Grid Expectations

My blog is going back to being just that — my blog.  My little body shape shop that I started almost a year ago, mela’s, now has it’s own little home on the web which you can find here.  It’s being featured on the Fashion Planet feed, as well.

If you are part of the mela’s update group but somehow missed the latest notice that I sent out, make sure you take time to check out the notice archives soon.  We’re giving each member one free posepack, but this is a time-sensitive offer.  The deadline to send in your notecard is Saturday at 11:59 PM!

Please note that open enrollment to the group has been temporarily turned off, so make sure you’re still in the group after Saturday since I’ll be verifying that all notecard senders are group members.  ;)  Enrollment will reopen once I’m done sending out the posepacks on Sunday.

While you’re looking in the notice archives, don’t forget to grab the free skins that came out on April 6th.

Niki made some new skintones and makeups! You can find this group gift/preview by looking in the group notice archives.

Hi, it’s Natasha again!  If you are part of the update group for ROSEMAR, then you’ve already probably received this group gift.  It’s all twelve skintones with a new makeup.  The makeup includes blue eyeshadow, but the best part is the pretty pink blush and pink lips.

My favorites are the Manhattan, Teak, Twine, and Whiskey skintones, since they are closest in color to what me and Niki want.  The Almond and Cinderella skins are really pale and could even pass for one of those “goth” skins.  Rosemary Galbraith also has a good range of darker skins.  I may wear a lighter skintone but I notice these things, lots of skin makers will have a bunch of white skins and then only one black skin.  Darker skinned people are not all one color!

To join the update group, search for “Rosemar”.  You can see other makeups at the store located in Popfuzz:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/PopFuzz/60/128/35

Lately I’ve been lauding SL as a way to indulge in dressing up in fantastical ways that one would not in the real world. Sometimes, though, you come across an item in SL that makes you want to dress your avi in a way that is comfortably familiar and resembles the way you dress yourself in RL.

Tonight I came across a set of sculpted wedge shoes from HAYSURIZA that did just that for me.

Pictured above are HAYSURIZA’s Miki Wedge shoes in Autumn. Seeing these shoes instantly reminded me of my favorite pair of wedge heels and made me have a yearning for putting on the kind of laid-back, low-maintenance look that I favor for normal everyday use — a denim mini, a blouse, and then slap on some lipgloss and you’re ready to hit the road

The Miki Wedges come in five variations. Pictured next is the Spring version, which is a creamy off-white color and comes adorned with some pretty pastel baubles:

What appealed to me first and foremost about the Miki wedges is that they seem perfect for pairing with casual outfits; they’re pretty without being too dressy. I can totally imagine kicking these off and tossing them on the black sand at the beach without a second thought Up until now, I’d been wearing the Sunny and Brown Leather versions of my Maitreya Frisky wedges to death. (The brown leather version had been a group gift and I’m not sure if it’s available anymore.) These will make for a nice change. ^^

The texturing details on these shoes are very nicely done. I like the stitching details all along the strappy parts of the uppers, as well as the subtle highlighting. I especially like the textures used on the wedge heels for the winter, earth, and autumn versions, because they look so lifelike. Attention was also paid to the texture on the bottom of the shoe (which I did not take a picture of).

Four of the Miki wedges are named for the seasons, and the fifth is named Earth. The Winter wedge is black with a silvery colored stitch, Summer boasts a pinkish-coral color with white stitching, and the Earth version is a light yellowish-brown color with like-colored stitches. All versions feature a silver-textured buckle on the ankle strap and a few silver grommets, except for the Autumn wedge, which is given gold-textured details instead.

You can demo all of these shoes for free at the HAYSURIZA shop. To check them out, visit HAYSURIZA in Osaka: Osaka 138, 48, 21

Other SLURLs and credits follow after the cut.

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It’s RFL time again! Honestly, if it weren’t for Evie’s Closet participating, I probably would’ve held off going for a few days to avoid the inevitable crowds and lag. But… limited edition versions of the Love Story gown, Devotion dress, and another recoloring of the Romany Kiss being offered for free? Dude, that’s worth whatever amount of lag I must endure and however many crashes I must experience in order to get my hands on those asap

Here is the Love Story gown, exclusively for RFL:

Evie sent out a notice to her update group tonight that a red (my favorite color!) version of the Devotion dress was being sold only at the RFL Fair, never to be seen again once this is over. I was literally in the middle of writing a sentence via IM to Gogo when the notice hit my client, and I totally forgot I was talking about, hehe. I already have the white version of Devotion, which I really love, so when I found out about the red one, I *had* to get it. I made a beeline for the fair, where I was told I was the first person to grab it :p

Here is the Devotion dress in Blaze, for RFL… and btw, it is transferrable! I’m contemplating going back to buy extra copies to maybe give as presents later:

And finally, this freebie is being offered at Evie’s Closet at the RFL Fair, the Romany Kiss recolored:

Get thee to the Evie’s Closet booth at the RFL Fair in the Spring Sim: Rezzable Design 184, 185, 28

And of course, while you’re there, wander around and grab all the other limited edition items!  There’s TONS of fab stuff.  ^_^

Other credits and SLURLs to follow…

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I’m naughty — I had these in my inventory for a bit and only got to blogging them today! It’s just that I’ve been busy/consumed/obsessed with different projects. This post will be picture-intense, so to balance things out I will attempt to refrain from indulging in my usual verbosity. Emphasis on the word “attempt”. :p

Okay… today’s post is all about a lovely shop named Kouse’s Sanctum. I first learned about the white-haired Kouse Singh on flickr, where she posts beautiful images from the fantasy side of SL. Think Avilion, elves, and dragons. ^_^ Well, I guess I’ve been residing under a sculpted rock or something because it was quite a pleasant squee-worthy surprise to discover that Kouse has been crafting beautiful gowns.

First gown up: the magnificent Celestial Empress gown in Azure. You know, my favorite color is actually red, but show me a dress like this and I could easily forget that fact, hehe. An Evanescence song came on the radio just as I put this on, so I might’ve channeled a very slight bit of Amy Lee when accessorizing. ^^

Here is the Emerald version:

You know what’s great about gowns like Kouse’s? Pair them up with a romantic hairstyle like this one and you get a perfect showcase for your lovely shoulders, and imho there’s blessed little out there that can capture that right balance of fantasy, romance and sexiness without venturing into tramp territory. Gratuitous shoulder shot next :p

Kouse is generous. This next version of the Celestial Empress is called the Midnight Kiss, and it’s a group freebie and even comes with a tiara and necklace.

The corset lacing along the back is positively delicious. I’m a big fan of stuff that shows off the curvature of the spine; the more, the better, I say!

Another series of gowns to take a look at is the Lady Serenity. This next photo shows the Cirrus version of Lady Serenity (worn with white hair in honor of Kouse ^^):

There is a subtle difference between the two dresses in that shot above — the skirt on the right is actually somewhat transparent. All of Kouse’s gowns come with different flexi-skirt options. Some are slightly transparent, others are built larger so that you can use the outfit as a ballgown.

Lady Serenity comes in other colors, too. Here it is in Red Rose:

Again, the two skirt options:

Last but not least, the Lady LeShelle dress in Forest:

Lady LeShelle comes with two prim belts in silver and gold. I meant to show the Lady LeShelle gown in black, too, but I couldn’t find some of the prim pieces in that great ever-expanding maw that I call my inventory.

Pay a visit to Kouse’s Sanctum to pick these goodies up and to see even more of her selection: Garindan 10, 146, 263

Other credits and SLURLs after the cut. Missing SLURLs will be provided later when I log back in and can grab them; until then, the Search tool is your friend.

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I admit, I abandon my avi in SL on a regular basis.  Sometimes for hours, even.  The amount of times that friends have found my avi on my sky platform staring blankly into space, uncommunicative and unresponding, probably numbers into the hundreds, no joke.

My profile makes it clear to people that I’m afk (Away From Keyboard for those of you not familiar with the term) a lot, but I’ve found that people in general don’t really pay attention to that little tidbit of information.  They also tend to ignore the part that says I may not respond to IMs in a timely manner if I’m busy working on something.  (Even some of my friends are guilty of this, writing persistent “hellooooooooo??!!”s when I’m working at RaC and helping customers.)

I used to use the Set Away feature a lot, but since all that does is put an “Away” over your av’s head it’s only useful as a visual indicator to people within your immediate vicinity.  People IMing you from remote areas have no idea that you’re AFK, there’s no auto-response message… unless you use Busy Mode.

So yeah, I used to use the Set Busy feature a lot, too, until I discovered that it automatically rejects ALL inventory offers.  I don’t want to do that, I want to be able to choose to accept the inventory when I come back to my computer.

My friend Vivi pointed to a posting on the jira titled Multiple Levels of Busy Mode, proposed by WarKirby Magojiro:

Busy mode blocks pretty much everything. It’s good for some situations, but not others. For example, when you want to spend private time with a single person, or a small group of friends, and be “busy” to the rest of the world.

Or even the opposite, being busy to the immediate company, while dealing with matters elsewhere remotely.

I’m proposing six different levels of busy mode.

1. Absolute Busy mode. Like we have now, blocks everything.

2. Friends only mode - Would block IMs and inventory offers from anyone who is not on your friends list. People on the list would be inaffected.

3. Important calls only mode - When someone IMs you, they would be displayed a message that you are only to be interrupted for important matters, and given a dialog box asking “Is it important?”. The message would be customiseable, so we can define what important constitutes. This would be a wonderful thing for busy business owners. Who could set the message to something like “Read the manual first, and visit our support website: <url goes here>”

4. Regional busy mode. Would act like the current busy mode, for everyone who is outside the current sim. Everyone in it would be able to communicate with you as normal. Good for when you’re in meetings, or enjopying private company.

5. Local busy mode. Like regional, but even more focused. only people within a user defineable radius (default 50m) would be able to communicate. All others would get your busy mode message. This would be good for private meetings in relatively public areas, like talking in a private room, at a busy party. Or just to avoid overhearing other people’s annoying chat, by setting the radius very low.

6. External busy mode. Blocks everyone within the current sim, only. Those outside it would be unaffected. This would be to allow you to avoid having to communicate with people in the area, without seeming rude. Good for lindens who want to seem busy

These all sound like excellent suggestions and I would love to see these implemented.  I would imagine lots of business owners would especially appreciate these sorts of Busy Mode options, too.

If you’d like more Busy Mode options, please go to the posting on the jira, log in, and vote on it!

Okies, that’s all.  I have to go afk now.  :p

Ryker tagged me ^^ I’ve been ignoring my blog for a few days, wups!

The Book Meme

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The Book: Hyperion by Dan Simmons (<3 this book)

He was not sure if he was hearing and understanding Middle English or if the sentence had been simple Standard. He had no idea if the grizzled archer was another Command School cadet, an instructor, or merely an artifact of the sim. He could not guess if the slang had been correct.

Okay, I’m tagging anyone on the Juicy sim that has a blog.   (That means you, Gogo! :p)  I’ve been up all night and don’t have the energy to fire up the synapses to come up with five names to tag

SL Relay For Life (RFL) activities will be starting up again soon, and I for one am looking forward to getting some limited edition goodies while knowing that my money is going towards an important cause!  The SLRFL Clothing Fair will be kicking off in mere weeks, you can read more about it at their blog.

Thinking about SLRFL made me go back through my inventory to take a look at some of my favorite RFL items that I’d picked up last year.

This cute set of bikinis came from Sand Shack Surf Co. and artilleri:

First Impressions had these amazing pink suits that I couldn’t pass up.  I loved that the shirts came on two layers and there were prim attachments like the necktie, blazer button, and sleeve cuffs:

Also from First Impressions was this set of sheer blouses inspired by the legendary Edith head:

And last but not least, this gown from analise that I *had* to have when I first learned about it:

There were soooooooooo many limited edition lovelies that I recall came out last year for RFL!  Get your wallets ready, because I just know there’s going to be tons of must-haves this year, too… after all, the pics above are but a mere, miniscule sampling of what came out in 2007.  Speaking of which, what were your favorites?

Read past the cut for info on other items used in this post ^^

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