Wear Gray for a Day

Relay for Life and Hair Fair are probably the best known in world events for fundraising, but there are a lot of events for a variety of good causes and the netizen's of SL can be pretty generous when it comes to pretty much anything. Cancer is a disease that affects everyone; you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know at least one person who has had to deal with cancer of one kind or another, and most of the time it's someone they know well as opposed to some removed form them by being the sister/brother/cousin of a coworker.

You may have passed a few signs while shopping or sightseeing referring to Wear Gray Day. Wear Gray Day is charity event and market running from September 12 - 25th to help raise awareness of Brain Tumors and provide funding for research through the ABTA - American Brain Tumor Association.

A lot of inworld designers are supporting this effort in a variety of ways; donation kiosks, special gifts, special events, and yes the market. Merchants from A-Bomb to Rfyre are participating in this and have been asked to create between two and four items exclusively for this market. his isn't a sale, per se, but a fund raiser, meaning once the Market closes, most of what's on offer won't be available.

My very good friend Rosie Barthelmess of Sable Rose has joined this effort and created a really unique set of jewlery for men and women in three styles as part of this effort. She's create Enkomi; in three color choices, two of which will be exclusive for the Wear Gray Day project. Male and Female Versions:

The Ladies get a gorgeous necklace, matching earrings and a multiband bracelet in either gold, silver or a mixed metals set called Painted desert.

For the guys there's a braided choker, and two sets of wrist cuffs for left and right, one set with a stone and one without so you can mix and match.

Sets are Modifiable for easy adjustment, although I was able to wear mine pretty much out of the box.

The Shopatorium at Gallinas will be having live music events next weekend for this project and there are other events planned as well. Schedule is here: http://shop.inworld.sl/the-patio-live-music/

So, as you go through your week and wonder what you are going to do next weekend, keep Wear Gray Day in mind and visit the website to get a list of other participating vendors and more details about where and when.

Before the summer flees

The first two you need to grab quickly. The Biker set (right) is from Mary's Threads and is only available this weekend for $60L; leather chaps & jeans combo pants, biker jacket, mesh undershirt. Nice fit and detail. The soft leather texture on the wide belt is especially well done. (Boots from Annexx - not free)

Also soon to be gone is this group gift from 22769 (left), giving a nod to both summer and the coming autumn. Striped linen lightweight slacks in sand and this soft looking comfortable red autumn long sleeve shirt. This is the August group gift so be sure to get it before September arrives. (Loafers are from HOC and not free)

The hand chain I'm wearing isn't available yet but it will be soon. This is the men's gift from Sable Rose for the Twisted Hunt. So, mark your calendar because it starts on the first. This rounds theme is "Spooky" and if you take a hard look at the emerald in the Sable Rose gift, you might just find something looking back at you. Ladies set is an elegant necklace with matching bracelet.

This dollarbie from Candy Metal (right) makes me pretty happy. I keep hoping CM will put out more men's things, but I'll take what I can get. Open neck leather shirt, studded belt and leather pants... in black. And you know, everything goes with black.

Browsing through the xstreetsl marketplace beta, I found some interesting looking sets from Guarded Cross (left). I like their outfits and they are worth you looking too, but for free they have several t-shirts both in world and on the marketplace. Upscale Grunge and culture commentary is the overall theme.

Random: theosophy, khush, connor, jetcity, mischief boy

JetCity is back, paired up with Mischief Boy, for new looks at the best bargains.

Free from JetCity: Border Shirt in grey (also available in brown and blue. The deal with JetCity is, new releases are free -- when the next new release is put up, the older releases will cost you $2L...I think you guys can deal.

From Mischief Boy at the same location, 4 styels of hair for free: this is Trowa in black -- resize menu included.

If you haven't visited JetCity before, you should go, casual and a little odd, always fon and more than reasonably priced.

And from the MHO3 Hunt:

Connors (#34) is giving out this really nicely textured and shaded hoodie. Cuffs and hood and just enough color to make you stand out in a crowd.

I paired it with #84 Khush's MHOH3's offering of lightly ripped blue jeans. They do come with prim cuffs, nice torn fabric effect and pocket and waistband detail.

$50L Fridays can be on the slim side for guys, but today you want to hit {theosophy} for these very nice ankle boots. Called Aith - Coast, ankle height, smooth leather and articulated buckle. Upper is invisiprim, so you can't wear them with prim cuffs, but the fit is tight so a hem flare will handle it if you want to wear only the foot part. But go today because it's all over at midnight.


And last, but never least, Rosie Barthelmess at Sable Rose has put out this The Green Man choker (pendant style for women) for The Beltane Hunt - which is part of a series of pagan-themed hunts held throughout the year. In addition to the hunt items, you also get clues to a final prize area.

~*~*~*~

Skin is from Den Dou - Ichiro (not free)
Hair is from Detour - Writer II (not free)

Spring Sales & Hunts & Things....

Rfyre's $10L retirement sale - doesn't happen very often and take a closer look at some of the women's things:

Left: Rfyre - Trammel in black (bronze also available) two shirt types: open laced and solid. Belted pants. ($10L)

Necklace: [PRETURB/ation] [P/a] Group gift - Periapsis: copper & turquoise, large links, heavy turquoise ovals with accents. (free)

Bracelet (left arm): [P/a] Uranus - men's bracelet - silver, copper, leather and turquoise (not free)

Bracelet (right arm): ::Gabriel:: crest bracelet black (not free - group only)

Right: Rfyre Chromatique black (women's). The men's Chromatique is also on sale but I like the shirt on the women's better. Since they are both $10L, for $20L you can get a nice mix and match including the fringed top boots. Keyhole open neck, chain-mail like pants and trim. Knee high boots laced and fringed.

Left: Rfyre Stripes pants (women's but with no actual buttons or zipper, it hardly matters) brilliant color, modifiable for boots or wear as is with the flare.

The top is part of the Vinyl cowboy set from A:S:S. Not free, but the whole set is $150 and including two sets of leather pants - one full legged style and, as well as a chaps version, multiple layer versions and ways to mix and match, accenting buckles at throat. arm and thigh. There's a bulge for the pants and laces there too. If you'd pay $30-50L for individual pieces you like, this gives you a lot of options for not a lot of lindens.

Necklace: Sable Rose from the Ostara Hunt. Double pendant with a pentagram and triple sun cartouche on a leather cord.

Speaking of A:S:S (we were, weren't we?) Photos is also having a sale. Not that he needs to; his stuff is pretty damn reasonable. But, if you do want a new pair of leather pants, you can pick these up for $30L and the suspenders for $80L (not part of the sale) to go with the awesome Lady Gaga t-shirt F2H is giving away this month. (just in case you missed the free leather pants F2H was giving away last month.)


And just a heads up: I'm going to be doing a post on stripper wear soon. Dancing/Hosting/DJing at the many many clubs in SL is one of the most common ways to earn lindens for those of us on a budget and probably the question I get asked most about in world (where, how, what do you need, is it difficult, etc.) . I don't host and I couldn't DJ to save my life, but dancing I can do. (funny how much better a dancer I am in SL ~grins~), If I can tap one of my female dancer friends to help, I'll try to make it for both sexes, but my own resources are pretty much limited to the guys. If you've ever been interested and have questions, getting them into the comments here before I post would let me answer them when I do post on it -- probably in the next week or so.

Weekend Retreat

Yves over at Fashion Freebies for Men tipped me off to the choker being offered by PRETURB/ation. It's a seriously nice piece of men's jewelery, but that's not the only thing being offered as an opening gift -- and not just by PRETURB/ation, but by the sim group, collectively known as [PLUTO+]. If you join the [PLUTO+] group and follow the paths of this beautifully laid out sim, you'll find a whole new way of living -- and I mean that kind of literally.

Zacca is offering this amazing small garden house. It's beautifully textured and pretty spacious for its size. It's got a relatively small foot print and at 42 prims (rez in edit mode), it offers a really nice way to live without eating up all the prims on a 512 lot. Texture and detail are amazingly nice, and the diffuse light is built into the build.

And in truth, the other offerings also give you great style at low prims without sacrificing look or quality. Also on offer is nonino's Swing Bench (prop) at 8 prims (in 2 sections) that offers two sits and a quiet place to enjoy.

If you keep heading down the path, Clematis will gift you with this three draw workable chest (8 prims) and this really nice potted calendula (6 prims). That doesn't quite furnish your weekend house in the woods, but it's a good start. I've no idea how long these gifts will be out, but I wouldn't wait. The sim is Bacio -- and take some time to explore, there's all kinds of surprises waiting for you there.

And if you are planning a weekend in the country, you might want to pick up some casual clothes for kicking around in the woods. Equilibrium has you covered, yet again, with this nice T-shirt, (YB)-jr.hak (Camisa), as their weekly freebie, and these graphic jeans, Jeans (Calca)(02)(Brasil), as the Prizes for Picks.

The belt, cinto Anatine fexado (marron), you see here will be in an upcoming Midnight Mania prize --something you can wear with more than the jeans you get as a prize. Make note of the slurl and pick up a new landmark, as the store has moved.

And while you are relaxing this weekend, you might do a little bargain hunting: The Shopatorium at Gallinas is having a mini hunt, and if you go tip-toeing through the tulips, you might find some nice harbingers of spring , like this full body vine tattoo being offered by our own Guen at .:CoLLisions:.. Multiple layers with a vine motif, and a pectoral-centered Cherokee star. Other finds at the Shopatorium are garden goods, poses, springtime pooka pals, and jewelry. Start at Sable Rose and work your way around the shopping area -- you are looking for red tulips. The hunt only goes to the 1st.

======
Also here:
Choker - [P/a] PLUTO+ Male choker: PRETURB/ation
Hair - Writer II - Black: [Detour] (not free - $200L)
Skin= Ichiro -Bronz- /02 Stubble (with Body Hair): DEN-DOU (not free)

Back to the Future

Nik had a plan: the plan was to go hunting for Gothic, accessories, clothes, run the gamut and see what was available for the ambitious but pocket poor Goth follower.

The pickings were scarily thin, possibly because there's another Twisted Hunt coming up, or because not a few of the Valentine's hunts turned a little Gothic as well. But, just because the journey doesn't end up where you expected, doesn't mean it wasn't worth the time it took.

Dark Closet was the first shot. The kilt pictured was an earlier drop from the DSN network, and following up on the DSN offerings that really appeal, is on the long list of ways to find free or discounted stuff. That led to this Torn Chainmail Outfit and this Assassin Outfit in Blue.

But, those finds gave an excuse to show off the preview for Sable Rose's offering in the next Twisted Hunt, which Rosie Barthelmess was kind enough to forward. She'd previously offered up a set of collars called The Poisoner and the Poisoner's Wife, and now she steps away from the jewelry she makes so well to offer up The Poisoner's Son Men's Arm Cuff & Dagger, in two versions -- one blooded and one not. She put the same fine detail in this she does in all her work. It's not out yet, but look for it when Twisted starts up again on March 1st. And since the look was pseudo gothic, hunting up hair became a sidestep. .:hct:. was on the list of places to check -- but the actual find was on Xstreetsl -- where a combo of 11 fat packs of retired men's hair styles can be foundfro $1L, including the ponytail pictured.

While poking around at Inedit, I tripped over this fiver pack of buckled shirts for free, from Fire Roses. These are basic system shirts, and came fitting more loosely than shown, but the folded placard front is a favorite, and tightening the wear up a bit actually made the texture - which is pretty damn detailed -- look a lot cleaner.

The last veer off the beaten gothic path led to the Jet Lag sim of all places, which is in the process of being retrofied in some really fun ways. A stop in at the local high school produced this leather jacket - JohnnyD- from J.FIN; nice retro detail and a great way to finish up a hunt that wasn't successful, but was far less than a total failure.

And, just for fun, also on the Jet Lag sim is JUICE which often has some great finds and gifts but this time -- the hunt they have going is the Potty Mouth hunt, and while normally averse to the sillier mouth attachments -- this one was a keeper. Because, really, how often do you find yourself wanting to say, just that?

===
other items pictured:
=Zenith=Sweater hat hair-Male SAH 7

Showing your A:S:S

It's not quite couture or necessarily sleek, it may not be even particularly trendy, but what the work of Photos Nikolaids of A:S:S (which stands for Another Stupid Shirt Shop) is, is fun, versatile, off the wall, whimsical, sexy and above all, surprisingly affordable and incredibly wearable.

Photos may have started A:S:S as a basic t-shirt stop, but he's both expanded his inventory and grown his own skill just over the few months since I first discovered him. He does have awesome t-shirts that range from funny (and, yes, cute) basics to politically aware (see his line of free shirts for Amnesty International,) to bawdy and provocative.

Lately he's been pushing his skills into more complex designs. He still produces mostly casual clothes for men and women, but his separates are incredibly versatile and wearable and work both alone or as layers with other designers.

He's also aces at providing layers of clothing to allow you to mix and match in pretty much any combination. Shirts typically come with an undershirt, shirt and jacket layer version. Jeans and pants have both pants and underwear versions. His tank tops find their way under a lot of open shirts and jackets I wear, and his button downs fit nicely under my favorite vests.

You will occasionally find (especially in his older stuff) a minor seam glitch or misalign -- which I think he's been willing to fix in the past.

His prim collars and cuffs are modifiable and resizable which is awesome -- I've pretty much given up buying clothes from designers who make their prim attachments no modify -- not all avatars are built the same and I'd rather not have to keep adjusting my avatar because a prim collar is built so small I have to have a pencil neck to wear it.

None of that is an issue with the clothing from A:S:S, and I think that stems as much from the fact that Photos is a smart guy as it does from the fact that the vast majority of his offerings are unisex. He does have some strictly male, strictly female offerings, but most of his clothing looks good on either gender and in some cases, he's deliberately challenged what might be considered a female fashion application and made it into a statement on remaining masculine and thinking outside the box.

You won't find a lot of really complex textures that requires a massively powerful graphics card to render or (thank you, Photos,) basic colors such as white, black, red, green or blue that are uniquely his -- his reds are red and his whites white, not slightly off so no one can wear, say his red tank, with anyone else's red jacket.

Given the variable nature of lighting and graphic settings in world, and the vast difference in rendering color and texture between individual users and their computer systems, this is actually more important than it might seem. I have two PC's and a laptop that I frequently swap between for just that reason, the same with swapping between the LL release browser and my preferred emerald browser. Photos's colors/textures hold up pretty well across systems.

You can also find a wide array of non-clothing items in the store: tattoos, jewelry and mouth toys, furniture, skyboxes (and his skyboxes are seriously awesome,) shoes, and if you are interested in the more bishouen look, he has a nice collection of skins that are either free or amazingly affordable.

Nearly everything in the store is between $25L and $125L, maybe $250L for fatpacks, and there's a lot of things for under $25L, -- there may be a few things that range upwards of $500L (Skyboxes, some larger sets) but the average cost is probably between $75-$125L. He maintains a nice discount area and has a newbie pack for av's under 30 days old.

But here's the thing...It's pretty obvious that Photos is having a blast most of the time, and when he gets in a mood, you never know what he's going to come up with or what he's going to do. If he has an idea he runs with it, and if he likes it, he puts it out for sale or, he gives it away...

Not just in his lucky chair or discount room, but through his subscribo, or tucked into some mini hunt or just says, hey, I made this, come get it for free for the next day or so. I've spent a fair amount of Lindens in his shop, but I can guarantee you that what I've gotten free or for $1L is twice as much as I've ever paid.

So, stop by and take a look. Join the group. Check out his discount room if you aren't sure and spend very little to figure it out, and look for him in the next male oriented Make Him Over Hunt" beginning on October 15th. I honestly don't think you will be disappointed on any front.

And if you see him in his shop (and he's there a lot) say hi, or at least thank you.

~~~~~~~~~
A:S:S Designs pictured top to bottom:

1. Light grey turtleneck, light grey pants, dark blazer - Monochrome separates set - currently on the "Pay What You Want" wall on the second floor of the main shop.

2. Straps Jacket black/white - $65L
Blue Low Rise Jeans - $75L

3. Simple Tank Dirty Yellow - $50L Grungy Low Rise Jeans, rolled - $75L

4. Off Shoulder sweater & tank, white/black -$60L
Starstruck Jeans - prior group gift

5. Military shirt brown - $65L

6. Slacker Shirt Green (worn w/o cuffs) - $70
Mesh detail jeans - Silver - $75

~~~~~Also Worn~~~~
Hair & Beards:
Discord Designs
Goatee - Leon $90L for color packs
Beauty Salon Cri-Cri
mHat02-treasure $170L for 4 colors
JE*REPUBLIC
Love - Black Cap/Ash Black (Lucky Chair - still available - primarily a women's clothier but some unisex items)
Bryce Designs Main Store
Frankie $200L
Zero Style
Ron - raven $200L

Eyes:
Sin Skins
Intense II Med Teal eyes (med) - $10L

Skin:
Redgrave Men:
09B Emil Deep-Tan Skin / bald hair / fullbeard $990
03B Emil Deep-Tan Skin / bald hair / 2day beard $990

Leather Pants & double belt:
Husky GFX - Cort's Brother set $700 (this is a full outfit)

Shoes:
Zanzo/Bete Noire Clothier
Classix Grey sneaks $250L

Accessories:
.:iNflict - After Earth:.
Tattoo - Beauty and Beast
Discord
Ryu-Sei Glasses Brown - 2009 New Year's Gift Pack
Sable Rose:
Zoe Celtic Cross Ruby $150L
Unisex Zodiac Necklace (Taurus) $150L