Be Less Stupid!

Hey everyone!

I’m leaving the free wordpress hosting and moving to my own host, so please update any bookmarks you have to http://phoenixchapman.com/blog for the new Be Less Stupid! blog, and I’ve also made a blog for the 2008 SL Footwear Expo, which you can find at http://phoenixchapman.com/shoefair

And if I’m not on your blogroll, well what are you waiting for? Seriously, I give cookies. And I show random pictures of cute kittens! Who could not love the kittens?!

P.S. This pic is not of either of my new kittens, cuz right now they’re being holy terrors and I don’t think I could capture them on film, given their current speediness. Instead, I totally stole this from Dailykitten.com

I decided to go back and get my new kitten’s sister so she’d have someone to play with. I’m really glad I did because they are both soooooo adorable and they are very happily playing. Here’s the newest member of my tiny but burgeoning family (and neither of them have any names yet lol)!

I have a brand new little kitten and I need some suggestions for naming her!  I don’t want your typical cat name, nor do I want something that’s too “big” for a cat (like my sister’s cat’s name is Felicity - bleh).  I would like something with an ’s’ sound in it.

Here’s what she looks like!:

I have never been so bored of SL. Well, maybe I have, but it’s usually born more of frustration rather than complete apathy. I haven’t even read the feed in the past few days, and I have no desire to either.

In the past week or two, I’ve spent a ton of money on redoing my tiny tiny apartment. I saw this TV show tonight about “small spaces with big style” and they’re like 2-bedroom lofts in New York, Houston and Chicago. I wanted to laugh before crying, because my small space is like literally one room, with the world’s tiniest kitchen off it. Thankfully, my bathroom is rather average for an apartment, cuz I’ve lived in places where they were smaller, and it was hell. But when you can’t fit a dresser and an end table in your bedroom “alcove” then you know it’s bloody small!

One cool thing: I have my new computer, and I’ve been playing a lot of Sims2 lately, yayz! Now, I just need to figure out what I would find fun to do in SL. But regardless of when I find some inspiration to return to SL, I still miss my friends. <3

Yeah, that was sort of a lame title right?  Meh, whatever.  On another, totally unrelated point, wtf has WordPress done?  They’re like an even worse version of Blogspot now.  All of the things I hated about Blogspot are back! Bleh.

Okay, on to the new Tuli outfits which had me at “Hel-lo!”

The Leila dress is one of my favourite new dresses in a while.  Seems Tuli teamed up with famed shoe designer Onyx LeShelle of Maitreya, because in Tuli’s store underneath these dresses are three specially-coloured versions of the Sassy sandal.  The dress length is perfect for ushering in the Spring season.  I couldn’t decide which colour I liked best, so I had to get them all!  There are matching jackets as well, but I chose not to get them, mostly because I didn’t want to cover up this dress even a little.  The great thing about shopping at Tuli’s store is that she gives you the option to either get only the dress, only the jacket, or both.

Ana has been revamped and re-released, not only the outfit itself, but it now also comes with a matching hat and hair.  The blue one on the left is actually a group freebie, which made deciding what other colours to get a bit easier because it’s one of my favourite choices.  I am very much about the neutral colours, so grey and brown are practically staples in both of my lives.  As you can see, there are two types of belts, and two types of pants, and you can wear it with a scarf or without, and with jacket cuffs or without. The entire outfit is L$300, or you can choose to only buy each part separately.  There are six different colour choices.

Tuli, besides the beautiful skins, is fantastically skilled with both texturing and design.  I’m continually awed by what she comes out with, and I can’t wait for the next release.  She’s also very generous with her update group, so make sure to leave a spot open for her group

Make sure you get over to Tuli to check out these sweet Spring releases.

Quite awhile ago, I blogged the New Shoots showcase, which was designed to give new designers a platform to gain some exposure.  Myllie Writer and Annah Whitfield of Persona and AnnaH Couture, respectively, have gained large followings since those days, and their talent, creativity and even a partnership between the two has grown in leaps and bounds since then.  I still get hits on that blog post every single day (yes, I admit I stalk my blog stats to see what people are reading).

 

The first dress is Jaydie, by Persona, a frilly frock with 3 skirt length options in four colour choices, all of which remind me intensely of the eighties.  Not that that’s a bad thing, though; on the contrary, I really like it.  I had a lot of fun playing around with these dresses.

 

Annie, by AnnaH Couture, has gotten a few of the fashionistas excited to play with it, dressing it up or down.  Of course, it’s a babydoll so I love it.  Yellow is also a perfect colour to convey the Spring spirit after so many months of fall and winter wear (which I still love anyhow).

On the left, Persona’s Golden Dotty outfit was designer Myllie Writer’s RFL contribution, and we showcased it at our RFL FACES show.  I love the hat, though it does require some experimenting and fiddling to find and fit a hair to work with it.  I have to confess, I am lazy and also impatient so I just wore the first hair I could find where it didn’t require *too* much editing.  And it goes perfectly with my black/yellow ChiChi’s.

The Itaparica outfit on the right, also by Persona, is one of my favourite Persona releases.  Not only because I tend to like the more conservative and demure outfits, but also because I own a couple of pairs of pants nearly exactly like this in my real life.  Yeah, I’m boring there too (but I’ve een having an insane amount of relaxation in my real life this week, and it’s been great).  There are a few different colour choices in the pants, and several packs of colours for the shirts to choose from.

Annah Whitfield of AnnaH Couture recently (umm sorta recently) sent me a L$3000 gift card so I could test out her new gift card system.  It was a great gift (thank you again, Annah) and I had a lot of fun shopping for new outfits and amongst her older works that I didn’t yet have.

I like leopard print stuff, so the Leopard Prints is perfect for me.  It also went incredibly well with my patent leather and leopard print hobo bag by Celestial Studios, which I had yet to be able to wear, so that was also a factor too.

The red Samantha dress has a couple of skirt options, with the ever-popular Intelliskirt being one of them, in case you like spending time making sure your skirt will look proper when you sit down (I personally don’t care!)

One of my favourite outfits from AnnaH Couture is the black and green dress, Meredith.  The texturing, the overall design, especially with the buttoned black belly thingie, is perfect.  I adore it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to wear the matching green tights.

So I’m here until tomorrow’s skin fair, a brief SL return before I go back to RL for awhile longer to enjoy myself.

After seeing a cute zebra-printed dress on the feed, I made a mental note to myself to run down to the store to pick it up. The store is Alchemy, by designer Constanza Volare, who happened to be there when I went down.  Besides being a bit of a vendor perfectionist (she is in the midst of replacing her old perfectly fine vendor posters with some new amazing ones), she’s also really nice and pleasant to talk to.

The first outfit that caught my eye, besides, you know, the one I actually went down there for, was this nautical sweetheart, Oceanic (Red).  The top has layering options, and the texturing is fantastic.  The seams under the armpits don’t quite line up, but they’re pretty close and I know that’s a difficult area to hit.  You can pick it up for L$180 for each of 4 different colours or the fatpack for L$450, and it’s a transfer/no mod item (except for the prim pieces that are modifiable).  Of course, buying it gave me the perfect excuse to pull out all sorts of cute accessories to complete the look (see credits for specifics).

One of the newest releases, Flirty, comes in five fun colours for L$225 each, or a fatpack of all five for L$900.  This has that perfect giant poofy skirt with contrasting lace trim under it, or you can wear it with only the included system skirt if you like to take up less room.  I adored it in all of the colours, but also broke and/or cheap and so I only bought the very bright purple with orange lace version.  The seams are fantastic on this dress, and the texturing is purty.

So this is the dress that brought me down to the store.  I love zebra print, even though you may not see me out and about in it often,  but I still collect it to wear just in case my normal earthtones look isn’t quite enough.  There are three different types of skirts, and all are perfect in creating a specific look, with the poofy skirt being my favourite one (of course, since I kinda like the poof).  Unique comes in 4 colours at L$250 each or you can get the fatpack for L$650.

On the left is Inspiration in Light Blue, a floaty babydoll dress with a very delicate feel to the skirt.  On the right may be my favourite dress of all, the Primavera, in yellow.   It’s got a very summery feel to it with the gorgeous yellow flowers, but a bit of weight to it with the devine denim texture.  Both of these come in multiple colour options, or fatpacks to save some cash.

You definitely want to go down to Alchemy, to view these and tons of other pretty dresses and outfits, not to mention shoes and other items.  And let all the vendor posters rez, because they’re really nice too. 

Credits after the cut.

Continue reading Alchemy…

I took some pictures of myself in Windlight for the ETD Store Poster Flickr Group, and I am totally chuffed to see that one of my pictures was chosen for the main window display at ETD!  Thanks Elika!

I gave the old blog a bit of a makeover.  I am feeling very light and airy these days, and totally into the ethereal look for pictures.  I hope you like it, and if not, meh….I like it :))

Another thing that is happening is this majorly important JIRA issue, very important for content creators and their rights, and I’d like to ask people to please take two minutes out of their life to go vote on this important issue (did I say *important* enough?):

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-468

It’s to allow another option for modification, in the form of “resize only” as opposed to either modify or no modify like we have now.

And the third thing is a totally personal thing, but something that I’m excited about.  I am getting a settlement from my wretched insurance company (now forevermore called the lovely insurance company), and it’s quite a good one, so I am quitting my awful job and going back to school yay!  And I get to buy a new computer!  And my anti-depressants are working marvelously XD

I finally got around to taking some blogging pics in Windlight.  I have taken some already, but those pictures didn’t really require a lot of detail on the clothes, whereas these ones are supposed to be specifically for clothes, so let me know what you think.

I have loved Decoy ever since I first came across them in late September.  I wait breathlessly for every new release, and curse her silently when she takes breaks.  Absolutely one of my top-ten favourite designers.

Annette Voight, the brilliant designer behind Decoy, has always been really generous with her update group.  Of course, when she took an extended break from designing recently, I just knew she’d have released a freebie to her group to make up for it.  Since I can’t stay in too many groups because of the low limit, I tend to rotate them around a lot, so I had to leave a group to join the Decoy group, but yay!  The new Anizia swimsuit is in there, in an exclusive group colour called Ocean.  I decided to take the obligitory Windlight ocean shot, and show two of the three swimsuit top options.  The texturing is perfect, as it always is with Decoy, and the layering options are plentiful as well.  You can purchase three other colours in the store at L$125 for each set.

In the store is a dollarbie version of the new Flava Pop tanks.  On the left is the sugary sweet Cotton Candy, and the right is Ocean.  Layering is not a problem with these, because they’re offered on all three top layers.

I absolutely love the Inferno 88 jeans from Decoy, which are L$100 each for one of four different colours, and I paired them here with the new Zanza top in Sunset (shown on left). You can call these tops your very own for L$100 each, or spring for the fatpack at L$495 for all six colours.

The new Flava Pop short sets are the ultimate in cute summer wear.  Selling in either dark or light denim versions, with several different tank and short trim colour options, they’re a mix-and-matcher’s dream.  If suspendered shorts are not your scene (why not? they’re so kyoot!), then you can buy all of the tanks in separate packs, for only L$100 for each colour set.  In the centre is the Pink Lemonade Mix of the light colour, and the right shows off the Citrus Mix of the dark colour.

Make sure you skip down to Decoy to get a jump on the summer season, and make sure to take some Lindens because you’ll want it all!

Credits after the jump.

Continue reading Yummy Decoy…

I’ve been insanely busy with the RFL Fashion Show that FACES produced yesterday, so I haven’t had a lot of time to blog lately.  But I decided to take some pics of some of my favourite discounted pieces from Nyte’N'Day while organizing this show…

On the left is Lustrous, in purple.  It comes in 6 different colours, for L$75 each, or you can buy the fatpack for L$295.  In the centre is one of my old favourites, Retro, which you can call one of your old favourites for only L$95.  And a gorgeous halter dress I used to wear all the time, Plum, is also only L$95.  All permissions are copy/mod (except I bought some of these before the permissions were changed back in September, so mine are transferrable).

For sexy lingerie, Nyte has always had her finger on the pulse of what’s hot in the boudoir.  Day dreamer, on the left, comes in five different colours for L$110 for each set.  You can wear it with the sheer cami or the bra, or both, like I did here.

In the centre, I am wearing the cache grey sweater which also comes in red, for only L$45.  I paired it with the classic Signature jeans, in the greyish colour, which are sold now for L$65 each, and is one of four colours available.

If you are one of those who likes to wear workout clothes around the grid (which I SO am because it just screams comfort), then you can pick up Workout, which comes with those little ankle socks with the poofy ball on the back (oh come on, you know which ones I’m talking about).  Workout comes in six different colours, for only L$95 each.  And you can wear pants or booty shorts, and the jacket alone or with the tank underneath.

You can get all of these outfits and a ton more at Nyte’N'Day, in the discount section in the far left area of the store.  Or ask someone who works there to show you

Continue reading Discount Day 2 - Nyte’N’Day…

My weeks start on whatever day I feel like and since my sleeping pattern is sketchy at best, I count days and nights as “awake” and “asleep.” 

This week, I’ll be focusing on stores that have good-sized discount sections. There are a few blogs that do freebies, like Fab Free and SL Free Style, but I rarely hear anything on the stores that have nice discount sections in addition to their regular wares.

Blaze is one such store. It’s funny that I didn’t even notice it right away, considering I work there, but I notice the new stuff more often than the older stuff. So I’ll show off some of the things that are in the discount section for those who may not know about it (because that Blaze sure is a secretive fellow who doesn’t toot his own horn as much as he should )

First, though, of course I have to show my current favourite dress - the Shamrock limited edition dress (on the left), based on Daisy. I saw this on a blog a long time ago from St. Patty’s Day last year, and I waited and waited all year to see if it’d be re-released. And now it is, yay, so make sure to run down to Blaze before it’s back in the vault!  There were recently 3 other dresses released in St. Patty’s green, the Radioactive, Lush and Allegra outfits (from left to right).  You can buy a set of these three outfits for only L$250.

Debonair is one of my favourite gowns, with the back of the dress being one of my favourite features. It comes in three lengths in two different colour palettes: the silk collection and the regular collection. You can buy each gown separately for L$150, or the collection fatpacks.  The silk collection fatpack is L$600 for 8 different colours, and the regular collection’s fatpack is L$950 for 13 colours.

Charmed also has two different colour selections, white and black. Each set contains seven colour variations, with two skirt length options. The skirt is made of a tulle texture, and the movement is divine. You can buy each gown for L$250, the black dress fatpack for L$1200 or the white dress fatpack for L$850.

The Rhapsody gown comes in 25 different colors, and all of the pieces are mix-and-match with the others, so you can wear a black skirt and a red top or vice-versa.  You can buy each gown for L$100, or the fatpack of all 25 for only L$1000, which is an incredible savings. 

You can find these and others in the discount section at Blaze, at the very top of the dome in the back, at the top of the stairs.

Sometimes I love working for stores, and especially when the store owner is a friend and asks for your opinion on layers.  I told her, “the more layer options the better” and then she went crazy with them and there’s like a bazillion options now.

Here’s the sneak peek look at the new outfit, Veat:

Normally I wouldn’t do two posts on the same store so close together, but St. Patty’s Day is my favourite holiday of the year.  Now, you might assume it’s because it’s a holiday all about drinking and stuff (at least in these times it is), but you’d be semi-wrong.  I don’t drink anymore with all the medication I’m on, although I wish I could some days :P, but I do still love Ireland and everything about it.  I feel like Ireland is the country I belong to, and one day I hope to live there.  But I also love St. Patty’s Day because it hasn’t turned into a holiday when everyone is forced to spend a ton of money “proving” their love to someone, or going into debt for Christmas when they’re not even Christian.  It’s mostly all about having a good time.  And it’s my cousin’s birthday

Elika released five items on her Sim in the form of lucky clovers, and I went over there this morning to find them all.

This is Elika’s private stash of hair, which is unreleased (yay!), and you get it in Black Green, bright Emerald, and Platinum Green.  It’s a pretty messy updo, which I love.  Now I just need to figure out how to retexture it to Smoke with the ETD hair textures I bought o.O

Yay the Charley fedora in Lucky Green!  I love this hat, though it has no permissions on it so I couldn’t mod it to fit with my Janine hair, so I just moved it up and took the shot from a different angle rather than spend a lot of time looking for a hair that’ll work…I’m lazy like that.  Not sure if this is intentional, or just script issues because of the problems with the original Charley fedora.  In either case, I’ll find a hair that works, mayhaps when and if there is a Charley hair without the hat released.

The oversized greeen sunglasses are perfect for the SLebrities to hide behind from their overadoring fans.

Wee new unreleased shoes!!  You get the fatpack of these,  in ten delicious colours, including Emerald shown here.

And finally the divine Hampton wedges in Lucky Green!  I’ll be wearing these items periodically up till the 17th to celebrate St. Patty’s Day in my own way, since I don’t celebrate Halloween, Valentine’s Day or any other random holiday that washes over the feed non-stop for weeks.

Sorry this post is a little late, I am feverish and sick so I was sleeping…but welcome to the last post in my focus on the Quad!

Celestial Studios was my first ever skin, in the form of the beautiful Charmed skins.  At that point, Vogue was already out, but for some reason I just really did not like them on me.  I was more turned on by the pointed eyebrows of Charmed.  The nose is perfection, too.  Or at least it is to me.

Back then I was a poor little newbie, so I didn’t have a lot of money to get a lot of variety like I do now.  So when I selected skins, I was very careful to get one neutral everyday skin, and one skin that I could wear with more formal looks, since I got a job at Blaze very soon after I started SL and wore a lot of formal wear.  I vacilitated between skin tones for awhile, finally leaning towards the darker since everyone I knew was so tanned and I didn’t want to stand out.

Clockwise, from top left, is Rubies in Skintone 30, Neutral 4 in Skintone 40, Red-chic in Skintone 40, and Frosting in Skintone 40.

When I finally made the leap to Vogue, after trying on the demos for a couple of months and liking them more and more every single time, I stuck with the darker tones with Amber, shown above.  At the excellent sale Starley held a few months ago, I picked up every makeup option she had because who could resist such an amazing opportunity?  Although I somewhat regret my earlier choice of a dark skintone (which is mainly the reason I don’t wear these more often), I still love these skins and I can always find a makeup option to go with any look and outfit.

Shown above are some of my favourites from Vogue: Clockwise from top left, all in Amber, is Burgundy Glitter from the Muted Lips series, Noir Pale from the Muted Eyes series, Last Call Fishnet from the Deviant Nation (sold at Last Call currently, but I’ve been assured these will remain for sale after Last Call closes, yay!) series, and Green Pale from the Bright Eyes series.

Although the skins are primarily what Celestial Studios is known for, Starley also makes clothes, hair and accessories.  And all of her work is just as well done with the extreme attention to detail that she’s known for.

On the left is the Larue dress with the beautiful corset belt, an idea which seems to be lifted from the rl trend of celebrities and models stuffing their curves in these tiny, painful looking corsets.  My avi can take it though!  This dress is made with a system skirt with sexy slits up the sides, and tiny spaghetti straps.  I paired this dress with the Debuntante hair in Nocturne, one of Starley’s gorgeous hairstyles.  With this particular one, I can never think of anything to wear with it that isn’t too “high-society debutante” which means that it’s a really good name for the hair.

In the centre is the new Pink Stars print hoodie and the amazing destroyed jeans.  Starley recently released a huge collection of jeans and cords on both underpants and pants layers, with a large collection of textured belts to match the hobo bags (shown below).  I have been wearing these jeans constantly, because they’re absolutely perfect for the casual look I so love.  These jeans not only come with two layer options, but three different leg options for any look you need.  One of my absolute favourite hairs from Celestial Studios is Devyn, which I think was originally a men’s hair but I don’t care.  I can rawk the look just as well as any man, pfft!

The ideal dress to wear on an afternoon out is the Gilda dress, on the right.  It features a very well-made prim belt and a perfect skirt for daytime garden parties, and the texturing is sublime, as is all of Starley’s work.  My hairstyle here is actually from the Spring Enchantress limited release last year, but I thought it went well, and so it’s my bad for showing an unavailable hair!

The Hobo bag is *the* bag that made me want to buy any sort of purse in SL.  Before this bag came out, I was a purse virgin in both SL and RL.  But I simply couldn’t help myself and now I wear one whenever I happen to think of it.  However, my only complaint is that there’s no fatpack for these purses!!  You can wear these either on the shoulder or in the hand, and they have animations for both.

Make sure you visit Celestial Studios, and also send Starley an IM** asking her for another skin sale.  Kthxbai.

**JUST KIDDING!! Don’t do that because I don’t want her to hate me! XD

Ginny Talamasca of Last Call will never be forgotten by her friends and customers of the past few years, of that I am sure. I did not have the pleasure of knowing her well, but every time I talked to her, it was a delightful experience and I remember how warm, sweet and kind she was to me.

As everyone knows by now, Ginny Talamasca’s avatar and work is being retired at the end of March. All items have been given transfer permissions instead of copy, I assume so that people can resell or trade them. It sucks to not be able to copy items, but I can understand it. I myself did not get into SL until after Dazzle was retired, and I would have been sad if I could never have acquired all of the Dazzle pieces I did afterwards from private citizens and yard sales.

All items are on sale at Last Call until March 31 for only L$100 each, with the exception of the Catwalk Collection items which are selling for L$300. I thought I’d show a few of the hundreds of items that will drain your Linden balance.

All of these items are from the previously retired Last Call pieces. The Right Said kilts are Awesome with a capital A, and they look great paired with these Damascus Urbane jackets.  The Predate Union Jack babydoll dress looks fantastic dressed up or down, and of course I tend to make it more casual. The Sexy Heather dress comes in several beautiful colours in the gorgeous satin texture. It’s definitely a dress for going out on the town, but the skirt has always been more difficult for me to fit on my avatar. However, that didn’t stop me from picking up all of the colours I didn’t have before yesterday!

A little bit sexy, a little bit slutty, that was Britney (left) in her heyday. Sadly she’s just a wreck now, but I feel a lot of sympathy for her as she struggles with her mental health, and I can relate with that struggle to some degree. In the centre, Julie is a sophisticated urban look, perfect for autumn with its neutral colours and warmth-evoking textures. On the right is Frida in the original colours (it’s also available in “Autumnal,” which is basically a rich brown coat instead of black). The lace sleeves are one of the best things about this outfit, although you can also wear the coat with no sleeves, or with prim sleeves with no lace.

Ginny and Last Call learned the value of layers and options, which makes all of Last Call’s clothes a mix-and-matcher’s wet dream. Virtually every outfit has multiple ways you can wear the outfit, and each and every piece has more than one layer option.

Candice, on the left, was part of my absolute favourite collection ever from Last Call, the Pacific Coast collection.  There are several shirt colours, and of course you can wear it with or without the big poofy sleeves.  The shoes I am wearing, the Mary Anne platform sandals, were made by Ginny and released at the same time as this collection.

Front and centre, the Nicole outfit was originally released in white and gold. Due to a complaint by Hethr Engel of Closet Crisis that Ginny never ever made pink clothes, she released this pink version of Nicole for only L$1. Hundreds of pink-starved fashionistas swarmed Last Call for it, but some others complained that they had paid for the original version, and didn’t like that just anyone could get this freebie without paying as much as they did for the same outfit. Ginny didn’t mean to cause a fuss, but she had so she removed the pink version. I was one of the unlucky ones that hadn’t thought to rush right down there to get it, so I missed it. After an IM pleading Ginny to let me buy it, even for full price, she sent it to me no charge.  Although I didn’t know Ginny well, I know that I was not the only one she was ever nice to, and she touched a lot of people in small ways, and I’m quite sure each and every one of them will always remember that bit of kindness from such a big-time designer.

On the right, Anamara is shown in black, but it’s available in six or so colours. It’s perfectly textured as a sequin minidress, and is ultra sexy and a little bit flirty, particularly from the back.

Like I mentioned, these are only but a few of literally hundreds of styles of outfits available at Last Call for the next few weeks. After that, Last Call as it is now is gone forever. I calculated a few weeks ago exactly how much it would cost me, in addition to the *thousands* of Lindens it had already cost me, to own every single outfit and every single colour option for those outfits. It was in the neighbourhood of L$13500, and that was before the old-new retired items were put back out. So I guess I’ll be working my ass off for the next few weeks so I can spend all my money at Last Call, and subsuquently not regret that I didn’t get “that other colour” of that dress I liked.

Visit Last Call, until March 31.

See my spotlight on Celestial Studios and one of the original goddesses of skin, Starley Thereian, tomorrow.

Today I’m focusing some time on Canimal, the oft-overlooked little sister in the Quad. I say oft-overlooked, because when you look at the map as often as I do, you start noticing certain patterns of visitors on the Sims, and Canimal often has less visitors than the rest of her sisters. Which is a shame, because Canimal’s work is really well done, and so much fun to wear. They’re even chosen for TV shows, as in the case of that infamous little dress on CSI: New York (which I never actually saw due to my not having cable and not living in the US, so that dumb network site that shows the episodes online doesn’t even work, the bastards).

Mega cute clothes is what I love best about Canimal, and I have ever since I first got to SL and someone told me that was the place to go for tattoos. While I didn’t find the tattoos I was looking for, I did find *the* babydoll dress that started me on my obsession (Fallen, third from left, above). The prim movement is divine, and the scoop neck shows just the right amount of cleavage (in this new Canimal skin, it looks like more than it does with my regular skin though). This was one of my staple outfits back in the day, always worn with fishnets and my Beckenbauer Doc boots, which are just like the boots I have in RL.

On the left are some pieces from the Candy Collection at Canimal (a little alliteration, anyone?) - the heart tank and the heart shorts, which come in a fatpack of a bunch of yummy colours for cheap, cheap. I used these as an excuse to wear the funky, cute Chucks from Akeyo, which came out not too long ago and are color and size-changeable.

Seond from the left is the awesomely funny Little Miss Bitchy t-shirt, which definitely describes me on some days! It comes in a package with four others, for only L$200. I particularly like how the shirt is naturally worn and faded, lending them a bit of realism. I wore this shirt with the new-ish Camo pants from ETD and my trusty Beckenbauer boots.

On the far right, I am wearing the Rebel Yell dress in red. It comes with two different types of skirts, both on the mini side, and the texture is divine. I barely had to adjust it all for it to fit my avatar. Because I am not naturally the sexy girl, I put on opaque tights and my yummy red Sara boots from SLink to tone it down a bit.

More after the cut! Continue reading Quad Week: Day 2 - Canimal…

The Quad has been renowned as having some of the grid’s best designs for as long as I’ve been around. With some of the major changes taking place these days on the Quad (some good, and some sad), I thought I’d feature some of the best reasons why the Quad has been so popular for so long.

Elikapeka Tiramisu, besides having a delightful name that everyone secretly loves to says out loud whenever they see it (don’t try to deny it, I know it’s true!), has some of the best prim hair on the grid. Her finger is firmly on the pulse of RL trends and it’s easy to see why virtually every fashionista around is familiar with ETD.

From the cute and playful to the sleek and chic, there is something for every mood and every taste. On the top left, I’m wearing the Elika II hairstyle in Black/Red, and I wear this often when I just want to relax and wear my hobo clothes (designer hobo clothes, that is). The top right is Davina II in Auburn, one of the new colours I’ve been rocking since I scored majorly in the L$25 sale right before the store closed for vendor revamping. This particular hairstyle was one of the first new releases after the store re-opened, and one I’ve been wearing *a lot* since then. In RL, I don’t do short hair because it does not look good on me, but one of the best things about SL is the opportunity to play dress-up and try new things. Rachel, worn on the bottom left in Smoke, is one of those perfectly layered long wavy cuts that you see on women in RL that makes you look twice and wonder who did their hair. I’m wearing Daisy on the bottom right in Chestnut, the other new colour that I’ve been wearing lately. This is ultra-cute and perfect for wearing with a little babydoll or something.

While ETD is mostly a hair store, Elika does branch out into other avenues of creativity from time to time, producing well-made and well-textured clothes and accessories. The Wild Halter babydoll on the left is sweet and sexy, and does not make me look at all like I’m pregnant, a very important part of choosing a babydoll dress to wear. On the right is the Classic Strapless dress, perfect for showing a bit of sexy class while traversing the grid. I love black, red and white combinations, and this one is a perfect mix.

Click after the cut for the rest of the post. Continue reading Quad Week: Day 1 - ETD…

Tuli has been around a long while, a lot longer than I’ve been aware of her. I don’t remember how I first heard of her tiny little store, but I remember returning several times to see if I could afford anything else (this was before the big blogger budget kicked in - what budget? there’s no budget except for my working 4 jobs in SL :P)

Tuli’s Nicole outfit, shown in the Rose colour on the left, was one of my first purchases from Tuli. It was around the time that the grid’s latest trend was business-wear, which was perfect because I tend to be on the conservative side, so they were perfect for me. This was an one of my favourites, and one I wore constantly as my “go-to” outfit. Whenever I didn’t know what to wear, I’d put this on.

The other two outfits are more recent purchases. I can’t remember where I saw these plaid gaucho pants (Milla’s blog comes to mind though), but I knew as soon as I saw them I had to have them! The Veronica outfit comes with the pants, a skirt, and either one of three colours of sweaters. Of course, if you’re a true fashionista, you can get the fatpack, which is what I got. While I was there, I bought several of Tuli’s pose packs, which are ultra cute and great for a multitude of attitudes you might want to convey, and the Ana jacket in red, which I love but actually had a hard time finding something to wear with it. I think I did it justice with an all-black ensemble, so that the red really pops out.

More after the cut! Continue reading Classic Tuli…

Okay, well maybe not my *one* true love, cuz I do loves to shop, but shoes and most especially Maitreya are way high up on the list. Maitreya is the very reason I fell in love with shoes in SL in the first place, with the gorgeous Grace heels. Before that, I’d often be barefoot.

With the latest release of the divine suede platform heels, I thought I’d show off some of my favourites from Maitreya.

After the Slinky Stilettos (top right and bottom left) came out, I told myself (and everyone else) that I would never buy another pair of stilettos again.  I figured with those, I’d never need another pair.  Of course, Onyx LeShelle had different ideas

The ChiChi’s (top left) were showcased in the Glam SL magazine launch show, and with baited breath every shoe-loving fashionista waited for their release.  I justified the purchase of these gorgeous works of art by telling myself the shoe’s shape was nothing at all like a regular stiletto.  And that worked for me.  Pictured with the ChiChi’s here are the adorable anklets released at the same time, which add a bit of whimsy.  And from a suggestion by Aradia Dielli, the trim on these shoes is colour-changeable.

Cut to:  The Verve platform stiletto (bottom right) is released, and they’re nothing at all like what you might envision in your mind when you hear the words “platform stiletto.”  In Second Life, that more often than not refers to the type of footwear a hooker or stripper might wear, which is fine if you like them, but they don’t exactly scream high fashion.  These are textured in luscious suede, and if the past releases by Maitreya is any indication, perhaps one day they’ll be offered in another style as well (leather croc patterns? please?) , like the forthcoming velvet ChiChi’s to be released later this week*squee*

The tunic dress in green is a cute little babydoll with three different skirts!  My favourite option is the one with pockets, just because it adds a bit to the look.  I’m wearing it here with my former lovah, the Sassy wedges by Maitreya in old leather/wood.  I say former because I have adopted the Verve shoes as my new lovah.

Click the link for more after the cut! Continue reading Maitreya & My One True Love (Shoes!!!)…