Winter dressing A-Z

Red has always been associated with Christmas, and a white winter has never been colorful and festive with people wearing anything red to mark the holidays.

In this place where I live in real life, we don't have Autumn or Winter...so I don't have much practice creating outfits in that theme, but here I am trying anyway. Reading enough fashion blogs and looking at runway shows for inspiration, I came up with this pretty ensemble comprising of Armidi, Dela, Second Wave Apparel, Maitreya, Tesla and Zaara.

Wearing this outfit is makes me feel sophisticated, ladylike,and very chic, as if coming out of a building and getting ready to hail a taxi to go home. Or go for coffee with friends. Or go on a date.   The red coat goes very well with the different elements of this outfit, which I decided to put eclectic touches by mixing elements of lace and funky graphics.                         

The inner blouse is a part of Sioxie Legend's Tuxedo dress that has rich and intricate lace embellishments on it, and matching it with Zaara's modern black leggings with a pattern of crazy splashes seems not a bad idea. 

The charming shoes from Tesla complements the rest of the outfit really well. Tesla's shoes are fun, flirty, and never complicated to wear.

I was really satisfied with the end result and decided to take photos.Unfortunately, I am in my laptop, and I have a pretty lousy connection. So I made a big risk of maxing out the sliders and putting the graphic setting to Ultra, fiddled with the Windlight presets, and snapped away. The initial result was okay enough, and I decided to practice my little skills in editing photos until I felt somewhat satisfied with the result. 

A little bright, but not too bad,I think.

A Piece of Candy's latest group Gift: Tilly

A Piece of Candy always gives great gifts every month and I always look forward to them. Candy Enoch makes great outfits and separates that looks great along with her other stuff and among other designers' works as well.

This group gift comes with socks too and some other items, but this charming blouse is my current favorite...:)  JCNY, Zaara, and Ryker Beck (not sure if you can see her fabulous belly ring that I was wearing in the photo though) were my chosen accessories for this outfit, with my shorts coming from Armidi.

I don't usually post my outfits, I'm not a great stylist nor was I set out to become a fashionista inworld, but as a woman in SL, you get into that eventually and along with it a desire to share your finds from the grid.

Going on to other news, if you have been one of the few who actually follow my blog, I'm sure you noticed some changes. I have also gained some time again to be able to blog, so I hope you look forward to whatever random tings I could be rambling on about...:) Thanks for being a great sounding board!

Penny pinching has its rewards :)

Sometimes cleaning your inventory and avoiding shopping for a couple of weeks can be rewarding because of the new outfits you end up putting together in order to have something "new" to wear. I know for most of you this is already passe, but combining new and old items is a new thrill for me lately. Putting together outfits is not something I usually do, being someone who prefers ready-made outfits pulled together for you to click and wear.

Nowadays its different, I am penny pinching in RL and earning for insurance and a health plan. So I left (in tears and sadness) Costa Rica Sims and moved to Chinle Island, then now settling in a comfy 1024sqm in a mainland sim with a really nice landlady.

Penny pinching in SL is definitely something I got used to and I intend to keep to this lifestyle, and perhaps someday, I'll be back with my own parcel somewhere in Costa Rica.

Anyway, back to the outfit:

I was looking for something really elegant, but not too formal. A classic silhouette, sexy, but not too revealing...well, except for the cleavage...;)             

The hair is Maitreya's Aisha, blouse is from Casa Del Shai's Filipiniana collection, skirt is a newish purchase from Zaara, earrings is from CCD and the shoes is a classic T strap from FNKY!

Skin from League, my usual skin...:)

BBC fail article about Second Life

So BBC ran an article about Second Life and it wasn't balanced at all, considering that they have approached M Linden (Mark Kingdon) for an interview and he has been able to answer the journalist's questions extensively. 

The Lab has called for residents to comment and encourage us to write about our perspective on SL today, and here is my comment to BBC's article:

On the contrary, there are more and more uses for Second Life than it was used before. Your article did a disservice to this network by not looking at both sides of the story, and to think I respect and find this news network credible and fair.

Sure, there are those who came in, found it boring, had a bad experience, etc., and logged off. Then they preach all sorts of evil about it and predict its death. But Second Life is still here...and growing--those who predict its end are the noisy minority.

As a writer in the virtual world (I also belong to a staff of a magazine based in Second Life that features articles from many categories like art, business, machinima, events, live music, fashion and architecture) I was able to make a small living out of Second Life, so my hours in it are more productive than usual. My work with it (AVENUE Magazine) also made me see that SL is NOT a STALE and STAGNANT world after all. It is vibrant, creative, eclectic, stimulating, fun, and a great social environment.

As one of the commentators above said, SL is really how you make of it--but I dare say that who you meet during the first hour is also dependent to your staying or leaving the world. I was lucky to find friends after several days of wandering around (I was patient enough) and I have more friends and contacts now more than 2 years later.

That said, there a lot of things to do to make SL more palatable to regular computer users, and Linden Lab is making strides in doing so.

That said, as a reader and a follower of your network, I hope to see more objective and balanced article about Second Life.

I am not sure if they will print that or not, so just thinking of posting it for documentation and for everyone to see I did my part...:D