Is it too Late to Back Out? May 6, 2007

I made a scary decision today…I put my land and my tree house bar up for sale.  Yikes!  There were a few factors that led me to this.  One of them being that I just didn’t feel very creative in my tree house, even though I love it.  When I had my first simple bar on my bit of first land, I had constant ideas about how I wanted to improve it.  Ideas on expansion and dreams for the future.  I sold up because I didn’t like my neighbours’ ugly builds and moved to beautiful Arah to build my tree…and the ideas just dried up.  I loved the process of building something new  and the challenge of creating realistic branches, but once it was done, I didn’t know what else to do with it.  I hardly even spent any time there.  Weird?…well, maybe.  But I found a bargain piece of ocean facing property this morning and bought it on impulse.  Now unless I wanted to pay higher tier fees (which I don’t); and unless I wanted to manage two pieces of land at once (which I don’t), the only option was to get off my backside, see if I could kick my creativity mojo back into life and sell the land in Arah.  This could very well be a brilliant decision for me.  After all, creating an elven home beside the water is bound to be a lot of fun.  The tree may reappear one day (if I ever make enough lindens to afford more land!), but for now I’m going to pass it to another (hopefully) loving owner.  I’m selling the land with the tree house, bar, telepad, working swing, pose balls and furniture (including the nifty giant pose couch I’m currently flogging for L$30 a pop) all included.  Deal of the century!  Or at least I think so…  If you’re interested in living the life of a tree elf, check out the slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Arah/73/129/96.

Here I am surveying my new land.  As you can see, I’m surrounded by the usual crap that gets left lying around when a lot of land in an area is up for sale…let’s hope it all settles down soon!  I’m wearing a pair of boots from Nico Creations (slurl: Nico Island), which are my new favourite things.  And they only cost L$100, bargain!!

“Ears” to the Memories April 1, 2007

I know I probably look like I’m obsessed with ears now…but I made another pair of elf ears.  Actually I made four pairs.  I decided that my flexi elf ears were looking a little plain…they needed a little bling….a little colour…they needed earrings!  So off I went on my merry way, attaching little prim hoops to my existing ears…but I hit a snag.  Inflexible prims (such as hoops) don’t seem to like staying attached to flexible prims (such as ears).  You can link them together easily of course, but as soon as you walk anywhere and your ears start moving about, your earrings resolutely refuse to move about with them.  They stay put and end up floating somewhere near your cheek, far away from the ears they are supposed to be neatly plugged into.  I’m sure there’s a way of overcoming this problem, but I couldn’t discover it.  Doh!, back to the drawing board.  So instead, I made a pair of inflexible ears; and curved them to get the same kind of slant that my other ears had.  Hey presto!, ears and earrings now link up nicely!  And because I couldn’t decide what colour earrings I wanted, (and because I own a stupid amount of hair, all in different colours, that I knew would look cute as hell if I could colour match it to my new jewellery) I ended up making the ears with gold, silver, amethyst and rose quartz earrings.  I’m pretty much loving the rose quartz earrings with some shocking pink hair at the moment…

All four pairs are now up for sale on SLBoutique (Cazzy Creations) and SLExchange.

And if you’re like me and love to colour-coordinate your wardrobe, you can also buy all of them in a bargainous megapak (“yay!” I hear you say…maybe). Now I suppose I’d better do some exploring…But before I go, I just wanted to mention a website I found today.  It’s called SL Profiles and it looks like a Second Life version of MySpace, right down to the ability to add friends and leave comments on their pages.  It looks like a really nice idea, and might prove to be a place to make new Second Life friends.  Anyway, I signed up and created a profile which you can view HERE. So if you’re a member, feel free to swing by!

I Love My Ears! March 18, 2007

I have often wondered why, in a world teeming with elves and fantasy creatures, it is so hard to find a pair of pointy elf ears in SL.  Yes, you can make your ears look long and pointy simply by dragging the slider in Appearance around, but your normal ears will soon get lost under most types of prim hair.  I finally found some ears I quite liked nestled away in a shop in ElvenGlen’s market, but they were a little too straight…a little too upright…There was nothing for it, I had to try and make my own ears!!  So today I finally got around to giving it a go, and I am really happy with the results.  I made my ears flexi ears to make them more realistic; and they’re a little longer and more tilted than my previous ones.  I’ve put them up for sale on SL Boutique (http://www.SLBoutique.com/Cazzy_Ewry/) and the Exchange if anyone wants a pair of their very own.  I’m so pleased with them I think I’ll have to go now and find somewhere to show them off!

“Ears” lookin’ at you, kid (sorry, that line was truly terrible!)

My Enormous Couch February 19, 2007

So I’ve created a big couch for my new bar (because everyone wants somewhere comfortable to sit while they’re drinking!).  I scoured SL Exchange first, to see if I could buy one.  Nothing there really took my fancy…but I did get a good idea after seeing a large square sofa.  I wanted my couch to be similarly big and squishy looking….and I would build it myself.  I was so pleased with the results that I made it in three different colours, with a view to selling them myself.  I’ve been trying to make it in the fickle world of SL retail for a while now.  Interestingly, I’ve never sold anything on the Exchange.  I have two prefab bars I’ve built on there, one is in a celtic style and one is a vampire/gothic type affair, and now of course I have the three jumbo couches up for sale.  Today I thought I’d try out SL Boutique.  I loved that you can set up your own page for your store…you can also change the colour scheme and upload a banner…very cool!  But what I loved even more was that less than an hour after uploading my items, I had sold one celtic tavern and one couch.  Woo hoo!  My first sales ever!  Makes me wonder if I should continue paying L$75 a week to rent retail space at the Beach Comber Mall in Hundertwasser…from which I’ve never sold anything either.  SL Boutique rocks!  Oh, and if you’re bored (or curious), here’s my store page: http://www.SLBoutique.com/Cazzy_Ewry/

This is one of my newest friends, Elena, who kindly agreed to model my couch for me (hehe!)  You definitely meet some very nice people in sand boxes.  Granted, sometimes you also meet griefers who are only interested in covering you with annoying green mist, making it impossible to continue building there because you can’t actually SEE what you’re doing…but thankfully that doesn’t happen every time.

I had fun positioning my freebie pose balls on the couch (I’m being sarcastic by the way).  I’d never used pose balls in my builds before and getting them into places where the sitting positions looked natural…hmm, that was hard!  I finally had to sit on each pose ball and then move it into position with me on it…which must have looked very strange to everyone else in the sand box.  LOL!

The Tale of the Tree February 16, 2007

I may have wandered from the strict path my ancestors long ago set out for me, but I still feel most at home among the trees.  So began my quest to build a tree house fit for an elf.  A place with a secret space where I could dream…and a public area in which to place my tavern, The Armless Man.  Strangely, I found the hardest thing was deciding how to make the leaves and branches.  I finally ended up with a pretty fat looking trunk, housing two alcoves with balconies.  I haven’t decided what to do with the lower alcove yet (although I’m contemplating a shop, prim limits allowing!).  The top alcove contains my tavern…complete with bar and mini dance floor!

Sunset at The Armless Man

This is the reason why I moved to Arah…wonderful views and stunning sunsets (what more could an elf want?).

Here’s a picture of my tree…I’m so loving it!…

…And the inside of my tavern.  Cosy, don’t you think?