There’s no place like home!

A while ago, I promised to show you more of what has become my favorite ever home in SL. This Lodge from Zacca has such a dreamy quality to it, and yet I can absolutely imagine a home like this existing in the real world. It makes me think of something you’d find in some old little village in the UK. I admit, this house was a challenge for me to decorate. I was fortunate that one of my friends told me about Dysfunctional Dolly Designs, which helped me keep some of the”old world meets new” vibe I wanted. This is the front of the house. My tulips are from Organica and I love how detailed they are.

This next pic features a couple of items from the current round of FaMESHed. The hair from Exile combined with the adorable shoes from LaRoo inspired a look that made me think of Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz. I love heels with socks, and I fell hard for these shoes. I had a really hard time debating a color, but ultimately went with one of the florals because it’s (nearly) summer and I wanted something summery! The odds are very high you’ll see these shoes again in a darker shade come autumn. My skirt is from DCNY and the top is from Coco, which was a “new to me” store. My look isn’t exactly identical to Dorothy’s, but rather just overall inspired by that.

Here’s a close up collage, of both the LaRoo shoes and the adorable Greymoon bag I’m holding. There are multiple colors and styles, and they are in a gacha, so you’ll have to try your luck to see which one you get! I’m wearing one of the Rares. It features art from Alice In Wonderland. Given all the recent hoopla over copyright and IP infringement, let me say first hand that the designer is a dear friend who researched thoroughly to make sure she was using art that is no longer under copyright. These bags are so cute, and they fit my mood. Maybe it may seem odd to mix Alice In Wonderland with something sort of Oz-ish, but I’ve been watching a lot of Once Upon A Time recently… so it felt perfectly fine to me!

Oh, and since my skin is one the new Pink Fuel Harley skins for The Arcade, I had to take a close up shot of it. I still need to go try to win the rare!

Now, back to the house… you’ve seen the outside. Let me show you inside. This is what you see when you open the front door… this gorgeous window with the build in daybed (complete with poses) that looks out on the courtyard.

My living room is decorated primarily with items from LISP. As always, you can click through on any of these pics and hover for notes on where each item comes from. If you want any specifics, just ask me!

This house has two rooms, one of which I made a kitchen. Here are a few pics of that. I have to comment on the dining set because I coveted this set for months… and I finally caved and got it because nothing I had was right for this kitchen (or so I convinced myself). It’s from LAQ Decor and you get a bunch of colors. The table has rezzers and a ton of options for what to have out (if anything). There’s even a funky timer setting called Auto Clear, so you can have it set to de-rezz on its own!

The other of the two rooms I made into the bedroom, with space for reading and writing because I can’t not have books and pads or typewriters, even in a virtual world!

The typewriter in this collage pic is from Floorplan, and it’s one of the items you can snag at The Arcade. This is the rare floral version.

If you’re looking for an unusual house, this is definitely one worth checking out. I am so in love with it that I’m having a bit of a tough time breaking it all down. I rarely stay attached to houses once I’ve decorated and photographed them, but this one is something pretty darn special.

~Lucie

Fashion Credits:
Skin: Pink Fuel – Harley 06 (The Arcade)
Lashes: Gaeline Creations – Fantasia
Eyes: IKON – Destiny – Nymph
Hair: Exile – Hold On Loosely – Dark Reds
Top: Coco – Cropped Sweater – Pearl Grey w/lace collar
Skirt: DCNY – A-Line Skirt – Basic Grey
Shoes: LaRoo – Ellie – Yellow Floral (FaMESHed)
Bag: Greymoon – Alice Manuscript – Striped – Rare (The Thrift Shop)
Pose: Embody – Stand Out 5

The one with the controversy

Recently, someone said to me “how can you blog (X designer)!?! (X designer) is such a JERK.” No, I will not name names. It’s not really my style. But in this particular case, I don’t personally know X Designer. Funny thing is, neither did the person telling me X Designer is a jerk. That person heard it from a friend. That friend’s friend dated X Designer (supposedly). Now, I’m sure the person who told me this believes it to be true. I’m sure the friend of that person believes it. Maybe even the original source believes it. But I don’t know any of those people, and I don’t know the designer. The designer is incredibly talented, and I love the work… and that, my dear readers, is why I blog X Designer.

I don’t personally know a lot of the designers I blog. Even many of the designers I officially blog for, I really don’t know. I have plenty of people I consider friends that are designers, and these are people I know, but that’s more the exception than the rule. I have like 65k in my inventory. I’ve probably never even spoken to the majority of the designers who have made these items, let alone gotten to know them well enough to judge for myself, firsthand, what kind of person they are.

And here’s the shocker, and the part that’s likely to be controversial. I am not blogging the creator, I am blogging the creations, and so I honestly don’t really care very much. So X Designer is an asshole. If X Designer is a talented asshole, I’m unlikely to stop shopping at X Designer’s store, and I’ll probably keep blogging their items. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that “asshole” is something we all personally define. What one person considers rude or unacceptable behavior, someone else may consider sarcastic wit. It’s really hard to know anyone in a virtual world. Hell, it’s hard enough to really know anyone in the real world! But there’s also the simple reality that what people say in writing can be very hard to parse. Tone, emotion, context… these things can all be translated very differently by different people when you’re dealing with written words. Someone may not mean to say something offensive, and they may not mean something to sound sarcastic, but because we don’t hear the words said, it is often hard to truly know how people mean the things they say.

We also all have our own “hot button” issues. I’m a bisexual, anti-dieting, Libertarian atheist. As I’ve repeatedly said, both in my virtual life and my real life, if I couldn’t “agree to disagree” I’d have like 3 people to talk to in the entire world. I welcome debate, as long as it is respectful. I admit I get frustrated by ignorance, but I also am not going to stop shopping at someone’s store because I think they hold ignorant opinions. So, are there lines that can be crossed, where I will not shop at someone’s store anymore? Of course. We all have that proverbial “line in the sand” that, once crossed, is really hard to ignore. There are some designers (and no, I will still not name names) who have managed to personally irk me in some way, usually by behaving in a way I consider intolerable on Plurk. In these cases, I’ve seen the behavior firsthand and I decide based on that evidence. We all have to know ourselves, and know what we consider behavior that crosses our own threshold of “acceptable.”

If someone tells me, “oh, I refuse to blog X Designer,” I respect that choice, even if I still blog that person. I’m also never going to make a choice with secondhand information. I don’t work with hearsay. Every story has at least two sides, if not more, and words are easily – and often accidentally – taken out of context. I’m the same way with my friends. I need to see bad behavior firsthand before I stop speaking to someone. It’s not that I don’t believe the people who tell me these “bad” things about the other people. I’m quite sure that in most instances, what I am being told is 100% believed. But I still can’t make a decision based on secondhand information, because maybe it’s all a horrible misunderstanding. Or maybe X Designer or person is really a horrible twat. But I’m always going to need firsthand evidence because, well… that’s just how I work. If you don’t work this way, that’s okay, too. We all have to make our own choices in life, and no one has the right to tell you that your choice to blog or not blog (or to shop or not shop at) a specific store is “wrong” or “bad.”

Ultimately, we live with the consequences of our own choices. Maybe someday, somehow, I’ll discover that X Designer really is a jerk. Likely, I’ll be annoyed I wasted money on a jerk, but whatever. We move on. It should be the worst thing to happen to me, and if X Designer’s a big enough jerk – in my opinion – then I’ll stop shopping there and blogging items from there.

Anyway, all this rather serious thought so early in the morning had me wanting to have some fun. So, I grabbed this adorable trampoline from Hopscotch for the current round of The Boutique, and put it in my pretty little courtyard garden and jumped away the stress!

More from me soon… I know I’ve been quiet lately. Just not feeling well and also trying to keep up with my current grad class.

~Lucie

PS. This house from Zacca is one of my favorite ever houses in SL, and I’ll have more pics of it soon! Click through to the pic on Flickr, and hover for notes to see where garden items are from. Or you can just ask me!

Credits:
Skin: League – Isla – Medium
Hair: Truth – Sadie – Reds04Fade
Top: coldLogic – jacobs – sage
Shorts: coldLogic – pitt – cotton
Feet: SLink – Bare feet – Mesh
Pose: Hopscotch – Jump, Jump multipose prop

Sand & Sea Expo

I wanted to tell you about a fun event happening this weekend called the Sand & Sea Expo. There are a lot of awesome items available related to fun in the summer sun, and there’s also a Beachcomber event that allows you the chance to win free prizes! You’re looking for purple shells. Hit them wen you find ’em and see if you’re a winner!

I think my favorite thing about this event is that the organizers are using teleport boards! When you tp into the event, just look for these boards. They are also scattered throughout the event, making it much easier to get around. I really wish more events would do this, though I think I understand the rationale behind a fixed landing point. However, it’s often frustrating when an event is laggy due to the inevitable crowds, and I think it would be beneficial for events, especially shorter ones like this, if they did a teleport board instead.

There are so many great exhibitors at this event, and it’s a lot of fun to wander around. There are two sims, including an underwater area. But my poor deprived avatar lives in the sky… on a landlocked platform, just like how in RL I live in a landlocked state. So, what’s a girl to do? Well, with some help from the Lisp Serenity Springs hot tub set, and a comfy beach blanket and umbrella from set from What Next, I created my own improvised beach well inland (and upland?)! To keep away unwanted visitors, I donned my ANA Sharkfin headband.

After basking in the sun lazily for a while, I had a need to cool off! While my “pool” can be a hot tub, I didn’t need to turn on the heat on this hot summer day, so I just hopped on in. But not alone. No, I took my adorable shoulder “pet” from KittyCatS… he wants to surf, but first his eye caught something off in the distance, so we’re looking at it. Probably a relative of mine. It’s hard training cats that birds aren’t prey, lemme tell you. My adorable bikini is from Callie Cline… I loved the cut of the bottom especially, and this teal color was perfect to get me in the faux beachy mood!

Speaking of Callie Cline & KittyCatS, be sure you stop by their space at the Sand & Sea Expo. It’s so freakin’ cute I could barely stand it. Here are a few raw shots I took while there. I only cropped these, so otherwise what you see is what you get.

With so many great vendors, you’ll wish this event was going to be around longer! But it ends on May 5th, so hurry up and head on over before it’s nothing more than a memory of days at the beach!

Beach Entrance

Underwater Entrance

~Lucie

Credits
Skin: Al Vulo – Arya – Black – Milk
Hair: Wasabi Pills – Gloria – Rouge (tinted)
Eyes: IKON – Lucid – Light Brown
Lashes: Gaeline Creations – Fantasia
Bikini: Callie Cline – Wrap Bikini – Water*
Feet: Gos Boutique – Arched
Shoulder Pet: KittyCatS – Surf Cat! – Pandie Ebony & Ivory*
Headband: ANA – Sharkfin Headband*
Beach blanket: What Next – Reserved Beach Towel & Parasol set*
Hot Tub: Lisp – Serenity Springs hot tub set*
Bike decor: What Next – Boardwalk Bicycle Rezzer – Girl Bike Decor*
Platform: Inverse – Sky Platform

*Denotes items available at the Sand & Sea Expo