Bald for RFL!

A picture's worth 1000 words, so here it is!

649,275L for RELAY!

The Momento fashion show and auction ran an amazing six hours long! During that time, 649,275L was raised. That's over $2000 USD!

I cannot thank you all enough for the generosity, time, support, and most of all for showing cancer that it is not going to win this war!

Don't forget all of the jewelry items, including the Ode sets and pieces, and the artwork will be on display at Metro Models until Noon SLT on Tuesday. You can place silent auction bids for them up until that point.

Here's the slurl, so come on by now that it's less laggy! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Luxury/210/50/23

I know that more details of the event will be forthcoming from various sources, so I will leave the pretties for them to share with you. I just couldn't go to bed without expressing my awe, and my thanks to everyone who has supported us with this event! GO RELAY!!!

Much, much love!

Momento: Auction and Fashion Show Extraordinare!

As Captain of the Designers in Seclusion Relay for Life team, I would like to extend a personal invitation for all of you to join us today at the Momento fashion show and auction. Almost 50 designs will be hitting the runway and auctioned off during the show, including the last Fishook Dress.

There are also over 100 "Ode" pieces generously donated by Random Calliope's butterfly hunters. Among them are eight complete sets, and a "Shades of Golden" piece.

There are other hard to find, and one-of-a-kind jewelery pieces as well that will be on display. All jewelry will be auctioned via silent auction due to the overwhelming number of pieces.

I will be your hostess for the event, and your official auctioneer. I hope you can join us for this amazing collection to benefit the American Cancer Society! You can pick up a HUD Alaska has made which has pictures of all the fashions to be auctioned at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla Lily/128/110/35 to get a head start! (Unfortunately the jewelry just didn't make it in - again due to the sheer volume of pieces. Ode hunters rock!)



Designers in Seclusion Relay for Life Team and Metro Models are Extremely Proud to Present to You

Momento



MOMENTO: A Distinctively Unique Combination of Fashion Show Meets Auction.

The Exquisite, Metro Models are generously donating their time and talents to work the runway for what is sure to be an Unforgettable Event.

Highlights you do not want to miss feature Limited Editions, Exceptionally Hard-to-Finds & Original One-of-a-kind creations, all from some of the grid's finest Designers; Past, Present & New Rising Talents.

All of the items on display will be auctioned during a live auction during the show, with 100% of the proceeds going directly to the American Cancer Society.

In addition to the tremendous fashions, original artwork will be showcased and also auctioned off during the course of the event. These works of art are donated not only from established creators but also endearingly submitted by a number of Cancer Survivors as well.

We invite you to join us as we Celebrate and Remember along with those who shape the face of fashion in Second Life.


SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Luxury/210/50/23

Calla is hiring!

I've decided to open to applicants for customer service positions within Calla. Katoria Stevenson is my store manager, and totally rocks. She's awesome, and because she knows the vendors inside out, she's able to quickly act anytime there's an issue with the vendors (which is usually my fault – if it's scripted, I can break it) and is fabulous with customers. So you will be working directly with her as well.

Always Loveless has also been on as a customer service rep for several weeks, and she is super awesome. She's friendly, and helpful and knows the ropes. She has great ideas and shows a lot of initiative!

If you are interested, the details are below. Have a look, and follow the instructions. I will start setting up interviews next week.

(Thank you to those of you from my group who have submitted applications already! I have been through them and will be contacting some of you this weekend.)


Job requirements:

~ Must be proficient adjusting prim hair (you will have to pass this test!)
~ Must be able to explain to someone else how to adjust their own hair (you will have to pass this test, too!)
~ Must be knowledgeable of the selections and styles available at Calla (see above!)
~ Must be friendly and approachable but not overbearing
~ Must have a rez date of March 1, 2008 or prior
~ Must be able to follow instructions
~ Must be reliable and trustworthy
~ Must be willing to share ideas, suggestions, and share customer feedback with me, Katoria, or both of us
~ Must be able to accept constructive criticism
~ Must understand that RL is *always, always* first

(More than one language is a plus, but is not required)

The first two weeks will be a trial period during which payment will be in the form of Calla Store Cards. After the initial two week period, payment will be 200 L$ per hour. Clock-in will be required and payment given at the end of your shift. You will also receive all new releases in the pack option of your choice. Other goodies and presents/bonuses/etc will be handed out at random.

Calla Customer Service Application

Please complete the following information. Be sure to rename your note card to "Calla Customer Service Application – YOUR NAME" and drop it in the mailbox by the front door at Calla. SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla Lily/128/110/35

Name:
Date:
Rez Date:
References (if any, not required):

Please explain why you would like to work at Calla and what assets you will bring to the Calla family:

Please list your (general) availability within SL (I will also use this time frame to set up an interview with you):

Do you have any other SL commitments? If so, please list them here:

Do you completely understand that this is never to take priority over your real life, and any personal real life commitments and obligations you have?

Suggestions, comments, concerns, etc:

Sneak Peek

Here's what I've been working on! They'll be going out sometime this week, I'm shooting for Tuesday. I still need to finish putting the ads together and get the demos ready. I have 5 skin tones finished to my liking. A couple more are nearly there, but I'm still not thrilled. And there are lots more makeups, but this is the first round. More details soon, pics for now!

In answer to some questions

I've been getting a good number of questions regarding the split of Calla and how things are between myself and Haedon. There's no short answer, and those questions deserve answers. If you'd like to hear them, you can read it all here.

Hunt Extendend, Group Freebie, RFL, and Lily's MIA!

Due to borkage and quite a number of reports of people losing the hunt items, I'm going to extend the hunt until Tuesday morning. I'll go around and gather up the boxes early am Eastern (probably 4am SLT) so you have a little while longer to pick them up if you lost them or haven't been able to get over there.

Apparently someone has made and been handing out a handy-dandy note card with all the box locations. I'm kinda glad, cause now I'll be able to find them.

Head on over if you haven't yet! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla%20Lily/128/110/35

Also due to my own borkage when coloring, I've sent out the Willow-herb style in the LTD Editions colors to the Calla Update Group and the Calla Subscribe-O-Matic group. If you haven't joined, you can go over to the store and touch the kiosk. I will be taking them out of the past notices tomorrow as well, so hurry if you want to catch them.

My RFL team raised 410,000 L$ last night! I want to thank all of you who came out to support the fundraiser, both with your bids and your spirits. There was quite a crowd! I must brag on my team a minute. We are the Designers in Seclusion team, and not only have we raised over $5,000 usd for the Relay in the last two months, most of my team members run full time businesses within Second Life as well. That's no small task, and I am so grateful for all the effort they have put into raising funds to fight cancer. They are an amazing group and I as Team Captain have had the immense honor and pleasure to work with them on a much deeper level and can assure you they are some of the best folks on the grid. So a huge thank you goes out to each of them as well! We're not done yet, though, so keep an eye out for more events from the DIS RFL team!

On a personal note, I won't be around quite as much the next two days. My youngest daughter turns 5 tomorrow so there are birthday plans tomorrow evening, but I will be around most of the daytime.

In case you haven't heard, I tore a ligament in my lower back about 2 1/2 months ago.
It's making my life very difficult; I can't empty the dishwasher or move laundry or lug around hay and horse feed. I'm not able to do much of anything and have been given the pretty handicapped parking tag. This is a huge blow, especially given the fact that I'd do just about anything to be out riding right now.

I've been in a constant state of a good steady 8 on the pain scale for a long time now. (I had to have an MRI on my RL birthday!) I go Wednesday for some kind of injection to numb the nerves in that area. It can take up to 18 months for a ligament to heal. They're going to explain it all and then do it so I'm not exactly sure what is entailed, or how long anything is supposed to take or what my limitations afterwards will be.

So please, if you have customer issues, send me a note card and I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Just know it may be a few days. If you need urgent help, you can contact Katoria Stevenson who is my new Store Manager, or Always Loveless who is also Calla Store Staff. If you purchased something and it didn't get delivered, please go touch the cash register at the front of the store to have it redelivered!

Treasure Hunt All Weekend!

There are 65 boxes hidden throughout the entire island, in the store and outside of the store!

There's hair in them there hills! (And some unreleased skins and other goodies too!)

Come get 'em! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla%20Lily/128/110/35

Have a wonderful weekend. :)

Eight new and Flickr!

There's a Calla Flickr Group! Feel free to add your Calla pics there!

Now, on to the newness!



Artemisia - I have been hanging onto this one for a while now. A really long while. It's one of the ones that kind of grows on you. It bears a resemblance to Spanish Jasmine but the more I look at it, the less resemblance I see. Artemisia is more disheveled, more just-ran-your-hands-through-it (or someone else's hands were in it!) and haphazard. It's become one of my favorites.



Bellflower - This was actually a request from Simone. I really had fun doing this, and wanted it to have that sexy come-hither look without being totally overboard.



Buttercup II - The original Buttercup has gone to the discount section ages ago. But I still get a lot of requests for it, especially in more colors. Rather than resurrect the old one, I took it apart and gave it a makeover. It still has the same style bands, color change of course, and the same side-pulled look. It did get some sculpts though, and I'm pretty happy with the more natural look it has this time around. After a year and a half, it deserved the makeover!



Flax - This is one of the (if not the) first ones I did with sculpts that actually turned out the way I wanted it. It's a vintage, Barbie style ponytail with a tiny little metal headband at the base of the pony. There are also tiny little pearls that line the headband as an optional attachment in case you want to dress it up a little.



Lierre - This was a happy accident! I was attempting something else (again with the sculpts) and had just haphazardly placed a couple of sculpts near the side out of my way. When I cammed back around it was a total "Oh!" moment. There's also flexi in it to give it a natural sway.



Spindle-tree - This one is right on the edge. It's got a subtle "don't push me" undertone to the look, but it's still great for wearing to a corporate event. There's flexi added for movement to the style.



Willow-herb - I love this one! This one was also a request from Simone. She wanted something "Runway." After finding this and this one of Victoria Beckham I started playing with it. Simone gets credit for her "just use the apple sculpty" suggestion for the back of the hair. As you can see, it worked like a charm!



Yellow Tulip - Another one that wasn't what I'd planned when I started, this one came out really well anyway. This one also has sculpts in the ponytail to give it more of a realistic lay to the curls. The scrunchie at the pony base is color change.

As you'll notice, all of these releases have the Touch-to-Fit system. I will be incorporating it into all current styles over the next few weeks. I've had many requests for it, it just got pushed to a back burner with the rebuild and move.

I've really tried not to use a large amount of sculpts in my styles, and you'll likely never see more than a handful in any one style. I simply can't stand the "bubble-head" look. Sculpts are notoriously slow to rez, and seeing people walk around with big blobs for heads just makes the hair stylist in me cringe. But I'm really enjoying the little extra realism that can be created with a few well-placed sculpts. It's still a learning process for me and I hope I'll continue improving with them over time, but I'm really pleased with this start!

More coming soon about the re-opening celebration!

And happy Rez day to me! Two years has gone by so fast!

You can find all the new stuff at the new location in Calla Lily: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla%20Lily/128/110/35

Front page of SLNN.com!

I was approached by Osiris Pfalz a few days ago for a brief interview, which I fully expected to be buried someplace in the depths of slnn.com and only a brief few sentence mention.

Imagine my surprise when I got a link from Katoria this morning and saw this on the front page!



Okay so they typo'd my name. Koi, Coi, it's the same sound, who cares!

I didn't manage to snag a screen shot of if when it was on the front page with the little lead in blurb and link, I've been way too busy with other things today.

If you want to read the whole article you can find it here: Southern Charm

A huge thank you to Osiris for the wonderful article. She was wonderful to chat with and I very much enjoyed meeting her.

Calla is moving! Reopening Friday!

And the new SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Calla%20Lily/128/110/35

I hope to see you there! Group members, you will need your Calla Update Group tag on in order to get in, so be sure to activate it before you come over!

Calla is moving, and other big changes!

Tousled will be staying on the sim that Calla is currently on. Callatropia is now Bricolage, and all Callatropia landmarks will continue to take you to the same island, with the new name, and soon the home of Tousled.

Calla is moving to a new location!

I will be sending out landmarks for the new location tomorrow as well as an invitation to the re-opening of Calla!

For the last month, I have had the immense pleasure of working with an extraordinary builder. Her name is Holly Klaxon, and she has been nothing less than a godsend. In the time that I've worked with her, I've been amazed at how well she understands the vision for Calla I have in my head. She has gone above and beyond, and has worked magic where there once was only plywood. The new build is breathtaking, full of incredible detail, and has been crafted with love and care. I want to give you a sneak peek, but I've yet to be able to take a picture that does it even the smallest amount of justice. You'll have to see it for yourself in a few days.

The next part of the magic is brought to you by Katoria Stevenson. She has been baking things up, and you will not believe how awesome things are going to be. Every time I said, "What if..." or "I'd really like to..." she figured out a way.

First off, there will be a new store card system. Gone will be the days of having to wait to get your gift certificate redeemed. No more losing them in transit from your inventory to mine, and back again. No more filling out note cards! If you have a Calla Gift Certificate that you would like to trade in for a new store card, please send me a note with your gift certificate and I will send you the new card by Monday.

Not only will there be store cards, but they are refillable! You'll be able to add L$ to your store card balance. If you want to get something else but there's not enough L$ on your card, you can go to the front desk and add a little more. There will also be a bonus L$ amount added every time you refill your Calla Store card.

In addition, there will be an automated re-delivery system. You know, for those times that you pay for something, and the Lindens think, "Ohhh, I want that!" and it disappears into the void. No more going through your transactions and filling out note cards, waiting on me to verify your purchase and resend it to you. You'll be able to go to the front desk and get it sent to you again - instantly.

In the coming weeks, there will also be a frequent shopper's program which will get you discounts and free hair!

Calla for Men is being taken over by my real life brother, Griptape Pro, and will be its own entity within Calla. The Men's department will have its own Store Card system, and the new re-delivery system as well. He's made some fabulous men's styles and I have no doubt that this will be better all around for you gentlemen! Griptape has been in Second Life for a good long while now and has had his own store, Musician's Paradise, for over a year, so he's not new to the grid or to the way things work in SL.

Keep an eye out tomorrow for your invitation to the re-opening. As always, it will be open only for Calla Update Group members first, and then I will open up to the public a few hours later. I'll be closing membership to the in-world group Friday morning. If you're juggling groups, here's your head's up!

A very fond farewell..

Hi! It's me... the quiet one. Late, as usual!

It's been a pleasure to work under the Calla brand alongside Tigerlily for nearly two years now. When we started, I never would have expected we would grow so much in such a short amount of time. I don't think either of us did! It's been a great ride though. I've met so many amazing people and made great friendships.

But sometimes, people take different roads... and I think Lily and I are traveling in two different directions. They may be two different directions, but I believe they will both end up somewhere really great. While it saddens me to leave Calla behind, I find myself very excited to be doing my own thing with Tousled, and taking new steps. I'm also excited to see where Calla is going, as it has been such a large part of me and my life.

So where am I going? What am I doing? Are there cookies there?

As I mentioned above, my new store and brand name is Tousled. I'll be taking all the styles I've created with me to the new brand. They will all have new textures, and some will have new names. (When I thought to name all our hair with flower names, I never thought about how difficult it would get as we used up all the good ones... I've actually resorted to using fictional plants from Lord of the Rings!) I'll still be working hard to create new styles and fun products. I will be keeping up the same dedicated customer service that Tigerlily and I have been known for in the past. If you'd like to keep updated, you can search for the Tousled Update Group, and join. Though I may pick up another subscribe-o-matic system, seeing how bad group chat spam has gotten lately. I have actually released three new styles this week. You can find pictures on the Tousled Blog. (which has yet to be picked up by Fashion Planet... le sigh)

Tousled is currently in a temporary location in Romero, and the main store location will be in the Bricolage sim sometime next week. I will of course honour all Calla gift certificates that list my name as the creator. (This includes all box certificates and the texture holiday certificates) I think Lily is adopting a new scripted store card system, which will be great, and way easier on her and her customers. Tousled will have it's own scripted store cards as well.

Yes, there are cookies. I don't go anywhere that doesn't have cookies.

I'd like to give a special thank you to all of the Calla Update Group members. You're all amazing fun people, and I have had some of the best group chats with you. It was one group I was always happy to be a part of.

If anyone has any questions, comments or if you just want to say hello, please do :)
All my love!
Haedon Quine

Calla - Temporarily Closing & Subscribe-O-Matic (finally!)

After nearly two years, Haedon and I are ready to do our own thing. Haedon will have her own, new island, and will be working under her own, new brand. At the moment, I'm unaware of what the names of her new brand and her new island will be, so they will be a surprise for me too. Keep checking the fashion feeds.

I will continue on, working as I have for nearly the past two years, under the Calla brand. Calla will be closing for a short period of time this week; my hope is that I will be able to reopen the doors after 3 days or so, although the duration depends primarily on Linden Lab and how efficiently they complete their side of things. The closure will happen with little to no warning, so if you find suddenly that you can't get to Calla, you'll know why!

I wish I could tell you more specifically when the period of closure will begin, but unfortunately that also depends upon Linden Lab and I'm afraid I have little influence in the matter. But, there is one thing I can tell you for certain; once the doors temporarily close, there will be huge changes behind the scenes, and Calla will be back - bigger, better, and more beautiful than ever before. I'm not going to share yet exactly what those changes will be, but rest assured I have some great surprises in store for you!

If you've been waiting for Calla to finally get with the program and get the Subscribe-O-Matic, wait no more! The in-world group is not closing, but I have added the option of the Subscribe-O-Matic. If you're part of the in-world group, you have already been automatically added to the Subscribe-O-Matic as well. If you need to drop the in-world group, go ahead and rest assured that you won't miss any of the important notices over the next week!

The Subscribe-O-Matic sign is up at the front door, and also at the information desk. If you'd like to join, swing on by and touch the sign.

I will be giving more information about the new changes coming to Calla in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Huge Sale 25 - 50% off

I've just marked a TON of stuff down 25 - 50%. Hair, jewelry, shapes, men's styles, it's on sale!

It's a holiday weekend in the US. Monday is Memorial Day, a day which we celebrate and honor our service men & women. If you or your RL spouse/partner are in the military, my family salutes you! (My husband's an ex-Marine...but they're never really ex-Marines are they?)

Send me a note card and tell me which branch you/your family are in, and what base you're stationed at and I'll send you a special gift!

Look for the flags throughout the store to find the discounted items. Have a very happy and safe holiday!



The sale will end sometime Tuesday. (aka, as soon as I get to changing everything)

A collaboration release

I love when Nicky sends me a message and says "I'm working on a gown, would you like to make hair to go with it?" My answer is always a resounding "YES!" Nicky is so great to work with. She gives me the complete freedom to come up with whatever my own personal vision for that particular gown is.

So naturally, several months ago when she said she was planning a special Spring release and was making it an all-out collaboration even down to the skin and wanted to know if I would do hair for it, I said, "of course!"

This time, the gown is the most amazing Baroque style gown I've ever seen. I've yet to see a picture do justice to the detail put into it, and unfortunately my pictures don't live up to the real thing either.



The mask by Siyu Suen of Illusions is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. When I started the hair, I knew a mask would be forthcoming and did my best to work around the picture Nicky sent me of it. I actually, for the first time, have released a hair with sculpty! Yay me! Because of the mask, there needed to be no bangs and to get the clean, pulled back look of the Baroque era I had to employ a sculpt to accomplish that. I was really surprised when I started researching that it was very common for women to wear their hair partly pulled back, but long and loose in the back. They would pull it all back and up into elaborate styles. I wanted to somehow incorporate both styles, a daytime and an evening look.

This hair has the incredible Transitions style changing system. You must see it in action. When you touch the hair your avatar does this cute little whirly-thing (tm) with her hands, like you're arranging your hair. Then the hair changes! It's really very fun, and somewhat addictive. AO's will sometimes interfere so if you're not seeing it try turning off your AO. Super thanks to Mya Heaney of Pazazz for sharing the Transitions system with me.

You can pick it up in the lobby at Calla!

Everything is Borked ™

Most of you know this already.

If you have purchased something and haven't gotten it due to the borkedness™ please send another note card. You aren't the only one who is losing inventory, not getting delivered items, etc etc.

At this point, I believe to be caught up on all customer issues. So if you're expecting something and haven't gotten it, give me a holler and let me know. I'll need all the usual information again, transaction number, date, item, destination.

Please note! If the destination is Haedon Quine send the note card to her. I cannot verify purchases that went to her, and vice versa. Please contact whichever of us is listed as the destination on your transaction information. That will expedite things for you.

Customer issues aside, I have a confession. I've had zero desire to create anything for a while. I've played with the Eloh skins, and have some that you might actually be seeing sometime soon. I've spent months trying to figure out sculpties and how to make something that wasn't a phallic stand-in. I think, maybe, finally, I've got it figured out to a large degree, and I picked up some sculpt maps on SLX (who knew branches made good hair?) which also helps supplement my less than fabulous sculptistry.

I know most of you are aware of the IP rights campaign.



The content theft has really been a wet blanket to my creativity. It's really hard to want to create something when the fear of it being stolen is ever-looming. And honestly it's taken me this long to come to grips with it. Just when I think I'm okay, someone else close to me has something copied and I take a few steps back. It's really discouraging and sometimes down right depressing.

And this post has now been sitting unpublished a few days (so I'm likely behind again, lol!) because I found one of my styles stolen again. It's been duplicated and mirrored. So far I've only been able to find pictures on ads for said hair, the hair itself doesn't appear to be in the boxes. Which is strange, and maybe someone else got to them first and has filed a DMCA for their own style resulting in removal of all of them at that location. I don't know. But I've spent a fair amount of time trying to track it down so I can file DMCAs.

See what I mean? Just when you start to think "Okay, I can do this," and reach down to grab your bootstraps, someone kicks you in the behind and shoves you face first in the mud.

Anyway, I'm hopefully back to the grindstone now. I just wanted to let you guys know I hadn't been eaten by the asset server, too.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Weekend!

Feelin' lucky?

There are greens and green tips packs of hair in the lucky chairs for the weekend. They will be there through Monday.

There are LOTS of different styles in there, and some for the men too!

Tag I'm It!

Ryker tagged me, and I'm just now getting to it. Cause honestly I had to wait for a book to end up on my desk that wasn't a board book. So, here we go.

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 Tao of Equus

'The only way you'll be able to wake up from your own nightmare is if you start paying attention to all your feelins, in the present. In fact, I'm going to step off my soapbox now, and ask Noche to help you work on it.'
Because Joy was in such a dissociative state, I decided to let her simply groom the bay horse, hoping he still might help her gain a better understanding of how she lost contact with herself when she felt threatened.

And I'm tagging:

Arabeth Laval
Ciera Bergman
Sachi Vixen
Annyka Beckers
Shelly Toonie

I'm a donut too!

I saw this over on Berry's Blog and couldn't resist.

Krispy Kremes. Lord, had I known when they went public with their stock, I'd seriously have gotten like 100 shares. Anyway, here's my donutality. Strangely enough, it's also pretty much the only kind of donut I ever eat.

You Are a Glazed Donut

Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone digs you. And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten.

What Donut Are You?