Merry Christmas to All

I hope you all had a happy holiday, and if you didn't, I hope you at least got some swag to ease the pain.


I sent out presents to my update group on Christmas Eve, and I set them out underneath the tree at the store in case anyone missed them. Inside, you'll find three gift boxes that you can reuse for your own presents, a pair of wreaths (low prim and high prim), a red choker and matching arm bands (shown in my picture, with the wreath) a candy cane, and a blast from the past: the Christmas Indigo plushie. He matches the Merry Jingly coat and he's very snugglable.

I'm going to leave the holiday stuff out until January 1st. If you're wondering what will be taken down, it's everything with a little santa hat on the vendor. So the Lussinat crown, reindeer antlers, snowflake and merry jingly coats and the holly jewelry are all going to be stashed in my inventory until next year.

The only thing never going back up is the Odocoleinae Lumina of course. So if you want to get your hands on my amazing, flaming hot rack (hehe), you only have five days left.

I also would like to say... in this case, I'd be fine with someone reselling these. One of the reasons I hate doing limited edition items is that people end up regretting missing their chance. I would rather people still have a chance to grab one through opportunistic fans. If you want to grab multiple transferable ones and wait for a while, my guess is that the price will appreciate. Something tells me there will be a few desperate voices in the months to come asking Masqueraderie if there's anyone willing to sell a pair.

Lussinat: Happy Solstice

There's more than enough red hats and christmas lights and sexy santa outfits. They're everywhere, the jingling bells and the holly. But this year, as I think you guys noticed, I'm getting down to the older and deeper roots of yule. It was frightening, to have a long hard winter ahead of you, and be facing the longest nights of the year at a time in history which had no electric lights, and barely the flicker of a flame to keep the monsters of your imagination at bay. Come together and feast while you can, enjoy your family, because you could never be sure who might not make it through the cold.

From those times of fear, we have rituals of light. Hannukah, Yule, and the lesser known Lussinat.



Lussinat is the root of the modern St Lucia's day (most celebrated in Sweden), which is associated with the Christian St. Lucia/Lucy. The story of St Lucia's crown is that back in the days of the Romans, she gave sanctuary to persecuted Christians. She hid her fellow believers in the city catacombs, and needed both hands free to carry supplies. So, she fashioned a crown of candles to serve as a primitive miner's helmet. Today, young girls wear crowns of candles set in wreaths of lignonberry, and greet the morning of December 13th with pastries and a yummy breakfast. There's often a procession, where one girl wears the crown, and others follow with single candles in their hands.

But originally Lussinat was a celebration of the solstice, and less a celebration than something to be afraid of. Lussi, in the original Scandanavian pagan beliefs was a dark fairy or witch, who would ride with her followers in a wild hunt on the wind. In fact, in an odd way, she was the birth of a lot of the Santa Claus mythos, in that she flew, and would come down the chimney to punish bad children. And if you think about her chasing and hunting deer, it's not too much of a push to think of a sleigh chasing them instead, is it? That doesn't honestly have much to do with the crown, I just thought it was cool.

Also, I apologize for this being late, RL solstice/christmas comes first :)

The Odocoleinae Challenge

Apparently I inadvertently threw down the gauntlet with this quote:

I realized when I first put them on that the people able to wear these are few and far between. Me, Selos, and of course the incomparable Swirly Cyclone can all pull these off but... who else on the grid could be fabulous enough to wear these?

Terry Toland especially was eager to make me eat my words, and so she illustrated her Tale of the White Stag with my antlers. Winter Jefferson as well wanted to show me what's what with a winter ensemble, and so I decided to go ahead and make it official.

I hearby issue an (official) challenge, in the form of a Flickr contest, for you guys to rock your Odocoleinae antlers and make me revise that list of fabulous persons! The winners will receive the limited edition version of the antlers, or a 1750L refund for those that have already purchased a copy.

Here are the rules:

Wear the antlers (obviouslay)
Rock them righteously (a given)
Post them in the *~*Illusions*~* Flickr Group
I'd say title them with the challenge, but honestly... it'll be sort of obvious.
Get them in by Wednesday, December 31st to be counted

I'll be judging on composition, artfulness, awesomeness of outfit, and general fabulousness. I'm not sure right now how many people I'll choose to be winners, I'd like to keep that open in case more than a few people wow me. I might also bestow yummy extras to anyone who can really make my jaw drop ;)

(and yes, I believe it's oh-doh-co-leh-nay :)~ )

Ltd Ed: Odocoleinae Lumina

I haven't been really that Christmassy lately, even in my first life I only just put up my tree when it was ten days to go! People are sending out red and white things like mad, Santa is everywhere, all the TV shows are on their Christmas breaks and I'm... well... hmm.

I'm not Jewish, nor am I pagan, yet I'm very appreciative of the darkness of the winter solstice. On the solstice of course is the shortest day of the year, only a few hours of daylight before the longest night of the year. Many cultures have traditions revolving around keeping light through the long night. So being in the mood that I am to make antlers, I decided to make a way to keep a light with you while the night is at its longest.


On your head, of course. Beautiful drippy wax to fall into your hair, and bright dancing fire to catch your holiday decor aflame with. But seriously, I've been wanting to (and Selos has been nagging me to) make these ever since I first started working on antlers. They are also my first limited run item evar, since I felt they were a little too special and unique to be a normal release. I wasn't sure if I was even going to release the plain Odocoleinae so you can imagine how I feel about these.

After running into trouble with a lot of people being unhappy and upset at my limited number editions (the Gods of Illusions masks), I decided to never again do a limited number release. Too many people IM to ask and beg and then turn away sad and defeated that the mask they covet they can't have. So this is my first try at a limited run piece, and depending on how this goes there might be more unique things on the horizon.

I've included a copy of no transfer plain antlers with them, which is one of the reasons I told the folks who love them to hold off a bit if you were interested in the limited ones :) I've priced them at 1750L, and they'll be on sale until midnight SLT on January 1st. They still have the copy or transfer option, which is something I played with changing. I kind of like the idea of only the people who were there being able to have a pair, yet I realized people will want to give them as gifts or even hoard multiple copies and resell them much later. In that way, they might be a little less exclusive, but I hope everyone will be happy.

Oh, there's a built in light in order to get the proper candlelit glow; that picture was taken at the midnight setting with no other lights. Because of this, to get the best look I definitely suggest you don't wear a face light with them, or check and make sure your hair doesn't have any included lights in it either. They also look best with glow, as the candle flames are stationary prims and the glow gives it all of their flicker. But of course you can just try a demo and see how you feel about them, you don't have to take it from me ;)

Odocoleinae

I've been working on a slightly seekrit project, and then realized that what I was making has to be released on it's own, it's too awesome to be limited.

The Heorot antlers are an eighteen point buck antler. It's frankly unreal, really. Most of the largest, oldest bucks have about twelve to fourteen points (prongs, the sticky up things on the antlers), and a twelve point buck is known as a "royal" buck. A fourteen point buck is known as an "imperial".

What the hell would these be known as?
Odocoleinae is the genus known as the "new world deer". They're the moose, the white tailed deer, and the largest breeds that have the most marvelous and sought after antlers. Obviously there is no deer-ish name for just "epic awesome". I wasn't even sure if I was going to sell these. I realized when I first put them on that the people able to wear these are few and far between. Me, Selos, and of course the incomparable Swirly Cyclone can all pull these off but... who else on the grid could be fabulous enough to wear these?

It was Swirly who convinced me to just put them out. After all, how will my answer ever come unless I can see them out in the world being loved.



I'm planning a limited edition version of these, only available for a week or so. So if you're on a tight budget, save your pennies :)

Reindeer Antlers!

Everyone is looking to adorn themselves with something festive! What better than the headgear that is universally feared by pets and small children. All you need is a little red nose (not included)





I prefer to allow you to be your own reindeer. It's no fun to be Rudolph, working late on Christmas eve with a radioactive facial tumor. Best to be your own.

Good Gravy! 700!

700...

Is not the number of Spartans who marched south to Thermopylae.
Is not the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
Is not how many roads a man must walk down.

It is however, the number of people who are in my update group. O.O

I can't even begin to tell you how nifty that is. I posted on this blog, it feels like last month, about how my tally was somewhere around 400. I remember when I first moved to my island, my group was only 256 people! I remember when it was 64 people! 700! Whoa!


Ok, enough of that. I think I might have found the reason for my steady decline of sales since Thanksgiving... I checked my classifieds in my profile, and realized that two of them had dropped. One of those two being my main Illusions one with all of my keywords and pimpage. I know a lot of people don't trust in the power of classifieds on SL, but for odd and hard to find niche items they're absolutely necessary. Hopefully, now that I've updated my classifieds and added a few more, I'll see sales pick up again. If they do, thank goodness the problem was so easily pinpointed!

I also literally just found out about a wonderfully delicious possible improvement to my store, which would be implemented in feb or whenever my sim rebuild opens. That is, if it's possible, which I certainly hope it will be! No, I won't tell you any details, because if it falls through I want to be the only one with their hopes up.

Face of Felinity

Sales have been down a little recently, ever since the Thanksgiving. I figure people are either out spending real money on real gifts, or out working so that they are able to afford those real gifts. But in any case, I felt I should probably release something just to serve the purpose of waving my arms and going "lookamee!"

I have a few pairs of Christmas oriented antlers planned, but in the meantime, I wanted to release something more independant of them. Now that I have a basic animal head model from the deer mask, it won't be too hard to make a few more animals. My attempt at a wolf failed (again, still working on it) but thanks to it being a very familiar face, I made a feline. A face very similar to the one staring at me willing me to feed it, right now.

A cat mask was actually one of the first masks I made, and funnily enough I made it in November, 2006. So it only seems fitting that on its anniversary, I release the new one.

I did nine different patterns of fur, my favorite being the tortoiseshell shown in the picture. It was so darn hard to get the speckly-ness all right but darn it I got it and it's cuuuute. Also included in its loverly scriptasticness, are black, white, gray, tuxedo, blue point Siamese, seal point Siamese, tabby (or as close to tabby as I could get), and orange marmalade.

I'll admit right now that the tabby probably doesn't look too much like a tabby. "But why on earth are you releasing it Siyu, being the perfectionist that you are?" I hear you asking.

Why, because it's so adorable!
Who could resist that faaace? Don't you want to give it all of your turkey leftovers?

So yeah, apparently even though tabbies are crazy common, I hope this one slips by.