The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

For those people who occasionally ask me what the hell I’m doing with my SL that keeps me from blogging, I can finally answer you Over the past several months I’ve been working on a new project: Facade Furnishings is finally ready for prime time.

Today, at the Freudian Slip we’ll be having a “get Salome a drink already” launch party featuring over 8 hours of live music goodness from some of SL’s hottest talent with fun and freebies tossed into the mix. Are you enticed yet? You should definitely be feeling enticed. The concert party is open to one and all and I certainly hope you’ll feel inclined to attend.

The music line-up is just sublime.

When: Saturday, March 22, 2008
Where: The Freudian Slip

2pm - Tweety & The Tomcats: Funky bluesy trio of sax, bass, and guitar - we dare you to try and keep still.
3pm - Raspbury Rearwin: Alt-rock-pop singer/songwriter, cute-as-a-button and lover of bulldogs.
4pm - Montian Gilruth Mouth-watering Canadian vocalist and finger-pickin’ genius.
5pm - Tone Uriza: Big Daddy Bluesman crunhin’ the blues so hard they hurt in all the right ways.
6pm - Shadrack Band: Contemporary country and Americana trio of rockin’ bass and two wickedly delish guitarists combined with creamy, creamy harmonies.
7:30pm-ish - Grace McDunnough: She’s all mine and you can’t have her, but you can come listen to our beloved songbird croon her sultry siren song until you’re ready to sell your soul for more.

While I’m not even going to try and walk the unethical tightrope of reviewing my own items, I can tell you that Facade Furnishings is a low-prim furniture showroom geared toward proving that low-prim can still be faboo. Many items in the store are only 1 or 2 prims, and complete room sets start at 15 prims or less.

Facade item textures are almost entirely created “from scratch” starting with custom-created wood grains, wickers, and lacquers. This lets us provide textures with high resolution crispness and clarity for a realistic, but not photo-sourced feel. Primwork is at a minimum - it’s all about tricking the eye into lavish faux 3D (thus: Facade). I wanted to create items that helped foster atmospheres of immersion within the Second Life environment and I really feel that too much photo-sourcing distracts from our artificial paradise (setting the ethics aside).

I also wanted to offer an item that contributed to the multimedia aspect of SL, so I teamed with our newest little neko dynamo, Chastity Vandeverre, to offer visitors these freebie scripted radio media tuners. Each set comes with a master unit and three remote units in either Vintage, Retro, or Boom Box style. From the master unit, you can store radio stations for easy tuning on any parcel where you have media rights. The remote units can be placed on other parcels in the same SIM, or within shouting distance to permit you to change streams at multiple locations. Features include textures that change when you flip radio stations streams, hide/show and owner lock options. I think it’s a pretty nifty freebie, but then, I’m biased

Scripts are driven by a notecard that you can customize for your own stations and options. Full instructions are included and updates should be released when necessary.

At today’s party, we’ll also have fun freebies that are not nearly as impressive, but give us a giggle. Seeing as I’d like nothing more than to get completely blotto after the months of going blind in Photoshop, we have the One Too Many Lampshade Party Set, complete with lampshade hat and Uncle Feterish mouth bulb (touch on/off).

Where To Go:

Launch Party @ The Freudian Slip
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seven%20Veils/20/19/23

Freebies & Shopping @ Facade Furnishings
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seven%20Veils/121/50/23

If you’re anything like me, you’d much rather spend a few hours in SL tinkering with tinsel and twinkle lights rather than wrestling those RL decorations out of the attic. Don’t get me wrong - I love the holidays - I’m just really enjoying holiday decorating in SL far more than what is going on in my actual living room.

(btw - holiday decorating for me means “Christmas” but I’m more than happy to blog about other holiday decor - if you find nummy holiday items, by all means, send me a note)

Nemesis Traditional Christmas… officially has my favorite find of the season. Would that I could claim the find as my own, but the ever-industrious Grace McDunnough is to be credited with finding these glowing treats. These wall candles come in several different styles and color combinations, although, as you can tell, the basic idea remains the same.

They’re sweet and cheap (which is good because they’re no-copy) and I think I bought about three dozen.

I also picked up some lush garland which *is* copy/mod so you can deck the halls with it to your merry heart’s content.

Along with the oodles and oodles of Christmas decor goodies both tasteful (charming little boxes, vases, candle stands, trees, etc) and campy (all I can say is… BDSM reindeer?) there is also a nifty little freebie sculpty Santa hat in the store. At the time of writing this entry the free dispenser on the wall didn’t work, but you could buy a L$0 copy of the hat from a table in the back.

I had to tinker with mine for a bit, but it’s mod, so I eventually got exactly what I was looking for. Now if only present buying were as easy…

(Read More | Where to Buy)

When I first met my friend, Shadowe Shaftoe, I was buying a bed set from his then newly begun shop - Studio 3D. It was a lovely four-poster deal and it still lives somewhere in the recesses of my inventory. Of course, being me, I had IMed him because I wanted about 2500 changes to it (yes, I am a furniture store owner’s worst nightmare). We have since kept track of one another and every so often he shares nifty stuff with me like his creepily fun coffin bed and my favorite chaise.

Recently, he dropped a full set of modern leather furniture on me. Now, modern is not usually my thing, but textures are, so when I rezzed this set, I was simply thrilled at the great texturing on the items. Shadowe’s day job, like mine, involves a lot of Photoshop time and it really pays off in his sets like these.

Leaving the textures and style aside for a moment, what really buzzed me about this set was the animation/pose options. Driven by a touch-menu system, the sofa has 18 poses (6 couples poses, 6 male sits, 6 female sits) and each of the chairs has 12 (6 male sits, 6 female sits). All of them are really nice poses too - none of the cheap “thrown in to puff up numbers” crap. The lamps are also touch on/off as all lamps should be ;-).

The set is available in black or brown leather and includes all of the items shown (sofa, 2 chairs, 2 table lamps, 2 end tables, cocktail table, and rug). There is also an optional side-set with a lounger and floor lamp and additional items are sold ala carte. Also, even though the signs in the shop say otherwise, I know for a fact that he offers bulk discounts for club and business owners who are looking to buy a mess of items at one time. He’s an old softie that way.

But don’t let on I said so.

(Read More | Where to Buy)

I don’t know about you, but I’m as picky about candles in my SL as I am in my RL. I can only stand true red and true green candles in the month of December; at any other time of year, I like soft lilacs, natural beeswax, and very particular flavours of soft green and blue.

Given all of that, I basically hate all of the candles in SL. This hate-hate relationship has developed over a long period of time; I think I’ve shopped pretty much every store offering virtual beeswax that SL has to offer. Also, as I may have previously mentioned, I am cheap and I don’t care if a set of candles graced the table at the Last Supper - I’m not paying $150L for them unless they do the washing up after dinner.

Therefore my very favourite place to shop for candles in all of SL is The Shop Around the Corner, which has an excellent selection of non-gag-inducing candles to light up your home or dinner table at very reasonable prices. (If you have absolutely no taste and like flowers and stained glass effects, they carry those too.) These three-on-a-plate candles are only $30L per set and are fully mod, as are most of the many designs you’ll find in the store.

In my own home, I have the Candle Collection on a Plate for $50L and the blue single pillar for $10L, both of which come in a variety of designs for you to choose from. For events, I often pull out the modable four branch floor candle, which is not only a complete bargain at $10L, but is copyable. Even better value is the coordinating two-arm candle holder, which is free and also copyable:

Although I don’t think they’re as pretty, Just Designs makes a selection of quite cool scripted candles, including a basic double wick oval design and two pillars, which the owner can touch to light or extinguish and to change colors on a menu interface:

The candleabras come in two versions, a table-top size and a floor standing model, and actually burn down. In slow mode, the candles will burn down over a period of about an hour and a half, then reset automatically:

It is designed to start burning when the SL sun sets (every four hours), and burn down until it is out, which is a very pleasant evening effect to add to your home. In fast mode, the candle will burn down in 7.5 minutes, then reset after 15 seconds and start all over again. A touch script allows you to change the color of the tapers to white, black, red, blue, green, or purple by default; you can also edit the Color Change notecard to adjust your own custom colors.

So there you have it, my two favourite candle suppliers. When I decorate homes for women (”something right between lilac and periwinkle, you know?”) I generally head to the Corner shop; when I decorate for men, the “ooh, fire! ooh, scripted commands!” makes the Just Designs a winner every time. Luckily I’ve never had a client as cheap as I am, so the price differential is never an issue and you can grace your table exactly as you please.

(Read More | Where to Buy)