christmas.  We celebrated by making tacos and margaritas because that's what the baby jeezus would definitely have opted for over frankincense and myrrh had it been available.  People in olden times certainly had it hard.

To be completely honest, someone else made me the delicioso tacos and margaritas because even after all these months the kitchen of amazing awesomeness still inspires people to create culinary masterpieces.  That was the real purpose of renovating the kitchen...  So other people would want to cook for me.  That's what good design is - manipulative and saucy.

During this party weekend the Satsuma Sunrise was invented.  It's like a regular pitcher of margaritas but had about a dozen satsuma oranges blended into it.  It was so good I almost forgot who I was and celebrated the birth of jeezus.  Or maybe that was the tequila...?

And then of course we had to have an impromptu Design and Styling Challenge because it's a tradition now to create a cocktail out of whatever kind of booze and other drinkable liquids I have at the house and then photograph it looking sexy for maximum legitimacy.  I hear it's what all the cool bloggers do.

Also, it makes it taste better that way. 

And yes those are all things I had laying around the house.  It looks like we're celebrating the Day of the Dead at a Z gallerie in 1976.

Which would be AWESOME.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Today was a good day.

I don't know what y'all were doing in the late '80s/early '90s but if you were like me you were probably organizing your Lisa Frank trapper keeper and alphabetizing your R.L. Stine books while listening to gangsta rap.  

I knew what a gangsta lean was long before I learned to drive.  I could draw you a map of South Central L.A. but probably couldn't make it to the grocery store without getting lost in the woods for a few weeks.  

It was a strange mix for us Gen Y kids.  I bet this blog is the result of that kind of childhood...

So needless to say when the following news made its way across my dashboard today (the 21st century version of my Lisa Frank trapper keeper) I almost squeed myself silly.  

Ice Cube - the icy rapper not on Law & Order: SVU if you don't know (and now you know) -
I do believe this gentleman has a connection to the Westside.
- was an architectural draftsman the same time he was a part of N.W.A.  That's right.  Those blueprints came straight outta Compton.  (What percentage of bloggers are making these jokes you bet?  I say about eleventy-seven.)

So with that kind of background he is, naturally, now narrating a video about the Eames House for the 'Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980' - the collection of exhibitions about the post-war art and design in Southern California.

Makes total fucking sense to me. 
Fantastic.  Pictures via NYT
Having this poster would make my life complete.

But the video makes my eternity:

"This is going green 1949 style, bitch.  Believe dat."

Just the greatest collection of words ever uttered in the history of the spoken language.

After seeing this I think I've finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up!  Ice Cube and I are basically the same person because according to the NY Times he was a draftsman for a year and I also have almost zero experience in the design world.  We also both think it's appropriate to check yo self before you wreck yo self.   (Sorry, I can't stop.)  And when feeling saucy, I even sound a bit like Ice Cube (if he had a lovechild with Kellie Pickler that was raised a valley girl) so I think it's only reasonable that I should also get to narrate videos of amazing spaces.  In fact, I should do it all over the world!  Like the Travel Channel meets HGTV but baked in a casserole with a can of cream of chicken soup.  

Best show ever.  Even better than Hoarders and Mad Men baked in a casserole with a can of cream of chicken soup.

Check your local listings in the summer of 2017.

I'm goin hillbilly gangsta style, bitch.  Believe dat.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

It's easy to coordinate with boring.

Drawing all day is career so strenuous it is often confused with digging ditches and being a prison guard.  However, it does have a few perks.  I get paid to look at lots of magazines, when I'm having PMS I can just claim it's my sensitive designer temperament and eat lots of chocolate and then go look at more magazines for inspiration and when I'm done looking at magazines I get to, well... draw all day.

The down side is that my eyeballs are sensitive to pattern and I tend to avoid wearing them and using them at the Ranch because I have to create them all damn day.  I usually enjoy a solid color and subtle texture like it was the last drop of vodka left in my freezer.  I was color blocking long before we called it color blocking - it was just called 'yawn' back then.

watercolor ikat via Republic of Chic but the artist?
But eyeball seizures be damned!  I've caught the pattern bug lately and feel like indulging a little visual vomit before I'm scurry back to my safe place of black and brown.  They have tea cozies and footed pajamas in solid color land too.  It's nice.



But flower orgasmisplosions are better.  Go big or go home is what I always say when I'm not saying something else about staying small wherever you are.


via Lookbook
Maybe I'll even WEAR some pattern!  And put it with contrasting pattern.  

There is no room big enough to contain my creativity.


via Refinery29
Nor house my scarf collection.


via designworklife - same artist as above?
There is no stopping me.


scarves from a sale on Fab
With the scarves.  

I'm a madwoman of pattern I tell you.


via Erin Ever After
Or maybe that's just my sensitive madwoman designer temperament coming out.  


Either way, I'm going to get some shades just like that.


To bring some much-needed sauce to the ditch digging community.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Don't Stop Til It Thunders: The Story of a Sauce That Was Modern.

Forget about your holiday-induced depression and pathetic attempts at an organized Christmas list because we're celebrating today!  We are at the magical time of the calendar that marks the two year anniversary of this blog and the five year anniversary of my buying the Ranch.  *cue squeeing*  Happy bloggiversary and ranchiversary to me!  

This is totally me about to get my blogging on.  
Being at that intersection of two such momentous occasions makes a madame reflective.  There must be unicorn magic around here...  I knew I smelled cookies and sweaty flanks!  

Somehow I thought I would be farther along when these two milestones passed even though I never set any concrete goals for myself let alone that I'd still be blogging/ranching at this time.  

When I bought my house I assumed by now I would have a show-stopping home of amazing awesomeness and throw lavish dinner parties all the time and twirl down my hall while putting away towels that smelled like a dewy fields of lavender because I obviously I'm at the point in my life where I make my own laundry detergent out of dewy lavender fields. Instead I'm in pajamas at noon next to the pile of towels on my couch that I'm going to fold as soon as I get off Pinterest in 7 hours.  

BUT I actually have a couch now to put the towels on and I can see my kitchen winking at my from across the room and a house full of other tiny milestones you get when going about the process of building a home from scratch.  So I guess I did come a long way in five years even though I don't churn my own goat butter in my immaculately decorated butter-churning shed.  Instead I just have a mint green mini barn out back and an Earthfare close by.  

And even though I mostly wanted to have some funny fun times when I started the blog two years ago I probably assumed I would be queen of blogging by now and get to make a living sitting on my couch at noon blogging in my pajamas.  Hey wait a minute...???   I may not be the most visited blog but I've received amazing perks, having a substantial amount of readers that regularly prove more badass than me and I get to start conversations that set my soul on fiyah.  So I guess I did come a long way in two years even though I can't sustain my queen's existence yet while wearing pajamas.  Instead I have a bottle of haute sauce with my face on it and a digital scrapbook of my adventures and that's a special kind of awesome I wouldn't have even guessed at two years ago. 

I'm not as far along as I'd hoped in these two areas not because I've failed but because I'm just not done yet.

A good friend once shared with me the old folk wisdom that when a snapping turtle bites it won't let go until it hears thunder.  Ahhh... hillbillies.  Not my friend, she was an artist not an Appalachian witch woman.  It was relevant to a deep conversation we were having about art and SHUT UP YOU WEREN'T THERE!  

So now every time I think about working hard on something or I need a  motivational pep talk like in the locker room at halftime during every football movie ever made I just think about snapping turtles, imagine myself in super slow motion under bright lights and whisper ever so softly - don't stop til it thunders.  

Because my life is EXACTLY like football.  

I'm like Rudy if Rudy was a snapping turtle with a vagina.

But not a vagina that snaps because that's totally stupid and why would you even think that, you disgusting pervert?!

Not a snapping turtle. Nor has a vagina. (That we know about.)
So here's what I'm not done doing (other than murdering the English language) and even more things I might do until I hear thunder:

- Dangling some more pretty shit in your face.  Hey, we all like looking at design-related porn.  Perhaps I'll try to show you even more of it.  I don't have to write an essay about every little thing I see so to make your life a little easier and help with your carpel tunnel from having to skim over all my self-indulgent paragraphs I might be more concise too.  Present blog post excluded.  

- I will probably dangle pretty and concise shit in your face more often to distract you from the other posts I want to write that are not concise and are long and wordy and maybe even have real human emotion in them.  Ugh, I know.  I felt you *eyeroll* from here.  But don't forget - MOAR PRETTY SHIT IN YOUR FACE!

- Sometimes that pretty shit might come from the Ranch too because it's time to start stepping up my game here at home.  Madame Lacy Sauce has a lot of projects to do and dammit if I'm not gonna dangle those results in your face too.  I'm saying it might get personal.  As in more DIY.  I don't know though... this pile of towels is pretty big.

- I might even learn how to use my camera for realz when I share this amazing awesomeness I've DIYed from the Ranch.  You mean learn a new skill?!  I know, I might be talking crazy here.

- Of course, we'll continue to celebrate mediocrity not because I believe the stagnation born of apathy is a virtue, but because I think perfectionism is a disease that many people actively infect themselves with. Let's all continue to give a collective middle finger to that idea and celebrate how we actually live instead.  Let's Occupy Real Life, muthafuckers!   Let's celebrate the imperfectly fun, messy, hopeful, sometimes glamorous but mostly mundane parts with swagger, glitter and a very large glass of sauce.

- Oh and obviously we have yet to talk about Breaking Dawn so that will definitely be discussed in the near future.  This is a design blog with impeccable taste and standards.

So thanks to all my readers, commenters, tweeters, G+ers, members of Team Edward, Facebookers even though I'm not on Facebook, lurkers, unicorns, friends who are forced to listen to me talk about blogging, other bloggers who I'm inspired by and Julia Sugarbaker.

That was a long post to say you guys are awesome and I'll see you tomorrow - same time, same place, same snap, same sauce.  

Until it thunders.

I don't know what will happen when it thunders but I bet it's good...  

I'll probably just keep blogging because it'll most likely be raining then and I'll be forced to sit inside in front of my laptop anyway.