Festive Floral Arrangements Are Just Moments Away

Punch up your Pink Carnations with holiday greenery!

I wish that I was better organized and in my “new” approach to that end, I will be better organized in the coming year. But for now, suffice it to say I am slammed as usual preparing for Christmas! Having just returned from a tropical escape on the 12th and hitting the ground running to get caught-up at work, receiving a dear friend as a house guest as he visits for a few days on business, I am running out of time.
I have given myself a “bye” to NOT put up a tree this year, allowing the two wreaths on the front doors to honor the season, but inside it is not beginning to look a lot like Christmas. However, yesterday my dear husband arrived with a bouquet of pink carnations.
I now have pink carnations – not the bright bold poinsettia plants, the noche buenos of the Christmas season, but pink carnations. So what does one do? Get creative. My husband loves carnations. They are a very happy flower, sturdy and durable, long-lasting and come in a variety of colors and sizes. They might not say “Christmas” at first glance – but what does are the pine branches that grow in our yard. We have fragrant mugo pine, spruce and juniper. We even have a couple of holly bushes and the photinia that I enjoy using in every season.
So my point here is that if you venture outside, you might have just the right filler needed to create the perfect holiday centerpiece! If you don’t have a yard from which to harvest these treasures, go to your local Christmas tree lot and ask for scraps – for free or at small cost. Maybe approach a family buying their tree and ask if you could snip some of the lower branches – something most people end up doing when they go home in order to make room for the skirt and presents.
Don’t panic, festive floral arrangements are just moments away.

Read More
Posted On December 18, 2011 By pattisays In design, design trends, DIY design, seasonal interior design /  

Caribbean Rum, Words, and Relaxation

Ready, set, relax!

Cruzan island rum with limes and mango – cheers!

As the white dots of cyber snow float across my wordpress screen, I realize that it’s telling me that its winter. Unlike real snow however, it does not accumulate lest it make it impossible to write the text necessary to post this blog. So rather, it dissipates as it cycles – nice. But it does conjure up cold and that’s when I long for the warmth of southern climes.
What says vacation…relaxation – some might say iced tea and a hammock -sounds awfully nice. As a foodie and partier I like the booze and food of the local environment to accompany my activities. The context of it all – like “when in Rome”…it’s blue agave tequila in Mexico and it’s sugar cane RUM in the islands and in this case, the US Virgin Islands. Rum punch or, for me, just rum and water – with a squeeze of lime if available…it’s much of the history of the Caribbean. Here our very own St. Croix “Cruzan” rum – along with that lime and a couple of ripe juicy mangoes on the side – just for good measure- and it certainly makes a gorgeously colorful photo op!
And BTW, that’s CARIB-BEEEEEAN – stressing the EEEEEEE! Yes, the Carib (Care-ib) Indians…have you read about them? Try Mitchner – a lengthy beach read. It was not a British affectation to start the Carib (accent on the rib)ean falling off the end. Actually, even in the BVI, back in the day, everyone clearly said Carib-beeean with that lovely accent.
No, at some point, it was decided by some to make the change. In the case of the Caribbean, was it Carnival Cruise Line and/or some marketing upstart behind some “new” pronunciation campaign to design the “new” image of the islands? Hmmm…thought it sounded British?! ”You say tomato and I say tomatto” as the song goes!
When you listen to Bob – Marley, that is – need I say? He sang and his recordings still sing today “In the heart of the Caribbeeeeean. ” He sang it loudly and clearly with his magnificent, melodic and authentic Jamaican accent – old pirates! Weren’t they listening?
So you go to the sun…feel the balmy breeze – “Christmas wind” – greet you as you climb into a cab at the airport and the question that has been puzzling you for some time in advance of this trip comes out…and you ask the driver “Down here do you say Ca-RIB -ean or do you say Caribbeeean”? To which he answers “We say West Indies.” Ha – what a great answer – to keep above the fray!
Perhaps you’ll put on some music and relax with your mind adrift – just design your holiday getaway around what is fun for you. Cheers!

Read More
Posted On December 14, 2011 By pattisays In context of interior design, food and interior design, seasonal interior design, travel and design /  

Rewarding Creativity – Positively Reinforced With Prosperity.

Creative Design Ideas

Amphibious shoes!

Some funny things land in one’s email. This came with a collection of fantastically creative shoe designs. I doubted the validity of several including this one so I Googled it. And sure enough, there is a site – but no guarantee that they really sell shoes – http://www.hightideheels.be/Leer.html .
Design – this seems to be the perfect project assignment. Fashion to the extreme – but here, in this instance, it’s a novel thought…from work to play – or a seamless transition…if you live by the water. So let’s try for office to hiking boots where the fine finish of leather is replicated with weather-proof materials suitable for the outdoors! Or bicycle shoes with removable heels – ride to work and stick on the heels when you get there! “Think outside the box” the instructor will council his students. You can hear him now…hearken back to those days in class when you had to design a box to house a raw egg that you could successfully drop from 5 stories up and NOT break the egg. Yes, those were the days…
Clothing – if form follows function – is to cover, provide protection, and to make a “statement.” To make that “statement,” FASHION enters the picture. The function is often a spoof as well as the form – but what fun!
And then there’s The Emperor’s New Clothes – that timeless tale told by Hans Christian Anderson that exposes the farce and illuminates the innocent observation of the child who won’t buy into the idea. But we buy it season after season – the fashion industry that must continue to create in order that we make new, want new, further the industry and the economics that surround it and trickle down from it. It’s a major element of our free-market system – of our capitalistic society. It’s a beautiful thing – creativity – positively reinforced with recognition and perhaps even prosperity.
It’s in the eye of the beholder and the one with the largest pocketbook as to whether honesty in design is perpetuated or merely the idea. Whether real or shock value, humor, farce or frivolity – fashion’s validity is assessed in the present and in the future for generations. From the fashion design of hair styles and clothing, furnishings and decorative accessories to vehicles, industrial design, and architecture- all constantly in motion and time usually validates or not the true merit of that design.

Read More
Posted On December 7, 2011 By pattisays In design, fashion and design /  

Designed for Adventure or a Study in Self-Introspection

Usually I think of a beach read as something through which to escape – designed for adventure, intrigue, romance…but by stark contrast, I find myself immersed in Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. My thinking now is that “what better time to “sharpen the saw” and gather and organize priorities than the down time that a beach escape affords.

Funny that I love to see those snippets of “what they’re reading” and ponder if they really ARE reading that particular selection or are “they” just prepared with some fascinating tome in case the inevitable question is posed to their celebrity selves. In this case – albeit NOT the celebrity status and who cares what I’m reading anyway – for those of you who DO – on my list for quite a while and long overdue, this book was a recent gift by a friend who KNOWS me and my habits. It’s a pen in the teeth, jot notes and mark pages book. It’s a good read and loaded with opportunities for self introspection, reflection and maybe even slap your face silly as you recognize all too familiar patterns, and read the painfully obvious suggestions and recommendations that flow forth from each fascinating page. Easy for him to say!

The uninterrupted hours available – when I’m not writing about reading the book- are making progress swift. But as the author reminds the reader, this is not a book to read and leave – rather, it is a book to which one should constantly refer, use to keep on track, reinforce and guide for the rest of the reader’s life! Whoa! This certainly isn’t that frivolous beach read that I was so eagerly anticipating.

Yet on the shelves here – amidst all the Jimmy Buffet books – GREAT beach reads, the old tattered John D. McDonald mysteries, Erin Hilderbrands absorbingly enjoyable Nantucket novels, even Tim Dorsey’s goofy Floridian tales, I will find the perfect beach read upon which to veg in the after days of the self realization chapters that will no-doubt never be finished –not to mention his sequel of new-found observations – just set aside for a good vacation escape.

Cowpet 003

Read More
Posted On December 6, 2011 By pattisays In travel and design /  

Simple Ornaments Make Signature Style Design Statements

We are greeted by a Caribbean Christmas season in the tropics! This is how one McDonald’s decorates for the holidays – their signature Happy Meal boxes dangle from a palm tree! What better ornaments than these happy red boxes – a brilliant contrast of eye-catching red marketing material and the fresh green of nature. Environmentally visual – those little cardboard art pieces dance in the breeze.
During the summer months, we created a play area beneath our large blue spruce tree. The low branches provided an eye-level decoration area just the right height for the smaller kids. So we drew images and colored them with crayons and cut them out and laminated them between two pieces of waxed paper – like you would when pressing fall leaves in autumn. We then punched a hole in each and tied them to the branches with a loop of ribbon. They created a lively, colorful personalization art exhibit in this secret hiding place and defied the weather there in the protection of the big tree for a remarkably long time.
We have wild gourds in our area of the high desert in New Mexico. They are nearly perfectly round and about the size of tennis balls. After the magnificent white blossoms have passed, the new gourds each harvest season are hard and fresh, but the previous years’ forgotten fruit nestled amidst vines are in varying stages of drying out. These dehydrated orbs are perfect for painting, decoupage, or applying decorative embellishment. I preferred to paint a simple red poinsettia on them –using fast-drying and easy clean-up acrylic paint – leaving the background color of the natural gourd exposed and then glossing them with gel gloss medium. Drill a hole in the top and glue in an eye screw and Voila! The finished ornament weights practically nothing and is quite durable. I’ve even used a hair pin – not a bobbie pin, but the old zigzaggy hair pins that when squeezed together and forced down into the drilled hole spring back with just enough tension and held by the zigzag of the metal make an even easier hanging mechanism! An ornament hook or a ribbon and you’re ready to hang!
What creative homemade ornaments might YOU create as your signature style?

Read More
Posted On December 5, 2011 By pattisays In art as gift ideas, DIY design, exterior - outdoor design, seasonal interior design, travel and design /  

ART Beneath Your Feet

Art beneath your feet

It’s an expensive finish material, so we don’t see it a lot, but terrazzo floors are beautiful, wear like iron and fascinate me. Yes, in larger urban centers and often in major airports the artistic treatments that are designed into the matrix of stone chips, and other materials are fantastic. The colors are now endless as the manipulation of the materials and additional materials have expanded the medium. Once rather common and often now considered dated – I take exception – and so do the many who participate in the design, fabrication and installation of these fabulous floors!

Other materials, such as the shell flecks strewn through the dark matrix of stone that is the primary surface of several concourses of the Miami airport, make a contextual statement – here, the context that shells are found scattered on the sandy beaches of sunny Florida. The brass inlay suggests shell skeletons embedded in the black sand – sounds more like the lava beaches of Guadalupe than Florida – but that’s the artistic license of the artist(s). The shine of the brass and the iridescence of the shell chips add bling against the high contrast of the dark background. It also, upon closer inspection, looks like a star constellations amidst the galaxies and myriad particles of twinkling lights in outer space. Maybe they are floating in an abyss in the dark depths of the sea.  Especially here with the explosion of the flash reflecting against the hard, smooth glossy surface you can imagine either scenario – that of deep space with a burst of light penetrating the blackness or the ocean depths and a light source attempting to capture the existence of the creatures – a dark glittery scene with weightless, floating images.

Look down next time you are waiting for a Sky Link or rushing to your gate…you might be surprised to see the art beneath your feet.

Terrazzo flooring designs Miami

Read More
Posted On December 4, 2011 By pattisays In art and interior design, context of interior design, design, design trends, travel and design /