Two 52 Week Colour Challenges, Dandelion & Aqua

Dandelion...hmmm, no matter what it's called I still don't do yellow.

I went shopping in Decoy and came across these pretty shorts and well placed scarf. The shorts are simple and system, available in a wide range of pretty colours. The scarf is the real star. Clever design and beautful texturing are the key features. Even in 'yellow' I still love it.

Aqua...now there's a colour I adore.

I rooted through my inventory until I came upon a Nicky Ree dress that I had forgotten I had. The DNR Pretty Petal Dress is a floaty summer dress with short sleeves and quite a daring neckline. Again, Nickys hand drawn texturing makes this dress vibrant and alive. It made me think beach so that's where I went to shoot. Worn it a few times since rediscovering it.

I chose AOHARU sandals as their pretty earthstones matched my dress and kept with the beach theme. Also, with matching stones was $GaNKeD$ Arizona necklace. Both these creations pulled the look together.

Skin was PXL, eyes.... and hair Fri.day.

Location was Artilleri

Arty shot here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/furystapleton/7013969909/in/photostream

Styling:

Dandelion:

Shorts & Scarf: Decoy

Aqua:

Dress: Nicky Ree
Shoes: AOHARU
Accessories: $GaNKeD$

Sorry folks...I forgot to make a note of stuff but if you read this blog you can take a guess and probably be right :)

Choose the shoes

This is a shoe post. You've been warned. After reading it you may feel the urge to spend indecent amounts of L$$ on new shoes. I guess that's fair warning.

As I said in a previous post not too long ago, despite my infrequent activity in SL™ I still managed to take a tour of the Shoe Fair 2011 - not only that, but I also made a few purchases, which you can see in this picture:

[Click on the shoe names in the text for links to individual pictures and descriptions on my Flickr.]

Am I happy with the results? Well, it varies. At first I wondered why some spend 975L on a single pair of shoes being able to get nice stuff for half the price, but I found the answer myself.

On the upper right corner are the Naucci Heels from [Decoy], priced at a reasonable 475L. These are a nice pair of sandals; however, not to be chosen if you're in a hurry. It took me a while to do the tinting seen above, and if you zoom into the picture, you'll be able to see that I didn't *quite* get the exact shade. Call me a perfectionist, but I appreciate having RGB bars in order to do some fine-tuning. The preset tones are approximate, but not exact, and there's no notecard with instructions to help out a bit.

Second, lower right, are the Maxine Wedges by Baiastice. At first I had bought the regular sandals, but upon realising that the wedge version was the charity item at the store, I decided to get both - for 590L each pair. I have to say those have been my biggest disappointment. It took me forever to do some relatively decent tinting, and one can easily see from the picture above that I did a poor job. Anyway, once you're done, you can't save it for future use - for that matter, you don't have a set of values to write down, either. Besides, despite all the nail polish options that are included, I had a hard time finding one that I liked. The package includes a notecard, but I didn't find it very useful - it gives a long-winded explanation on how to use the resize scripts, while IMHO those are self-explanatory. Not a word, though, about how to brave with the giant coloured box.

Next, on the lower left hand side, are the really popular Soleil sold at N-Core. At first I had my doubts, as 795L seemed quite steep for a pair of shoes, but then I bought them and found out all the options that they offer. In the single-colour package, as the name indicates, you buy just one version of the shoe - but you still have the possibility of changing the colour of the straps, the heel, the metal bits, etc. This is all done via a rather spiffy HUD, which is divided into 3 tabs: skin (shown above, where you can tint both skin and nails), stocking (where you can choose to wear those and also select their pattern and colour) and options (where you control all the tintable parts, plus sound, alpha, size, position and the standing animation). In case that's not enough, the notecard included in the package has pretty exhaustive instructions, as well as a significant list of RGB skin presets - where I could find my target skin tone, Belleza's Erika in Fair. All in all, it took me a few seconds to tint the skin - after I was done reading the instructions on the notecard, that is.

Finally, on the upper left corner are Maitreya Gold's Foxy - the most expensive pair in the whole lot, costing the sizable sum of 975L, but also my favourites. In my 4+ years around the grid I've never hidden the fact that I'm a Maitreya junkie, but in this case I also think their prim feet are some of the best made ones around. On the more practical side, the package comes with detailed instructions, an easy-to-use HUD and a notecard with the values of quite a lot of skins - some of which I had never really heard of. Erika wasn't on the list, but it didn't take me long to get it right nevertheless (I used the values of another Belleza Fair skin and it worked nicely). When I got ready to take the pictures I noticed that studio lights blew up the skintone, but it was just as easy as clicking one of the given presets and it was a match, so WIN.

So what's the conclusion of all this? Like with everything, it's mostly a matter of personal taste - in my case, I would rather spend a bit more and go for something practical. Perhaps there is not much of a difference between the shoes as such, but maybe the couple hundred more you're spending are due to the fact that someone put a lot of thought into developing a truly usable HUD. Or took ages checking and compiling the settings for all existing skins. That, for me, is priceless.

Mash Times 2

Sometimes a mashup comes with buying a new item and then creating a "look" around it. Other times it comes from somewhat random wanders in one's inventory. This post contains one result of each method.




One method I use when I don't know what to wear is to search for a specific color and wear the first of each kind of item that comes up. Sometimes a little cheating is necessary, but on the whole interesting outfits emerge. This mashup started because I was wearing Tuli's Group Gift Meredith skin, Silver Shine in Sunkissed. So I searched on "blue."

My sweater is the Blue Cashmere Sweater from Catt's Creations [now closed inworld but available on SLX according to her profile] Underneath I have tucked the Smock Tube Top that comes with a sweater from Tres Blah! My jeans are from Second Wave Apparel in Indigo. Shoes are the bottom part of Maitreya's Dune Boots in Blue. My necklace is Lucas Lameth's redo of my old favorite of his, Louvelle. My hair is SHY48 from booN in Blonde.




My second mashup is organized around one of Decoy's newest items, the Izzy Cardigan in Navy. Because I'm a bit modest I'm wearing Sioxie Legend's Cami T-shirts in Tropical Hibiscus underneath. In order to tie it all together I wandered over to artilleri to get the Nina Highwaist Pants in Green and pulled ETD's Hampton Wedges in Caribbean from my inventory. My necklace is an old favorite, the Wooden Heart in Green from Tuli. Hair is ETD Xaria in Auburn Burnt and my skin is Tuli's Meredith Captivating Copper in Pale.

Doing an inventory search or pulling an outfit together for a new item is a good way to find old friends in you inventory.

My poses are from AnnaH/StoRin, Luth, Analu, Flowey and [LAP] --thank you ladies for making me look less like a noob :)

The Sunday Blog-a-thon--Michami: Part I

I have such an astounding backlog of pictures ready to go I thought I should take a rainy Sunday and spam y'all.

I've been meaning to do a Michami "retrospective," if you will, because I have so many of her clothes and have blogged so few. Also her work improves by leaps and bounds with every release.


The first image includes the early Bustier and Shorts in Coffee and the "reveals much" Stella in Beige, both of which I have blogged before. On the right isthe wonderfully versatile Carmela. I had this picture ready to go when Achariya caught me wearing it in her "People at Work" series. I subsituted the Fleur Patent Leather Belt in black for the outfit's prim belt. I'm wearing Decoy's Jully boots in black and the Icon BC Necklace and Earrings. On the left is the Fearne Limited Edition for Hearts of Love in Pink. The shoes are Moody's Gladiator Sandals in Black. Jewelry is the NoLove Lost set from Violet Voltaire. All hair and skins are from ETD and Fleur of course ;)


Here are a group of later outfits from Milla; from left to right, The Malina Jacket in Plum worn with the cigarette pants from Joanie, Pippa in Black with the shrug, Joanie in Black with the green belt and Agnes in Beige and Black. Shoes are from left to right: Phoebe from Kookie, Marie in Black/Charcoal from Tesla, ETD Heel Strap Platforms and, again Phoebe from Kookie. Hair is ETD's Patricia in Auburnt Burnt and all skins are from Fleur.

Poses are from my old pose ball and include ones from [LAP], the dreaded *MM* poses, some of Ana Lutetia's early poses and heaven knows what else!

I hope this gives you a good feel for Milla's work over a period of time. Next up will be the new jacket, Noomi :)

Chic Gingham from DelEmm Design

Often two of a good thing is better than one. This is the case with the Gingham Floral Jewelry set from DelEmmDesign. I purchased the purple set first, liking the softness of the gray beads along with the purple and purple gingham ones. What you can see in the left photo is the little ribbon that ties the necklace -- it's FLEXI and it's absolutely adorable. It flutters when you move.


I'm wearing Nyte'n'Day's trimmed camisole in purple, ETD's Maaliyah in Cinnamon burnt and Fleur's Parfait Deux #3 in strawberry.

In the second pair of pictures I am wearing the Green Floral Gingham set, this time the beads are flecked with a sprinkle of bright colors as well as the green gingham and the white. I'm wearing a more wintry outfit [I was grabbing the first green I could find in my wardrobe LOL.] The sweater is the [Decoy] Just Peachy Cardigan in Forest Green, with a Relika tube top underneath. The jeans are my new favorites from ETD, the silver jeans. Hair is the same, but the skin is Fleur Vivant Lustrous 2 in buff.


So you can see two IS better than one :)