All the Fun of the Faire!

Alt Faire! Yummy! I've always tended to describe myself rather ambiguously as "alternative". Alternative to what, I don't know, but it's more of a cover-all term than say "goth" or "punk" or "ninja-pirate". "Alternative" pretty much says "normal? HUMBUG" and leaves it comfortably at that. And that's allll good with me.
And to that note - Yay! Alt Faire! Another big for-charity show, but one right up my street, hosted at the four corners of some of my favourite stores, and featuring some of my favourite designers, and a whole load more wonderful talent to boot. Of course, I'm boring an unoriginal and will be showing my usual suspects, but there's a vast array of quirky awesomeness to be found there.
I also like the charity that the Alt Faire benefits, Nothing But Nets. It's a simple concept, distributing mosquito nets in Africa, to help stop the spread of malaria. My own experiences with malaria are very light and British, mind you. My mother spent some childhood years living in Singapore, where mosquito nets were a necessity at the time, so she has all sorts of practical experience with the things. Also, in World War 2, my father's father was a pilot in the RAF, stationed in North Africa, but never saw combat, due to contracting malaria and having to be sent home. He was fine, of course, and my father was born which enabled me to be born, which allows you-the-reader to be sitting here reading my ramblings. The point is, thousands every day fall prey to the disease, and do not survive, but many of these deaths can be prevented with a simple mosquito net to keep the carriers of malaria away at night.
So it's all for a lovely cause! Yay!

As threatened, here is some silentsparrow! Exclusively for the Alt Faire, hya has made a special version of her stunning Mourna dress, named Mourn, only available in purple. Instead of the open-sided silk-like bustled skirt of Mourna, Mourn has a beautifully-moving full calf-length skirt, with a shock of purple lace forming the front and underskirt. Also, instead of having a halter-style top, it is sleeveless, with sexy straps across the back. In my scandallously skirtless pic, I am wearing the other exclusive from silentsparrow for the Alt Faire, the Ash Batty Knitty Sweater (five times fast, try it) and matching socks. My leopard-print tattoo is from silentsparrow's Melody Lee Fantasy Faire exclusive, but I have it on good authority there'll be more on the Fantasy Faire on this blog later. *nods*

The second of my oft-blogged favourites is Schadenfreude's exclusive, the Teal Skunk Electro-Cute dress. If you do not know about Allegory Malaprop's Electro-Cute line, what is wrong with you? Cutey-cute hand-drawn cuties, on all sorts of wearables, jewelery, shirts, DRESSES. And this one is a skunk with a pompadour. An adorable skunk with a pompadour. A SKUNK WITH A POMPADOUR PEOPLE! Why are you still reading this? Go buy it! A SKUNK WITH A POMPADOUR! I'll allow you to continue if you already have it, or promise to do so in the next hour. No excuses if you're a boy, she has manly 'beaters with it on them too. But if you get that, you miss out on the awesome black and white frilly sculpted skirt. And that's a tragedy.

Straying away from my usuals - I am simply just WILD for Mango, Mango!'s Doll skins, another Alt Faire exclusive. I've admired Sileny Noel's skins for a while now, but these, these are just love. they make me look like a cross between a silent film star and a porcelain doll. Simply adore the makeups, the bold eye colouring and the exaggerated cupid's bow of the lips. The one time I attempted to make a skin, the lips were in a similar style to these. Not as pretty, mind you, I'm kinda not very artistic, but the same general effect.
My boots are another Faire find, this time from Ducknipple. I have an ancient Space Invaders dress from that store from perhaps two years ago, and had forgotten all about them, so you can imagine how impressed I was when I found that they were still around and oh-so-good.

The Alt Faire runs from today until May 2nd, and can be found lurking across the four corners of the Nomine, New Kadath, Pulse and Snatch City sims. Do bear in mind that these are working sims, and be prepared for some lag, accordingly. Use common sense! And dig deep for Nothing But Nets

Outfit Credits:

Pic 1:

Skin: Mango, Mango! - Fire Doll - Pale - Freckles
Hair: Clawtooth - The Seas Met - Red Eye Flight (tinted)
Dress: silentsparrow - Mourn
Cardigan and socks: silentsparrow - (Ash) Batty Sweaters & etc
Boots: Ducknipple - Kooks - Silver

Pic 2:

Skin: Mango, Mango! - Cupid Doll - Pale -Freckles
Hair: Clawtooth - Electric Slide - Red eye Flight (tinted)
Dress: Schadenfreude - Teal Skunk Electro-Cute Dress
Boots: (as above)
Ears: Schadenfreude - Fey Ears (plain)

Silentsparrow Month! Day 27-28! - Theend

My last Silentsparrow February post is going to be another doublepost. On Saturday I was preoccupied due to not wanting to go to a wedding. I don't much like weddings, especially those of people I don't know (in this case, my husband's boss). So we made an excuse to not go, but I married a bloody boyscout, who doesn't like to use people as false excuses, and so I spent much of yesterday trying to teach my daughter how to ride a bike (with stabilizers). I think whoever coined the term "Like riding a bike" didn't figure 6 year olds into the matter. This was the third time we'd taken her out on the bike she got for Christmas, and each time, she has NO idea what to do when faced with having to pedal. By the time we're on our way home, she's got the hang of it, more or less, but then the next time we take her out, it's back to square one and I find myself repeating "Move your legs! Like you're running! One after the other! Keep going, not backwards!". At this rate, we should be ready to take the stabilizers off by the time she's, ooh, 15? Then it was a Pixar shorts DVD and Wii Fit and paranoia at the hands of the chavs who harrassed and confused me while we were out, for the rest of the day. See, look at that! I have no qualms using other people as excuses. As I was barely on SL yesterday, my outfit for this part is a somewhat arbitrary collection of pretty pieces.

First of all, the skirt. The Bustle. The bustley, skirty thingy. The skirt is from a suite I've mentioned a few times in this series of posts, the Severina Suite. I'm a great fan of short skirts with a train-y bit, and this one is glorious. It has a big sculpted ruffle at the hips, which cascades down at the back into a burlesque-tastic...skirty bustley thingy. It's yummy. And named for a very nice lady. Who does not have button eyes. With it is the lovely Shruggie in Ash, with bell sleeves and a turtleneck collar. You can't see it well in my pictures, but it's got big bandy stripes on the sleeves. It's a wonderful piece that can be dressed up or down and worn with just about anything you can think of. Really, I am thinking right now and can't think of anything it wouldn't look great with in one colour or another. Even a SPACESUIT *makes note: "badger hya about making a silentsparrow spacesuit"*. Under THAT, I am wearing the corset from the Ritual Suite, in Ash, again. I wore the Penny Ritual skirt the other day, this is the pretty top that goes with it. It has a beautiful, slightly ruched, silk-effect texture, with fantastic boning down the front, and flatteringly shaped cups that suit any size of bust. The whimsical lacing, if it can be so called, at the back is my favourite part of it, though. It's pretty leafy twigs! With my shruggie, I've covered another nice detail of it, the lacey drapings over the shoulders and front, which you can just about spot, peeping out underneath. Ooh, and, my skin! My skin is the preview of Schadenfreude's upcoming new skins, which boast a reworked nose and collarbone and softer, more porcelain-doll like texturing, among many other improvements, and I'm very excited to see more of these. I'm *ahem* not sure of where it can be got yet. But I'll be sure to ask! My entire head is by Schadenfreude. That's pretty awesome.

And so onto this day, Sunday. One of the reasons I logged on briefly yesterday was because of a silentsparrow group notice telling of a new Limited Edition outfit! Not a hunt, just a single, out there to buy, limited edition outfit, being released in four waves of 25 (the other reason was that my bunny monitor said I had a new nest, it was mistaken, it had found an old nest of mine - Bah!). Of course, I missed the first wave of releases, and a friend very kindly offered to pick me one up when the next wave happened (they're transfer!). Relatively short story shorter, I now and the proud owner of the Blood Ritual Tunic Set, the husband or brother or son or some sort of male or tomboyish female relative of the suite from which the corset I was wearing earlier came from.
It makes me feel pleasantly Joan of Arc-ish to wear this, but like, less crazy and French. Maybe like Joan of Arc was in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. But still less French. I can't help but feel like in my pics I've made it look like a shorts-and-tights ensemble, which is very nice but not what it is. Instead, it is, as the name might suggest, a tunic and tights set. What I've made look like ornate shorts, are in fact the sculpted bottom part of the tunic. What look like tights are tights, but in the Men in Tights style of tights, I've shown them off in brown on here, before. Remember when I made you stare at my crotch? Yes, I know there's been a few times...I still respect you though. As a person, you know. Then there's a rich deep red velvet top, at the awesome suedey half-jacket, which I would buy the outfit for, alone. it has sculpted shoulder caps, and the same viney pattern that formed the back of the corset I was wearing before. My hair was a Stumblebum exclusive from Clawtooth, which you may have just missed, I think. It's the first hair from Clawtooth I've seen with flex, and is very, very nice, it moves prettily and I'm all for braids in semi-random places. But back to my pretty suit, when last I looked, there were a few left from the third wave of release, which means you can either try your luck now (this was a few hours back I checked) or wait for the final release wave. Hang out at silentsparrow if you're the keen type. And of course, join the Twittery Birds group, to keep updated about this sort of thing and all the other sorts of things and and and things!


Outfit Credits:

Pic 1:

Skin: Schadenfreude - Langwidaire - Dawn - Audrey
Hair: Schadenfreude - Cinder - Razzamatazz + Grey Goose bangs & undercut
Top: silentsparrow - Ritual Ballgown Suite - Ash
Shrug: silentsparrow - Shruggie - Ash
Skirt: silentsparrow - Severina - Ash
Shoes: Shiny Things - Tuli Pumps - Black
Ears: Schadenfreude - Fey Ears - Spiral Horns

Pic 2

Skin: Nomine - Primrose - Virgin - Oil
Hair: Clawtooth - Morning Revamp - Sunset (tinted)
Suit: silentsparrow - Ritual Tunic Suit - Blood (limited edition #17!)
Boots: Kookie - Armada Boots - Vintage

Silentsparrow Month! Day 15 - In which Niv is all "teehee!"

Yesterday, when I went out for dinner, the restaurant we ate at happened to be in the same building as my husband's office. After we had eaten, for no other reason than "because we can" we went up to his office and admired the view of the building site across the street, from the conference room. Something that I saw in there amused me somewhat. In the dust of one of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows was the distinct shape of a bird, which had clearly flown smack into the window at some point. After convincing myself that it was surely fine, had merely been a bit startled, hoped no-one saw that, and flew off trying to look cool, I was quite fascinated by the way you could clearly see the tips of its wings, and the shape of it's body, preserved there in the slightly grimy window, from the size and shape of the wings, I'd have guessed it had been a careless pigeon. After that, my husband got a drink from the water cooler, from a plastic cup that secretly had a crack in it, and spilled water all over himself, now THAT was amusing. But anyway, the point is, there was a pigeon yesterday, and today, more pigeon!

silentsparrow's new Lucky Bird set features cutecute hyadrawn picture of a pigeon, which, unless I am misinformed by my brain, was drawn for hya's partner Jessica as a Valentine's gift (but purpler). The reason for my particular bout of "teehee" is that it features various parts of outfits which I LOVE. The Pigeony Rose set consists of a male and female version of a t-shirt in the delicious rose colour that I refuse to admit is really pink, with a pigeon (which I will henceforth refer to as Pidgey, for two reasons, 1: I'm adorable, and 2: as I may have mentioend before, I'm brainwashed by Pokemon), and with a nice thick border of black at the cuffs and neckline. Also included in the set is the always wonderful Kurai Short Jacket, with its incredible jewelled and lacy cuffs, and what made me grin extra hard, a special version of the Nemu gloves! this version of my beloved gloves are particularly gorgeous, as they feature a softly painted-on version of Pidgey, and swirly vines which extend to over the top of the glove. But you can't see that properly in my picture, and here's why. Modesty! I only wanted to show you, the viewer, the bottom of my boobs. And my belly. Because on my belly is the supersweet Pidgey tattoo which also comes in the Rose Pigeony Lucky Bird set, and hey look, some of those vines look like a swirly heart! Remember, the silentsparrow Twittery Lucky Bird is only available for members of the silentsparrow Twittery Birds group, which has a 250L joining fee but is all sorts of worth it, but if you don't want to join, or are totally impatient, liek wot i iz, the set will be out for sale for a very reasonable price next to the Bird.
My skirt is NOT part of the set, it is the Roses Grimley A-Line skirt. The Grimley skirts are wonderfully versatile packs of various styles of richly but subtley patterned black skirts, and are an invaluable nicer-than basic thing to have in your wardrobe. Finally I feel I should say something about my shoes. One day, out of the blue, I said to myself "I want some bowling shoes" and after a small amount of searching, I went to JC's and bought these beauties. Even though they're almost as old as my avatar, and pre-sculpt, they look absolutely fantastic still. As I was saying to Persephone the other day, "Excellent primwork never ages - at least in shoes"

Outfit Credits:

Skin: Curio - Moonbeam Frex [Dark] - Cupid 2 - Allure 2
Hair: Clawtooth - Velvet Hearts - Valentine (tinted)
T-shirt, jacket, gloves, tattoo: silentsparrow - Rose Pigeony Twittery Lucky Bird set
Skirt: silentsparrow - Grimley Skirt - Roses - A-Line
Shoes: JC's - Strike! - Checker
Ears (just visible): Balderdash&Schadenfreude - Etherial Fey Ears