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?

Ooo the drama!

Anyone who knows me knows that I avoid drama at all costs. Anyone who really knows me knows that I have no qualms about standing up and saying what I feel the need to say. This is one of those rare times that the two overlap. It bugs me to no end when someone feels the need to speak on my behalf because they don't think I'm capable of doing it for myself.

So lest anyone think for a second that may be true and I don't have the balls to state my own feelings, here are some of my thoughts on a a recently "hot" post to hit the fashion feed. I'd rather my own words be read than implied by someone else.

Truth said...

"P.S Haedon and Lily I have your back on this issue as you guys are some of the quiet ones and I dont mind being the loud mouth cock on this issue ;)"

I saw the comment that was made about Calla on Sofia's blog. It wasn't actually in her original post, but in a comment she made to someone else's comment about her original blog post. (Five times removed and someone is their own grandpa's mother's dog's uncle.)

She said:

Sofia Gray said...

I would agree with you Chardonnay, however Truth (as well as Frangipani, and Calla) is/are a store(s) that build the majority of his collection by knocking off ETD styles. (Actually, Calla has a lot of original stuff, but lately it seems like they are desperately grasping by copying ETD styles...[cut]...

Did it bother me to be accused of being a "store(s) that build[s] the majority" of our collection "by knocking off ETD styles" and by "desperately grasping by copying ETD styles"? You bet your ass it did.

When I read it, I was pissed. Mostly it hurt my feelings, because I work hard at what I do and put a lot of time, effort and thought into the products I make and will not release something that I don't feel 100% confident in the quality of. But after that because I know it's not true and was such a broad generalization and blanket statement. So my pissiness lasted a minute or three until I realized she was stating her opinion, and even if the rest of the grid thinks I copy ETD's styles, so what? I know the truth. I'm the one who has to live with myself. I'm the one who has to look in the mirror every day. I'm the one who sleeps comfortably at night (assuming my kids let me). I'm the one who has customers that adore the styles I've made who own both Calla and ETD styles and don't think they are at all alike.

I know I haven't copied Elika's styles (or anyone else's for that matter). I'm the one who sooo wanted to go and buy up half of her store when she had that 25L sale and didn't feel that I could, because of potential broad generalizations by people who don't know what they're talking about. I guess I'd rather "avoid the appearance of evil" and miss out on great hair than put myself in a position that may look suspect. I'm honestly sick of that whole mentality of hair makers not being able to own something another hair maker made because of "so and so copied so and so, and look they bought this, and look what they just made that looks just like that" but that's an entirely different rant.

We're all entitled to our opinions. We're all entitled to express them however we see fit. In the grand scheme of things, one person's comment about what they think I do doesn't really carry a lot of weight with me. So much so that I didn't feel it warranted a response. She has her opinion, I've got mine, and readers as well as customers have theirs, too.

I quit caring what people thought of me after I made it out of high school alive; which was a long time ago. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy my customers. If I make something you like, that's fabulous! If you don't like it, that's okay too. What a boring place the world would be if we all liked the same things.

I was offended, momentarily, by a blanket statement that was unwarranted and I feel (oooo look, my opinion!) undeserved by someone that I'm not sure even owns any styles I've made. She has the right to express that opinion (whether she owns anything I've made or not) just as I've the right to be upset by it, get over it and let it go. The world turns. We all make choices. We can choose to let things like that upset us, or we can choose to take it with a grain of salt and move on.

Keep doing what you love, whether it be making hair, or stating your opinions about things, or sitting around with your thumb up your ass and watching it all happen.

Really, in six months, will any of this matter?

Sofia, I may not agree with everything you write. I may not appreciate what you said about Calla, and therefore about me specifically and one of the most important people in my life (Haedon, just so there's no confusion by anyone). However, I do respect your opinion as being your own, and your right to voice your thoughts and feelings without being hammered into changing them to suit someone else, and I have no right to ask or expect you to do differently. Lord knows I don't cave to what someone else feels I "should" do.

I'll keep making hair you don't have to like, you keep making statements I don't have to like, and somewhere along the way people are going to agree with one or both or neither of us.

That, to me, is the beauty of creation, whether in words, or prims, or any other medium.

To our customers who continue to show faith in us and continue to send kind words at the times we need them most, thank you for standing by us and enriching our lives, both first and second. To those of you who aren't our customers, I only ask that you evaluate our work first-hand and form your own opinions.

Signed,
A tired Lily whose mother-in-law is in town staying with her and thus feels the need to rant endlessly.

We need your voice!

Please, if you haven't yet, go here:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-676

And VOTE! Make your voice heard! The votes are only at 600 this morning. Haedon sent out a notice to our group, which consists of nearly 3000 users. There are lots more who aren't in our group, so that number should be considerably higher than 600! The jira always runs slow (at least for me anyway) so be patient. If everyone hits the page at once, it's going to be even slower. Please, please make it a priority to go and vote on this issue!

The process is extremely easy, and here's what you should see:



Now you need to login to the jira with your Second Life username and password. This is a Linden Labs site, so your information is safe. It's no different than logging into the SL website.



Once you're logged in, on the left hand side of the page you will see this:



This is where you click Vote for it. The page will reload, and you get this:



Content theft effects all of us. In this situation skins are being mentioned specifically, but there is so much theft grid-wide. This impacts the creators the hardest, and first. When our work is taken out from under us, and given for free or next to nothing, we're 1) losing sales and 2) forced to lower our prices to get sales back that *should* have been ours in the first place.

I read a blog entry by dandellion Kimban this morning, and would like to quote parts of it here. Her original post was regarding free skins, but it so applies to this situation of all content being stolen. I found it a really thought provoking article if you have the time to read it. (emphasis added is mine)

"On the other side, there is just one item that keeps its price stable: land. And may I say, compared to anything else, land is too fucking expensive. And, it is very important, land tier is paid in US$, not in lindens. Even if you are living on an estate and pay your landlord/lady in lindens, they pay US$ to Linden Lab. All of a sudden, we are not talking microcurrency linden peanuts, we are talking hard green cash recognizable in any bank on planet Earth. What does that mean?

That means that content creators are working for third world wages while land barons are doing serious biz here. And, mind yu, making skins, hairs, scripts and all the rest of lovely things we use takes a bit more knowledge, skills, creativity and time than buying an island, placing prefab houses and renting all that. All of a sudden there is an ethical problem of giving those skins for free! Dropping prices is not a good idea anymore. Dropping prices is taking money from content creators. And content creators need money. They need to be payed for their work and they need to cover their expenses. They need to pay for the land their shop is on. And that price won't drop with everything else."

Those two paragraphs tell more than anyone could explain in a whole dissertation. When we lose sales because we've lost the content that we spent time, effort, heartache, and money to create, we lose the ability to pay for the land we sit on. If we can't afford our rent, or our tier, they kick us out. We can't keep an island for free, believe it or not! (The Lindens frown on that for some reason.) If we can't pay the rent, they're going to kick us out to find someone who can.

This effects every single person on the grid. When the content creators are not protected, when we can't make enough sales to cover our business expenses, there's not going to be anything for the rest of the grid to buy. Which effects the economy. Which effects Linden Labs. Which means they're not making money to cover their business expenses (servers are expensive!) and will either sell out, or close down.

This is not a minor situation! As Ming-Ming would say: "This is sewious!"

Here is a poignant video from Minnu that sums it up nicely.

And if you've gotten this far, for the love of all that is created on the grid, go VOTE already!!!

My Skins for Another Fundraiser!

This is one of the most amazing contributions to the grid. Eloh's done an incredibly generous thing by giving the community the .psd files for these skins. I've learned so much over the last few weeks that I've been playing with them. I have a completely new appreciation for those people who make skins. This is not an easy thing!

Here are my donations for the Another Fundraiser. All proceeds from this fundraiser are going to Unicef.

I did three different makeups, in three skintones. Here are some close ups of the faces.







And here's a full ad so you know what you're looking for when you get there.



There are so many skins! I've seen a few blogged that are absolutely incredible, and I'm sure that's just scratching the surface. There are over 100 skins, and they are all 50L$ each. Yes. Five. Zero. Fifty!!! It's for a good cause so please be generous with your L$.

I can't begin to say how much I've learned, and how much I've enjoyed being a part of this effort. I'd like to personally thank Sasy Scarborough for undertaking the organization of this huge effort. She's had skins and ad textures and note cards and questions and who knows what else thrown her way from so many people, and has done a fabulous job putting this together.

I hope to see y'all this weekend, 'cause I am so going to be there grabbing some of these fabulous works of art!

We're in a book!

Calla has been listed in the Second Life for Dummies book as the number 2 place to get hair! We are so honored to have been included.

Haedon received the following message:

[4:42] Typewriter Tackleberry: Just a note to let you know, Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins and I mentioned your shop in Second Life For Dummies. Thanks for bringing quality to Second Life.

I didn't know anything about it and didn't get a message from them. I'm so far behind in keeping up with the blogs that it'll be next year before I have any idea what's going on.

She goes to look, and then messages me (cause that's what we do) and I go look.

While we honestly, truly appreciate it, and are honored to have been included, there's a very huge printing error.

HAEDON WAS LEFT OUT!!!

That's like the yin without the yang, or the peanut butter without jelly, or the coffee without peppermint! It's the Lily without the Hae! You just can't!

We also got credit for Eolande's Accessories.

I've taken the liberty of making a few corrections.






Woot! That's better.

Really sincere thanks to Mr Tackleberry and Ms Robbins for all of the effort that went into this publication, it seems to be a great guide. (<3 Amazon search inside.) We're proud that Calla was chosen.

And much congratulations go out to everyone else who was included in this book! It's so exciting to see so many fabulous creators receive mention!

/me is a total geek and ordered her copy today.