My Secret Garden

It’s been a busy couple of weeks of updating my inventory and generally re-acclimatising myself so it’s taken a little more time than I planned to get another blog post out; I’m feeling much more ‘with it’ now so their frequency should increase – I certainly have a lot to share!

While I’ve been discovering lots of new (to me) places, I’ve also re-visited some old favourites. This beautiful hair, ‘Shine,‘ was recently released by Sabina Gully of Magika and, as soon as I saw it, it was a real shut-up-and-take-my-money moment. I’ve always loved her style but I think she’s possibly outdone herself for sheer adorability with this one! Sabina’s colour packs are ridiculously generous, too – L$250 for 30 colours? Total bargain.

It’s also really good to see Filthy back in business: I remember the doors being closed some time before I took my blogging break so I was excited to find them again on my return. The skin I’m wearing here is a Group Gift (the group is free to join and there are a generous amount of gifts out) and I pretty much haven’t taken it off since I tried it on. I just think the face is so pretty; the only make-up enhancements I made were adding lashes and a little lip gloss so the subtle glow of the cheeks and gorgeous eyeshadow you can see are all part of the skin in its out-of-the bag state. Beautiful work!

..

Amongst the stores I hadn’t shopped at before are MOLiCHiNO, Violent Seduction and Lil Things. I discovered, thanks to Seraphim, that MOLiCHiNO are back in SL following their own break so I visited to see if I liked owner Aurelia Chauveau’s style (I did!) and take part in the contest Seraphim mentions. The contest has ended now but the VIP Group is still free to join until the end of the month and there are some lovely gifts out already. While I was there I picked up this sweet ‘Pixie Dress‘ – I love its cut and texture but my absolute favourite thing about it has to be the folds and shading.. that kind of detail is just so yummy!

The epically cute ‘Heart Heels‘ I’m wearing (detailed pic here) are by Iki Akiri of Violent Seduction and they are addons for the Slink Medium feet. I had to adjust these somewhat to fit – resize and reposition – I’m only mentioning this because there is no demo and it would be easy to have a wah-they-don’t-fit! moment when you put them on out of the box.. but it pays to remember that these fab shoes are totally modifiable (which is always a massive plus to me) and it took me all of two minutes to get them looking perfect on my footsies.

In looking for a necklace to finish off this outfit I stumbled across LillyRose Delicioso’s lil store ‘Lil Things‘ on the Marketplace. I stalked her profile, as I always do, and noticed she had a small in-world store next to The Little Bat so I hopped on over and picked up her lovely ‘Doe‘ necklace there – and I’m very happy with its sweet design.

These meshes are all the original designs of the respective people I’ve mentioned – so, if you shop in their stores, you are picking up some truly unique (as well as beautiful) items. The amount of talent in Second Life never ceases to amaze me and I know a lot of work goes into the things we buy for such small amounts of money. I’ve recently been trying to learn how to use Blender and the resulting headache it’s given me has cranked up my admiration even higher: you lovely designers are simply incredible!

..

Finally, I want to say a few words about the garden items I’ve picked up in order to showcase this outfit – I’m aware this post has become pretty long so I’m going to have to be fairly general – all were really inexpensive (some even free) and all are modifiable. The sakura tree comes with many lovely touch-driven options and the delightful walled garden has a working door and built-in sounds (you’re probably gonna see this in a LOT more posts!) If you are looking for similar items it would certainly be worth a peep at the credits and following the links to the Marketplace ads which give great detail on just what is included.

…

Scroll down for detailed credits.

I’m trying to better document everything I put in or use to edit a blog picture to be more precise and transparent so they are longer than usual but I’ve split them into sections that hopefully makes it easier for you to find the items you’re interested in.

I’m not going to go as far as detail exactly what I’m enabling in PhotoTools because mostly I just keep faffing around until it looks about right to me.. I’m still learning how best to use them for my particular set-up and I actually had quite a lot of trouble taking this close-up shot after I updated to the lastest version of Firestorm. I was going to talk more about that here but this post is already way too long, so I’m going to do a follow-up post showing some of the difficulties I had and what I did to resolve them for anyone that’s interested – not so much a tutorial as a.. I dunno.. learn-along?

Until then, ❤

Credits

Clothing
Dress: ‘Pixie Dress (Sky)‘ – MOLiCiNO – L$229
Socks: ‘Cozy Socks (Blue Rose)‘ – Lark – L$25 – Gacha (with Slink Applier)
Shoes: ‘Heart Heel (Peach)‘ – Violent Seduction – L$300

Accessories
Necklace: ‘Doe (Bronze)‘ – Lil Things – L$50

Body
Hair: ‘Shine‘ – Magika – L$250 – Pack 2 (30 colours via HUD)
Skin: ‘Group.Gift#6.2013 (Ivory)‘ – Filthy – L$0 – Group Gift [Free to Join]
Lipshine: ‘Diamond Lips Lip Gloss – Dark Midday Designs – L$1 – Dollarbie (Marketplace)
Eyes: ‘Deep Sky Eyes (London Fog, w2)‘ – Mayfly – L$0 – Free Colour
Lashes: ‘Eyelash 1‘ – StrawberrySingh.com – L$50 – Pack of 5 (Marketplace)
Hands: ‘AvEnhance Hands (Gesture)‘ – Slink – L$450 (wearing included basic nails)
Feet: ‘AvEnhance Feet Female (Mid)‘ – Slink – L$675
Shape: ‘Keri‘ – Panda Punx – L$0 – Group Gift [Free to Join] (body slightly modified, more info here)

Decor
Deer: ‘Mythical White Stag and Doe‘ – Chaplin’s Landing Creations – L$50 (Marketplace)
Butterflies: ‘Butterflies (Pink B)‘ – alirium – L$0 – 4 colours/2 types, Group Gift [Free to Join]
Flowers: ‘Flowers (Pink & Cyan)‘ – Bubblez Design – L$0 – 4-colour pack, Group Gift [Free to Join]
Tree: ‘Cherry Blossom Sakura Tree v3.2‘ – The White Lotus – L$50 (Marketplace)
Garden: ‘All Ivy Garden Wall‘ – Emma’s – L$45 (Marketplace)

Photo Tools
Pose: ‘Devon05‘ – Admit One (@Seraphim HQ) – L$0 – Pack of 5, Seraphim Group Gift [Free to Join]
Eye Position: ‘Expression HUD v1.0‘ – AnyPose – L$0 – Freebie
Facelight: ‘Light Lab v1‘ – Color Lab – L$0 – Freebie (Marketplace)
Windlight Setting: ‘Juicy Loves You’ by JuicyBomb (available for download here)
Editing: GIMP & PicMonkey – contrast, spotlight and slight touching-up