Look out, she's got a gun!

Epic Battle 2, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

A big gun, at that!

I have a cousin who is really into Airsofting and was able to give me a little info on it.Don't know what it is? The name actually refers to the guns used, a variety of gun replicas that shoot little plastic pellets, known as Airsoft guns. They hurt like hell but don't do much damage! The act of Airsofting is usually a sort of military simulation that's used both for actual training and for recreation.

Now, you'd probably never show this much skin in a real army game, but I figured since it was SL, why not? One thing that surprised me though was how hard it is to find good, cheap camo. It was all either pretty poorly made with bad seams and weird patterns, or was made for real combat RP-ers and quite costly. I had a couple of friends who said the place to go is Tonktastic. The stuff was really well done, but it was a bit out of my price range. Still, if you're actually looking for this stuff, go there!

I ended up settling on these shorts from WorldWide Industries. They were L$175, which was do-able. I paired it with a simple gray tank from Dutch Touch and some of J's Engineer Boots, which I've had forever. They're my go-to boots for everything, and are still available for L$400 at J's. I did splurge though and get a new hair from Truth! It just went too well to pass up!

Epic Battle 1, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Shorts: L$175 from World Wide Industries
Tank: L$75 from Dutch Touch
Boots: Engineer Boots from J's
Hair: Tahlia in Latte, L$250 from Truth
Skin: Elle BL Pale, Group Gift from Belleza

I know the colors on the pictures are a little hard to see, but I wanted to make it look kind of swampy and dark. Like I'm slinking through the jungles of 'Nam!!

Since I'm behind a week I'll be doing double duty this week... I'll need to find outfits for AP Lit class, and going to a concert.

It's here!! *squeals*

I know I've been out for a bit, but I've got some big news this week!

I've been in the market for a new computer for about 3 months, and I had the final push to get a move on it when the poor old Compaq I got 5 years ago finally died for the last time. When it was going to cost more to repair than the computer is worth, I knew it was time.

So I ordered the computer I've had my eye on.. an HP Elite 170t with a very nice graphics card. And the nice Fed-ex man stopped by on Friday, so now I'm back in action. :)

Happy Easter!

Easterdress, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter yesterday! :)

My family has never been the church-going sort and I don't consider myself religious, so Easter has always just been about family (and chocolate) for me. Still, I always loved dressing up for Easter even when we weren't going anywhere! It was an excuse to wear the brightest, prettiest, spring-iest dress I had. This dress is completely something I would have worn to Easter dinner at my aunt's as a child. :)

Easterdress2, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Dress: Knit Dress (Peach) from MNK*Shop [L$190]
Shoes: Tuli Pumps (blush) from Shiny Things [L$300]
Skin: Pearl-07 (Milky) from LAQ
Hair: Akira (Sand) from Truth

Total: L$490

Remaining: L$592

Next week, just to break up my fatal attraction to flouncy skirts and pretty dresses, I'll be putting together an outfit for going Airsofting.

Dark and Sexy :)

I finally got my outfit for a goth club put together. You can probably tell I don't dress like this much, since the best skin I have for it is a sweet-faced Curio! Oh well, no point in buying a skin I'll rarely wear, especially since I have expensive tastes in them! I thought about getting one from the Deviant Kitties sale but I didn't like how they looked on me, so dollfaced gothgirl it is. :)

Besides the skin, the rest of the outfit came together fairly easy. I managed to catch the very end of the Nomine sale and found this sexy Corvus dress for only L$100! It was pretty plain though, so I paired it with the corset from the Cocktails and Cigarettes dress from Sn@tch, which is very nice and very sexy itself! I almost just wore it but I like this combination. :)

I had trouble finding shoes to go with it. I love boots, but they tend to be more than I'm willing to spend! It was really hard not running out and grabbing some of the gorgeous boots that just came out in the past week or so, too. I was just going to wear some black heels, but then Fri.day put out their Journey boots in Eggplant for Fifty Linden Fridays and they went perfectly. Top it off with the Subscribo gift from Lamb, the Glow Deux hair in Ink, and voila!!

Something a little different, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Booties!, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Dress: Corvus Dress by Nomine, L$100 (during sale only)

Corset: Cocktails and Cigarettes by Sn@tch, L$275

Boots: Journey boots in Eggplant by Fri.day, L$50 (50L Fridays item)

Total: L$425

Remaining: L$782

This week I need to find a cute Easter outfit!

Uprooted

Between getting quite frustrated trying to decorate slanted walls and having a very obnoxious neighbor, I've decided to move on from my Linden Home. Just to another one for now... but I'm already looking at leasing a chunk of land for my own house once my little budgeting experiment is over.

For now though, I've just moved from Tahoe to Meadowbrook, into a classy little house on the Bela sim. I've already started moving in, but....

Meadowbrook, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

My furniture doesn't really match the interior. Or each other, for that matter.

Ah well. Eventually I'll either get some matching furniture or LL will put out shabby chic Linden homes.

Going Green (a few days late)

Sorry for my quietness! I've been lazy this week. All the better since I forgot to give myself a shopping challenge. So I'll just share all the nifty green stuff I picked up Wednesday at Phoenix Rising and Cupcakes. Green is my favorite color so I splurged a little at their respective St. Patty's day sales!!

Green_006, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Green_010, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Green_019, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Green_024, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Dresses and coat: from Pheonix Rising, $L100 each (St. Patrick's Day only)

Lingerie: from Cupcakes, L$35 (St. Patrick's Day only

Shoes: Previous gift from Baby Monkey

Total: L$ 335

Remaining: L$907 (after the sundress in the last post)

I've noticed though... my wardrobe could use a bit more edge. It's mostly fairly safe, classy pieces (and an exorbitant amount of lingerie.) So for this week's challenge, I need to put together an outfit for going to a goth club!

Feelin' Beachy

My budget has been thwarted again!!

I'm no fashion blogger, but I had to share this gorgeous Cabana dress I found at Surf Co. It's so bright and fun and makes me wish for summer!!

Garden_3, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

I love the skirt, it's prim perfect and so swishy looking!!

Unfortunately up here in the Pacific Northwest it's still threatening to snow. So I decided if I can't get some sunlight, at least Andria can! So we headed off to a pretty beach to snap some summery photos.

Garden_2, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

While I was there, I made a friend. :)

Go find the lovely Cabana Dress at Surf Co!!

Gardening!!

I finally got my gardening outfit together!! I had a little trouble with this, mostly because I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to go with it. When I garden I usually wear an old tee shirt and grubby jeans. It isn't a very cute look, really. I was torn between trying to make something cute and flowery, and something I would actually wear to garden. Then I found this adorable Karen Blouse at Lark and realized I could do both.

Garden, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

This is such a cute, spring-y look! I love this shirt because it's so cute but looks like it can take some wear and tear. And it'll hide dirt well. :)I paired with with the Genesis 10 capri's from Decoy (my favorite stop for jeans!) and Aphrodite Creations' Cheeries in RSH Flowers. (These were an old hunt gift I already had.)

IMHO, this is the perfect look for working (or not) in the garden. :)

Garden_1, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

I never did find a good pair of gardening gloves. At least there's no thistles in SL gardens!!

In these pictures:
Karen Blouse by Lark
Genesis 10 Capris by Decoy
Cheeries by Aphrodite Creations
Hair: Green II by Maitreya
Total: L$250
Remaining: L$1132

Immature

I am very much that.

This is probably old news to most everyone but it made me giggle when I saw it at *BOOM*.

silly_001, originally uploaded by Andria Meredith.

Now we know... all those girls walking around with their pants halfway down their arse aren't tramps, they're artists!!

It was a freebie so yes, I nabbed it. Wouldn't you?

Craving Beauty in Every World

What have I been up to lately? Learning, shopping and lagging.

My trial on AC3D is about to run out. Before it does, I made a vase. :) But I haven't figured out how to turn it into the texture that makes sculpties in SL, so I'll either have to figure out how to do that before it does expire or how to load it into another program.

However, once the trial expires I'm probably done with AC3D. I didn't see anything in it worth throwing $75 down for. After my post on Monday, I did go download Wings3D and I've been watching some tutorials on it since.

I've also been shopping on for my gardening outfit. You know what's hard to find in SL? Gardening gloves. If anyone knows where to find a good pair, let me know!!

I went to the ASA Fashion Show last night, and had every intention of taking pictures and blogging about it... but as always my SL was having a fit and before I could get any of the models to rez enough to make any pictures worthwhile, I crashed. I really, really need an upgrade. :P Still, it was fun watching the prancing gray blobs go by. The crowd was in good spirits and what I could see was stunning.

And, I've been spending far too much time on Sephora! Yes, I shop in the physical world too! Probably more than I should, haha. And I admit, I love make up!! I'm that girl who wants to do everyone's face when we have a girl's night. So, I've fallen in love with Tarina Tarantino and the Sparklicity Pure powder, so I ordered a couple other things to try. So much for all the money I'd have been saving by budgeting myself in SL!! I guess I'm bound to spend money either way, since I use SL to keep myself from going overboard on my own shopping.

I'm going to go watch more tutorials and tell myself I don't need to go to MAC now.

This week's challenge

I've been playing around with my 3D modelling programs and reading up on them the past few days. That's why I haven't been blogging much. I'm working on a post about all of that soon. :)

In the meantime, I wanted to put down my next shopping goal. Spring is on it's way, and to me spring means gardening. So my goal is to create good gardening outfit!

Unfortunately I don't have a yard, so I'll also be working on an indoor garden. :)

Okay, time to shop!

Skirts!

SL and my computer finally decided to get along for a few minutes. :)

I started out this week with the goal of finding something every girl's closet should have at least one of: a swishy, soft skirt. So I sat down on Monday and went through my favorite stores, and pulled out ones worth checking out. And when I think cute and girly, I think DP*Yumyum, so I went to check it out.

I was surprised when I got there, because the store seemed so small! I even checked the creator's profile picks to make sure I was at the main location. I was. And their skirt selection was not only smaller than expected, but... kind of plain.

















There were a couple other skirts there but not what I was looking for. Next stop was a perennial favorite of mine, Cupcakes! I did find a couple cuties there that I was considering for a bit.

















But in the end I thought I could do better. So I headed off to Zaara's. I knew they'd be a little more pricey than I was looking for, but I've seen few places with better soft, swirly skirts. As always I had a hard time leaving empty handed and found another contender.

















I found a few more places with skirts that I liked, but they weren't quite what I wanted. So I went on Xstreet and found a little store called Hanamachi.

















I ALMOST left with one of their skirts. But then something happened.

A very beloved friend whom I've been meaning to get ahold of and haven't yet (shame on me!)commented on here. Which led me back to her blog, which introduced me to a store I wasn't familiar with. As always, Alicia Chenaux is a gamechanger. On her blog I saw a pretty tartan skirt from Bublee Bing and popped over on a whim, and I found love.


















Not only is it prim perfect and gorgeously flowly with lovely textures... it's my FAVORITE COLOR. <3

At L$275 It was a little more than I planned on spending but I got it anyway. It also comes with the other two skirts pictured there, so if I count all three they were L$92 per skirt. Haha. ;P
























Soooopretty. I had to fly out to somewhere with lots of flowers and trees and sky just to do it justice.

So adding in the stipend I forgot to consider and subtracting the other purchases I wasn't supposed to be making, I'm currently at L$1082. I haven't decided what my next quest is but after dancing around in all those flowers I think it might have something to do with gardening. :)

Also worn in the picture:
ruffled camisole from Cupcakes
dirty denim jacket from Magi Take (an ancient group gift)
Shanti in champagne from Maitreya Gold
Skin: Allure smoked in lace from Cupcakes
Hair: Akira from Truth
Poses: Long Awkward Pose (in both)

Yes, I'm a bad blogger.

Yes, I did promise a post and pictures about my skirt shopping experience this afternoon. And yes, it is well beyond afternoon and no, I don't have a post and pictures for you. I have a reason for it though!!

See, my computer is old and basic and doesn't really have the power and the graphics it needs to run SL very well, but I do it anyway. And so, SL and my computer tend to bicker a lot, and sometimes stop talking to each other, which is what they did tonight. After a lot of fuss I finally go SL to come back and talk it over, but they were both still grumpy and wouldn't rez any textures right. I couldn't take pictures of my lovely skirt because someone else's lips were on it half the night.

So, intead I took my laggy, mismatched behind to look for some poses. I figured I could sacrifice a few lindens for a couple poses to make my pictures look nice, and so I wouldn't have to do this entire project hijacking someone's photosphere. I made a pretty good haul, I think.

I went to Long Awkward Pose first, because my always-eager-to-help group told me they were the bomb-diggity for photo poses. I snagged a bag of pretty nice freebie poses and bought about 3 more awesome ones when out of the blue I get the message Penny Dreadful Arcade is closing and almost all of their poses are L$10. (Or you can buy the whole lot of them for L$1000.) I went and picked up a few more. I think overall I spent about L$125, which I consider money well spent. Now my pictures will be pretty!!

On the topic of pictures, that one in my last post has to be the most unposed, unprocessed, unplanned blog picture ever. That was taken on a bench outside my Linden Home, which I don't think even has any poses in it, and went straight onto the blog because I was about to make myself late for work. ;P

And I promise as soon as my ass loads I'll have pictures of my skirt!

I do love my hair....

I had my first impulse buy already. I kinda suck at this "not spending Lindens left and right" thing!

BUT, look at this new hair from Truth, and try to tell me it wasn't worth it!

















I DID find my skirt though and I'll tell you about it this afternoon!

SL is for learning!!

So aside from my current shopping quest (which I will get to!) I've also been considering what I would like to learn about SL. Particularly, about building in SL. I've never done any building. I've thrown a few prims around and played with them, but I have never MADE anything more than funny shapes. One thing I really wanted to do once upon a time was make sculpties. More specifically, I thought it would be fun to make sculpted furniture and jewelry. So, the other day I went on the SL wiki, looked up "sculpty prims" and found a list of programs to learn about. So far I've tried out two with mixed results.

Now. I have never used any 3D-modelling anything before. At all. I didn't even take anything in school that used one, so Blender and it's bretheren are complete strangers to me. And I knew that, and told myself over and over not to expect myself to catch on immediately. However, I've learned in my years of trying to teach myself things that there's only so much you can prepare for not knowing what the hell you're doing.

I'd heard good and bad things about Blender, but mostly that it isn't very beginner friendly, except in that there's a boatload of information on it to be found. I ignored that though (for now) and went to see what else what out there that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. Especially since I probably wouldn't be able to make even those for a while. What I ended up with was Caligari TrueSpace 7.6. The good news is, it has a set of video tutorials, beginning with the very basics and moving up. The bad news is that isn't enough to save me from myself.

Now, the tutorials use version 7.51, and either there's some little differences between that and the version I have, or I've managed to mess up my settings already. There one little, tiny step in the video that does not happen the same in my program, and it's enough to throw me off. I'm sure most users would be able to fix it fairly easy, but remember these programs and I are complete strangers. How do you do sir, we've never met. So I don't have the slightest idea how to fix this little difference in the "setting up the workspace" process, so I've yet to actually make anything.

During a bout of frustration with that program, I decided to give something different a try. I found one called AC3D and it is quite a bit simpler. There's a menu with some shapes on it. You grab a sphere, you drag it into your window and drop it into your screen, and voila, you have a sphere, which you can then morph and reshape to your hearts content. Or you can select the pen thingie and draw in a profile, then flesh it out. So far I've made more funny shapes and a squashed, lumpy thing that may or may not have been my attempt to make a shoe. However, I only have the trial for two weeks and then I have to fork over $75 to keep it, so my time with AC3D may be limited.

A friend in world said I should try Wings 3D, a beginner-friendly program that is (yay!) free. So once my AC3D fling is finished I'll give it a whirl. :)

I'll go into a little more detail with the programs and post some pictures once I play with them a bit more. :) If anyone has any tips feel free to send them my way! And also if anyone knows of good Photoshop tutorials, I'd love to know about them!! That's the next thing I want to try.

SL is for shopping!!

So I thought about my little self-imposed budget... and decided it was too easy. Between the generous gifts and the current trend for "day sales" (like the Fifty Linden Fridays and it's spinoffs) you can look pretty glam for next to nothing. Which is a great thing in my book!! But... it's still not much of a challenge, and not much worth writing about! So I decided, while I'm doing this little budget, I'll also be on the hunt for some closet staples and signature pieces for my wardrobe. Each week I'll give myself something to find (or readers can send me after things!) and try to stay within a budget in the process. The point isn't to hunt down freebies and sales, although those aren't out of the question either. Just to get some nice items I really like without breaking the bank. :)

This week... well, next week, starting Sunday... my goal is to find a flouncy spring skirt. With my current funds I can give myself L$150 a week. Let's see what we find!

Birdbrained

Lesson number four: Today I learned there's a nest of crows in my rafters.

I'm not sure if this is a common thing in all the Linden Home regions. I'm in the Tahoe theme, which is supposed to be kind of wilderness-y. I get that. But I think the Lindens could tone it down a notch with the "nature sounds."

One moment it will be quiet... and then a cacophony of at least 8 birds start squawking loudly all at once. I didn't notice it too much before, but as I was sitting at home idly throwing some prims around and the constant din was slowly growing on my nerves.

I know, I know, I could just turn my sound down or off. But I like some nature sounds and just think it could be a very pleasant thing if the birds sounded more... well, pleasant. Like a treeful of finches, as opposed to a gang of magpies torturing a starling.

Anyway, that's just what I think. :)

Lessons and more lessons

Lesson number three... if you don't have a trade, Second Life can hurt your bank account.

I fully admit to being an avid shopper, in-world and out. I love fashion and makeup and everything that goes into it, and SL is a lifesaver when I get that shopping urge and don't have the cash to blow in real life. However, SL shopping habits can get quite costly if not kept in check.

When I returned to Second Life I had a small amount of money left over from my last foray in-world. That didn't last long though, as my avatar was stuck in 2008 and needed a facelift pretty badly. Then I decided to take the plunge and go premium so that I could consider landowning eventually, and have a Linden Home to camp out at in the meantime. Following that I bought a few lindens for some furniture Then a few more.

Besides the premium fees my grand total is somewhere in the realm of $12 USD. Definitely not the worse I've done on a spending spree, and I know some people spend a lot more than that, but considering I've been back all of 2 weeks... this could become a big problem fast. It's all too easy to throw in $5 dollars here and $10 dollars there.

So I've decided I either need to curb my spending, or find a way to fund myself in-world. I don't see the first lasting long.... so I've decided to do both. I currently have 1,427 linden dollars. My goal is to make that last until the end of April. This budget will include the stipend from being premium, as I consider that already paid for, and anything I earn in-world. And meanwhile, I'm going to experiment, look around, and find something to do to fund my girlie from within SL. Besides stripping.

This won't be the focus of the blog... (although maybe it should be, since I don't seem to have a focus...) and I won't be spending the whole time telling you about all the wonderful freebies and deals that will make this budget much easier. There's plenty of blogs to do that. This is just a personal project and as such I'll throw out an update now and then. :)

A little piece of land

I have a bad tendency to rush into things. Maybe that's why my interest in things can seem pretty flighty. I've only been back in Second Life a week, but I've already been itching for a place of my own. I don't know why it's important to me, but

So I came back at the right time as the Lindens have just released their Linden Homes. I figured it would be enough for now so I signed up. Being a Washingtonian I immediately loved the Tahoe setting. The houses are cute little one-room builds with lots of big windows, which I also love. And best of all, I'm in the Larch sim, which any good Monty Python fan can appreciate.



I've noticed only a dozen day-sales going on in SL, The Fifty-Linden Fridays as the original and most known. Being a fan of <3Cupcakes though, I've been keeping up with their Monday sales as well, and picked up a lovely skybox from A.D.D. Andel. Now if I only had somewhere to put it! :)

So much to learn...

I've learned another lesson in Second Life today... I am no longer smarter than my eye lashes.

I used to be really good with prim lashes!! But after a long conversation about them, the Fashion Emergency group (I missed those guys!) told me I HAD to try Lelutka's Diva lashes. They sound like a great idea... individual lash prims that you can customize to any eye, and more importantly to me... they don't float on top of your hair at the wrong angle! So I hopped over and picked up the lashes, and was all set to go.

Two hours later I looked like I had caterpillars on my eyes and had probably lost a few of the prims inside my skull. I tossed those and started with a new copy, and eventually managed to make them form the shape of an eye. Kind of. I still think they look like they're going in every direction and I haven't managed to get them spaced quite well enough. But I'll keep working on them and see if I can't get them right.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been easier to just get the girl a barette and pull her hair out of her face.

Where is everyone going???

I was going to write this yesterday but got distracted with the new Linden Homes.



I've been learning and re-learning a lot of things in Second Life since my return.



The first thing I've learned-- people move a lot!!



I went to do some shopping Tuesday and realized over half of my landmarks no longer lead to what they're supposed to, if they led to anything. So my shopping excursion turned into an LM-updating excursion as I went around trying to relocate my favorite stores.

I've gotta wonder what makes SL-ers so transient... although I can understand it too. There's a lot of good reasons to move up and out... needing more room, trouble with landowners and surrounding businesses... the list could go on and on, I'm sure.

And of course, some of them have just grown out of their britches. It's cool in a way to see those little shops I loved two years ago now have their own sims in some cases. I just wanna go pinch their cheeks and say "Awww, look how big you've gotten!" Yeah, I'm going to be a horrible aunt someday.

How does it happen???

One day back in SL....

And my inventory is already a thing to be feared.

Haha, I guess that's what I get for coming back on Valentines Day!

Oh god, not her again...

So did you hear who's back in Second Life™?

... ... ...

What do you mean no? =\

Hahaha. So, almost two years ago I left SL and haven't been back since. There's no big story behind it... I wasn't in a coma, nor was I taking care of a sickly relative, nor hiking in the Appalachian mountains... I could make excuses about college taking up my time (as it eventually would have) but, to put it simply and honestly, I was just twenty and flighty and I moved on. While I'm being honest... I never really felt my place in SL. I wasn't a builder or a designer, I didn't have any grand fantasy to fulfill, and I wasn't especially interested in the pixelsex. To me SL was a brief but amusing social observation.

I did however, meet some amazing friends back then who I was sorry to leave. So if any of you guys happen to read this (and remember who I am!) I do miss you guys!!

Recently, I've gotten the bug again... not sure when it bit me but I found my self thinking about getting back into SL. Then yesterday I went ahead and downloaded it again. So here I am, giving it another shot. Who knows, maybe this one will be productive!

I haven't decided if I'm tracking down those old friends or not... they may not be as I remember them... which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps I should let them get on with their lives and start anew on my own. I really would like to see them though... saying hi wouldn't hurt. I dunno.

I'm off to go throw around some lindens and get this poor girl caught up with the times. Happy Valentines Day!!