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“A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded pistol on your coffee table.  There’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s hard to stop thinking about it.”

Garrison Keillor

You wouldn’t believe what I needed to go through to get decent pictures for this article!  Nothing really worked out at the event itself, so I finally shot these at home, before I went down to the pond on my property for my dip. (It turns out natural lighting instead of a packaged WindLight setting — or at least the settings I was trying — was the best way to get the shadows around my face to be not quite as deep as they were trying to be.)

Anyway, I’ve been to Fashiontropic, and picked up some beautiful goodies which I’m showing off here.  I love it all, but truth to tell, I think I love the shoes the most — those heels!  Although I’m an idiot, of course, for walking around on grass and sand in high heels; but, hey, this is Second Life!  The swimsuit — you can’t technically call it a bikini, but it wants to be! — is great as well.

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“To look good in the water you have to pick the right swimsuit. I own close to 500.”

Amanda Beard

The topper in many ways is the jewelry suite (with sun hat!) from Lazuri, which actually goes with a PurpleMoon set that’s being sold in the same shop.  (Poulet and Zuri do a lot of work together these days, remember.)  Being Lazuri, everything is script-changeable, of course, and there are lots of options for pieces with or without the flowers.  I figured I’d throw in a big splash of color, and wore the colors the pieces came in, straight out of the bag, since it was all in range of the blues and greens of the swimsuit.  I don’t know if I’d take all that hardware into the water, but it’s very decorative for a fashionista on the boardwalk!

(A side note:  the hair doesn’t come with the hat; that’s a style from Amacci.  Make sure you copy your hair before you start plucking tufts out to keep it from showing through the hat!  More SL grief and anguish has come from Residents not taking that simple precaution, then removing the hat and discovering they’ve destroyed a favorite hairstyle.  Even Ole Second Life Hands make this mistake; I can testify to that personally.  Make copies, even if your Inventory is groaning!)

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The details:

• Skin: Glam Affair Cleo (America – Clean B)
• Hair: Amacci Doris (Dark Copper — edited for Lazuri hat)
• Eyes: Sterling Artistry Jeweled Eyes (brightblue)
• Nails: ZOZ Summer 20015 [sic] French Polish (SLink hands; available at Fashiontropic)
• Swimsuit: KosmO Varuna (ClassicBlue) (available at Fashiontropic)
• Shoes: DE.Boutique SS15 Limoncello Heels (Colors) (available at Fashiontropic)
• Accessories (including hat): Lazuri Cocoa Island suite (available at Fashiontropic)
• Makeup: MUA Wing eyeshadow (3) (available at Fashiontropic)
• Attachments: Slink FEMALE Hands and Feet; StrawberrySingh.com Broken Ankle Fix – Ankle Lock v2.0

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…Nothing at all.

Especially this latest set, Perles de Gloire, sold for Zuri Lyric by PurpleMoon, which is perfect for a strapless ball gown or other high-octane fashion event.  The star of the full suite is this two-piece back-duster necklace, which will probably require a little adjustment to get to lay properly.  Zuri and Poulet, however, include a graphic showing how to do it in three easy steps, so it shouldn’t be any trouble at all.  (As usual, there is a master script for changing the colors of all pieces built into the necklace, or you can adjust individual pieces after changing the necklace around.  All elements from the jewels to the pearls can be altered.)

There are bracelets for both arms — two-piece sets again, so you can make the strands as thick or thin as you like, or leave off the big central bauble and wear the two-strand piece alone.

…along with earrings, and two rings, one for each hand.  I hope you enjoy them….

…but do remember to put something on besides your Lazuri before going out on the town for the night.  (You can always take it off later….)

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Interesting combination, you say?  Perchance.  All I can say is that I finally found a few matches for W in Vanessa Blaylock’s alphabetical inventory challenge.  I dug out the green wax bangles that I have on my wrist here with some luck; they came from Yak & Yeti several years ago.  And the “war” is this hairstyle from Vanity, Love After War.  You can’t see all the pileup or the tail in back due to my position and the brick walls at the Blarney Stone, but it’s a big updo that works quite nicely.

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No, Q is not for “queen,” although that would be the easiest thing.  (How many of us girls don’t have a few royal costumes socked away in inventory [grin]?)  I wanted something different.  Quartz is also a “common” available item, but not as common as royalty, I suspect.  So, for Vanessa Blaylock’s alphabetical inventory challenge, I pulled out these Ruffle Around earrings with quartz centers.  They’re probably best for a daytime look, but they have some versatility to them, depending on the nighttime dress you choose.

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Lazuri is definitely one of the name jewelry houses these days, and Zuri Lyric gets better and better with the large stage pieces she specializes in.  This set, which Zuri calls Precise Frimon, consists of a script-driven suite:  heavy necklace, earrings, rings and bracelets for both hands and a set of individual hair pins (which are shaped similar to the pendants on the earrings; they don’t show up in this shot).  Colors are controllable via the menus, and give you a wide range of possibilities to decorate yourself with.

These jewels deserved more than a simple one-shot, so I dressed myself up some and trotted out another character from my stories:  I call her Dannta ‘niShantaro, and she’s from the planet Elenia.  Any road, I added to the Lazuri suite a set of prim nails that have some flower or flower-related elements, and dressed myself in a party outfit:

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The details beyond the jewels:

• Skin and shape (modified):  Tokyo.Girl Amelia – Natural
• Eyes:  Poetic Couture classic blue hour
• Hair:  Truth January (crow w/ roots)
• Nails:  Love Soul Fascinante prim nails (Red)
• Makeup (application order):  Baiastice Pola bi-colour eyeshadows and lashes (gold/azure); Glamorize Treasured Kisses Lips (Dark raspberry)
• Dress:  Bliss Couture Lene (with loose gold leggings added; vintage)
• Shoes:  BAX Coen Regency Boots (black; mesh)

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The woman stood and contemplated the fire burning low on the hearth.  It gave off little heat, was there more for the light than anything; she had no need for the heat, not since the day he had come and touched her lips and heart.  Moon-pale she had always been, some said.  Not as pale then as now, though, others replied.  A few of the servants had spied from behind doors and curtains, as servants often would, and they all swore that they could see the color draining from her face, the red of her lips replaced by the black, some claimed, of the grave.  Her people had served her faithfully before — now they feared to leave her, lest she come seeking them some night, and bring them back to her halls, changed as she was….

Keep on reading after the break.  Fair warning:  lots of pictures.

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Here I am at home in my new apartment, enjoying the sunset and listening to a concert on SCPR.  (That’s Second Life Public Radio, incidentally.)  It took a while to decorate this living room, and I dipped into the backstock of my store for the art hanging on the walls — as well as a little private stock; see that rather familiar artwork for a book cover there past the dining set?  But it was worth it; I even had the landlord say “Wow!” when she stopped in to set up my door locks.

The focal point of the room is probably this huge redwood and slate fireplace in the living area, which gives me a cheery blaze as the days slide into winter.  And there’s a surprise or two as well; though the room is mostly Art Deco, one of my favorite styles, visitors who come in the front door may expect at first to be seeing something a little more modern than that.  I have two of my original “Metallic Princesses” self-portraits hanging in the entry vestibule.  (You can see one hanging over my shoulder there as I meditate by the fire.)

The gown I’m wearing is a hunt goodie I picked up from Sascha’s Designs a month or so back at a discounted price.  The kicker for getting this green version of Malicious was that you had to hunt through the entire first floor looking for the individual pieces, assisted by clues provided by Sascha’s assistant.  And baby, it was a hunt indeed, looking for those tiny little boxes.  But I think you’ll agree that this luscious gown’s fabric and lay are worth the work.  It’s done in what I’d call a metallic green foil or lamé print, judging by the gleam off the bodice here.  Spaghetti straps go around your neck in a halter, but I think you can leave them off as they’re a separate part of the dress.

Finesmith’s Alexandra suite came out about the same time, and I paired this exceptionally large set of earrings, necklace, bracelet and ring with the dress.  I’m still trying to make up my mind if this was a good choice, or if I should have gone with something more conservative.  Any opinions out there?  I kept the makeup light this time in exchange, relying on my own “natural” lip color, and just a touch of eyeshadow.

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The details:

• Skin:  PXL Candy SK SE, Red lips, light eyebrows
• Eyes:  Poetic Color Gold Flakes (sapphire)
• Hair:  W&Y Model Hair 25 (scripted, all colors)
  
• Nails:  Mandala medium HUD nail set
• Gown:  Sascha’s Designs Malicious (green)
• Shoes:  N-core XtremeHeel II Slingbacks (silver)
• Jewelry:  Finesmith Designs Alexandra suite
• Makeup:  Amacci Divine (sage, with lashes)

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The 2011 Accessory Fair is going on now in two special sims. When I visited the other night, it was remarkably lag-free, and I found some several interesting things I may write about myself in the near future, though I was mainly looking in vain for some classic Egyptian queen’s crowns and couldn’t find them this time.

For now, though, consider these tasty items that Cajsa Lilliehook of It’s Only Fashion found for herself, along with some wonderful black-background photography!

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The Accessory Fair has gone to Egypt where a river of inspiration resulted in beautiful jewelry and accessories worthy of a Pharaoh or a Pharaoh’s Tomb. One of the first places to visit there is Mood featuring jewelry by Jori Watler. Mood is where you go for modern classics, designs that look au courant forever. This set is th Egiziano Dea Ensemble. This closer look shows how rich the texture work is in Mood Jewelry. The Mood Dakhla set for Relay … Read More

via It’s Only Fashion

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It isn’t often I write about something that’s just been released.  But, after getting the notice from Sascha’s Designs and stopping in to look at it — and also spending some very nice time chatting with Sascha Frangilli and a pair of Dutch visitors — I decided that this was so good that it was definitely worth talking about.  The only trick was what hair to wear with the magnificent jacket.

Doesn’t look like much here, does it, if you focus on just the blue undershirt and the white pants?  (In this color choice, there’s also a pink top; but I favor red hair, as you know.)  It’s the dressy jacket that makes this iteration of the outfit so nice — one of the nicest dress jackets I’ve seen yet in my fashion history in world.

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I agree with Cajsa in her article here; anyone who doesn’t admit to mistakes in their photography in world, especially fashion photography, is either impossibly perfect, or they aren’t going over their work very well. It’s all a learning curve, one that all of us, including myself, are still traveling. But Cajsa suggests ways here that you can shorten the curve’s slope, at least in part.

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Talk to any Second Life® photographer or blogger and they will confess to committing multiple mistakes. Anyone who says otherwise is either annoyingly perfect or blindingly unobservant. Just the other day I had to reshoot my entire blog post because I left the camera set to show the User Interface – an elementary error that could have been prevented with a simple checklist. I notice simple errors in others’ photos as well. A prim is missing from … Read More

via It’s Only Fashion

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