Tag Archives: Mandala

I Stand 4 Love

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Stand4Love

 

John Donne wrote some of the most powerful words on community in the English language. He was recovering from a serious, near-fatal illness and wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Number XVII in his Book of Meditations. I have loved John Donne since I was a teenager and was introduced to his poetry, but his powerful prose trumps poetry in this essay. This is only a small portion of this wonderful essay, but most of you will recognize it.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

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Only Four More Days for Chic²

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Somnia Flowey Using Pixlr & PicMonkey

It’s a lazy day and there’s nothing better for lazing about than the pajamas that Somnia created for Chic². In three version and multiple colors, there’s surely going to be one that tickles your fancy. Being an Oregonian, I opted for the one with the raindrops. As a follow-up to the post on alternatives to PhotoShop®, I played with two of the alternatives I featured. This picture was done using the retro effects on Pixlr.com. It took less than a minute to do and was so intuitive, I didn’t even look for directions.

Somnia Flowey Using Pixlr & PicMonkey

Then I used PicMonkey’s collage maker to put together these snaps of the shoes and socks combo from Tea Time. They come in tons of colors and the socks come in vanilla cream and cocoa brown. Each pair of shoes comes with both colors.

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Summer Shape Up: A Poll

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Shape Tune-up: A or B?

The Solstice begins at 11:09 p.m. tomorrow so if there’s any spring-cleaning to be done, you have about a day to finish before it becomes summer-cleaning. Aside from spring-cleaning, the other big focus of spring for many people is shaping up for summer and the more revealing fashions it brings. I decided to try a summer shape-up of my own. Now that it’s done, I thought it might be fun AND SCARY to ask you what you think.

Shape Tune-up: A or B?

All the pictures are taken from the same camera position, the slight differences arising from Shape B’s slightly shorter stature. The dress I am wearing is from Geometry for Chic2. It’s a deceptively simple high-waisted sheath that is beautifully complicated by the art-deco details on the back.
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Things my father taught me

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Using alternatives to PhotoShop - I edited this with LunaPic to emphasize the pouring rain.

I have many great memories of my father. I remember him singing and playing banjo, dancing with my mom and telling stories with a twinkle in his eye. I remember his voice and his laughter. One of my strongest and most powerful memories, though, is from a day he made me miserable and angry.

My dad and a picture of the woods above the river

I grew up in the country on the far side of a lake, deep in the woods. It was a 3.5 mile walk to the school bus, though I often shaved some off that by taking deer paths through the woods. That day it was raining and dad offered to give me a ride to the school bus stop. We had gone about a mile when a squirrel ran in front of the car and we could hear a slight thud as it was struck by the car. Dad pulled over to make sure it was dead, but it had run off into the woods.

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Mirror, Mirror on the Floor: A Tutorial

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SL9B

What with Snow White, Snow White and Snow White, it’s about time we had some mirrors in Second Life. It seemed a logical next step after the reflections in the previous tutorial, though I was more in the market for a homey little mirror rather than some grand baroque masterpiece with a talking head. Though, that makes me wonder if there were a talking head on a prim just under the water…

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Reflections of You: Tutorial

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Way back in January, I saw a fantastic tutorial by Graphic Dix for Modavia Fashion Marketing on using Second Life’s water in an innovative way to capture reflections. We’ve all stood on the bank of a river or waded into the ocean and admired our reflections, but he took it to a new level.

SL9B

I wanted to do something similar and experimented a little bit and ended up going in a slightly different and, perhaps, easier direction, though achieving the same effect.  I began by finding a texture, in this case some mossy pavers from Zooboing Creations. I made a copy of the texture and using a big soft-edge eraser, I erased part of it, leaving it open alpha areas.

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mmmmm…luscious red lips

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jun12_007

Red lipstick! Red lips are the ones the songs are written about. One of the great musicals of all time can be brought to mind with just a single image of red lips. They’re powerful, bold and iconic. And they’re not for everyone, except today. Today is Red Lip Wednesday. Hopefully lots of us bloggers will flash our ruby red lipstick today.

Of course, nothing suits every person. We have our likes and dislikes. There are fashions I dislike and fads that leave me confounded and confused and asking why? Mostly though I shrug my shoulders and think to each his own. Certainly if we all looked the same and liked the same things, the world would be a much more boring place. So, let’s hear it for red lips! Here, there and everywhere.

jun12_011

I tossed this outfit together pretty quickly after shooting the wedding dress on Monday just before my set at The Velvet. There was no way I was dj’ing in a wedding dress! I remembered the gorgeous skirts from NYU for faMESHed. There were several colors and I loved them, so I pulled out another color. I dug around in my system clothing for something to wear with it and found this old top from Kunglers.

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Peeking Around the Corner

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Peeking

I took a peek around at some of the builds rising up around where we are working on It’s Only Fashion’s SL9B exhibit and am so impressed. A favorite among my neighbors is a beautiful woodland scene. I don’t know if it’s finished since it’s pure scenery now, but it’s so lovely. If even one-fourth of the exhibits are this beautiful, you would be well-advised to visit SL9B and explore. For my exploration I put together a top from E! and a skirt from Tee*fy. The top has delicious eyelet detailing that gives it a romantic femininity. The skater skirt from Tee*fy is a lovely romantic floral, though the skirt is also made in many other prints – including some very mod prints.

Peeking

Notice that the skirt is lined on the inside. If it were left alpha as many mesh skirts are, I could not have shot this picture – and I really wanted to capture the feeling of this place.

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Spam Gets Metaphysical

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jun10_005

We get spam. Luckily most just flies right past into a filter, but a few gems get by and then we get to manually trash it. Every once in a while, it’s tempting to let one through. Take this nugget of wisdom we received today:

Indeed, the sound of words can strike more keenly than any modern decoding of them. Without thinking of the meaning, chant the words “cellar door” to yourself.

I am sure the secret of the universe can be found in there somewhere.  So, I will chant “cellar door” while I stand here looking Tres Glam. And no, I am not being vain. My top is from a Tres Blah dress and the pants are from Glam Affair – which makes me Tres Glam, right?

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