Comeback Queen

So... I took a few months break from creating stuff. There were reasons... the whole business of building, setting out store boxes, even dealing with customers (sorry guys!) had become a chore. I lost all inspiration and enthusiasm. So, I stopped doing all the stuff that was bringing me down and concentrated on spending time with friends and having fun.

And now I'm back! I find this cycle happens every few months, hence the post title! *grins*

Master has been nagging me encouraging me to start building again, and for the first time in months I'm actually making things I'm happy to put my name to. I've also branched out a little, making the odd bit of sculpted furniture.

So expect a new release in the next few days, once I've made up all the boxes, listed on XStreet and SLapt, tidied up the store, made demos.. why am I doing this again? I must be mad.. !

Normal Service is being resumed!

... slowly but surely :)

I'm back inworld and building things - in fact I'm trying to package up two new items right now, only SL isn't playing ball. Things never make it to my inventory, and textures won't upload... what the hell has happened to SL in the few weeks I've been away??

Many thanks to everyone who has IMd asking if I'm ok (and especially thanks to Spike who sent a prim tub of Ben & Jerrys!! <3 <3 ) I'm just about over the flu now, and slowly recovering from the back pains that all the sneezing and coughing brought on. Don'tcha just love winter?

Anyway, I really wanted to have made loads of new sets for Valentines Day, but what with the flu and being unable to sit at the PC for long, nothing much got done. *sighs* Still, like I mentioned, I do have a couple of bits to release, one of which is a group special... but more on that later today!

urghhh...

I'm getting over the flu. Still feeling like sh*t. Send me sympathy and chocolate please! (a tub of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food would be most welcome too)

On a brighter note, it snowed here last night. I love the snow. I sat around midnight for an hour, just watching it fall, silently covering everything. So peaceful. I haven't felt that calm for months.

I'm moving!

Mat and I have bought 10km of land in the brand new Gisborne sim (which happens to be the name of the rather *yummy* baddie in Robin Hood) and so Cailyn's will be moving! I'm about halfway through building the new store, then I have to put out all the jewellery... change the LM in around 300 boxes... change the LM in all the SLX and SLB boxes... omg... this may take some time!

Happy New Year!

Well I'm finally back from an extended visit to the family over Christmas, so this is just a quick post to let everyone know I'm alive and kicking!

Three things to mention:

First, I came home to several hundred offline IMs. I'm slowly working my way through them all - if you IMd me over the holidays I will be responding soon, I promise! First priority is gift certificates and help requests, then I'll be doing the rest.

Second, I'd like to send much love to my new baby nephew Aaron, who was born on Christmas day :) Welcome to the world little one, I wish you much joy, happiness and laughter in your life here!

Finally, to all my friends, family, customers.. and everyone! I wish you all a happy and peaceful 2007, and hope you get all you want and desire during this new year.

*hugs* Cai

It's that time again!

It's Wednesday, so it must be update day! The grid hasn't recovered from the last one and yet here's a new update to create more havok ^H^H^H^H fix all those annoying bugs.

My personal favourites:

• The missing water. Cute though he is, my poor dolphin looks a little lost without his river to splash around in.
• The 'why are all my attachments in my crotch?' bug after teleporting. Most amusing.
• And while we're on the subject of teleports... tp'ing between estates is still borked.
• Group IMs failing. While sometimes I appreciate the peace and quiet, I'd rather use busy mode for that. I'm paranoid that no-one wants to talk to me.
  
• The skintight trousers (pants) look. So Flashdance, so 80's, so not attractive!
  

*Sigh* I could go on... but I won't. For all it's quirks, I still love SL. After nearly four years I've learnt to shrug off all the annoyances and quibbles and smile quietly to myself - the day they really get to me will be the day I go out and buy WOW :)

Meanwhile, back in SL...

... the creative urge has vanished. Again. I've made a few rings, but I'm not happy enough with them to loose them on the world. So in my inventory they will stay. On a more positive note, Jaqueline <3 persuaded me to redo the store (it didn't take much persuasion, I haven't really been happy with the way it looks) - I didn't rebuild, but I just retextured. It's made a hell of a difference! Hopefully more expensive/exclusive looking - I am trying to sell jewellery here after all :)

I'm much happier with this look! (In the background, you can just see one of Lash Xevious's fabby statues, great view from the doorway) I think I'm going to lose the bargain basement - I'm running out of prims, and I'm not sure how useful it is anymore. I'll probably make a bumper box of clothes for L$1 or something, same with all the old jewellery that's down there. We'll see, I won't worry about it until I'm desperate for prims again.

Bah, Humbug

It's December 7th, less than three weeks to Christmas. Usually by now I'd be full of the festive spirit, walking round humming carols and annoying the hell out of everyone. This year though.. I dunno what it is, I just can't get that feeling. Maybe it's because I'm out of work this year, and I'm ready to start talking to the walls. Maybe because my friend was in a horrible accident a couple of weeks ago and is only just starting to recover. Maybe because I can't put the Christmas tree up until our new carpet has been delivered and fitted. All my presents are bought, hopefully I'll start feeling more festive when I wrap them. I'll chuck the xmas CD in the player, get the mulled wine going and force myself to be Christmasy!

Until then, I can amuse myself with this.. The worst xmas carol evah! And I really do mean it... make sure you listen right to the end, it's.. undescribable! Thanks to The Sneeze, one of my favourite blogs!

Temporarily mislaid!

I've not been around much lately, either in SL or blogging. My back is still very painful, which limits the amount of time I can spend sitting infront of a monitor. I've also got a bit of RL work to do (yay, income!) and that's keeping me amused for the past week or so :) I'll be back!

The whole CopyBot thing blew up over the past day or two. It's depressing. The items I make are particularly at risk, due to them being pretty much unscripted attachments (bling scripts don't count, because there are umpteen million floating around the grid anyway). I have no wish to spend hours making intricate items just to have some asshole click a button and make a full perm copy. I really haven't felt like logging in in the time I do have available... *shrugs* maybe a few days away will help.

Bah.

Cailyn as you've never seen her before o.O

Aren't I a cutie? *laughs* I decided I needed a male avatar for making mens jewellery and for doing some adverts. I've tried using alts to build with but however careful I am I always end up with permission problems *sighs*, so I have to use my main account.

So this is Carl, my alter-ego. I've tried to make him as average (shape-wise) as possible - I couldn't resist prettying him up a bit though! After all, I'm the one that has to stare at him while I work *grins*

Anyway, he's mostly the work of Naughty Designs (hair, skin, shirt & jeans), the shape is by me, and the boots by Shiny Things. He's actually just the male version of my normal shape, tweaked a bit to um.. 'bloke-ify' him! Oh, and the pose is from Anomations. It's really hard to find decent male poses - I'll have to break out poser again.

Is it unhealthy to drool over your own avatar? *giggles*

Tired and grouchy

I'm tired. I'm grumpy. Six or seven years ago I slipped a disc in my back, ever since then it reoccurs every so often. Yesterday was one of those times. Painkillers dull it to a manageable throb, but they also make me sleepy. And the backache makes me grouchy because I can't get comfortable in any position. Being in SL is pointless right now, I can't concentrate for more than 5 minutes, I have no patience, and my moron-tolerance level is waaaay below zero. Grrr. I need sympathy and chocolate!

Enough moaning... here's another preview. It's a ring, called 'Banded' (I so need to employ someone to come up with names for me). The pic shows it in diamond & onyx, i've also got diamond & ruby, diamond & sapphire etc.

I've also got a tiara sitting 1/4 built - it's not coming out the way I wanted it too, so not sure what will happen with that. I usually just leave the partial build in my workshop until inspiration strike again - walk round my skybox and you'll bump into half-finished earrings, beads, and god knows what else (probably a few long lost rings too, if i drop them they are very hard to find again!)

More thoughts

Three posts in one day! eeek!

Anyway, it struck me today that since starting this blog, it's been my most productive month in SL since.. well since ever really. It's almost like I must produce things to have something to write about... I love posting pics of things I'm working on, I don't tend to get out much in SL so this is my way of showing off I guess ;)

All of today's items are boxed up, out in store, and listed on SLX and SLB. That's the Emiliana earrings, the mens insert rings, and a double insert ring that I had to add too. Why do I do this to myself? *laughs* I ended up adding 18 new items to SLX and SLB, which is sheer torture. SLB is a breeze, but using SLX feels like I'm forever waiting, scrolling down, waiting, scrolling down... bleugh. On the other hand, I prefer the search functions at SLX, so when I'm buying I head there first. *shrugs* I did see a post from Flipper on the main SL forums saying that the buying side of SLB is due an overhaul... lets hope it's soon!

It's now just over a week since I rented a mall spot (see here) and so far, it's a dismal failure. Not even a single sale. I think it was a poor location really.. my spot was well away from the teleport port. Undeterred, I'm trying again, this time in the JD Mills sim. Fingers crossed for this one!

New Toy

I have a love of bright, shiny things (I think I was a magpie in a previous life!), and also of abstract art. I stumbled across this great freeware application called Chaoscope that allows you to create your own 3D neon glowy fractal-ish pictures. I've been sitting here for over an hour now creating my own masterpieces!
It's all very mathmatical and I could never hope to understand how it all works, but there is a very simple tutorial that gets you started - after that, experimenting is easy :)

Randoms

Housework sucks. Whether it's in RL or SL. I spent most of my time yesterday rearranging the Butsu store so that I have more wall space. It looks a lot more organised now, so I'm glad I did it, but boy, was it tedious! And on top of that I updated the notecards in over 100 boxes... *yawns*

I had a strange IM overnight. Someone wants to open a jewellery store, and wants to purchase some of his inventory from me. I'm not sure what to make of that. I do all the hard work, then you make the profits? um... no thanks! I kind of understand he's thinking like the RL model - you open a store, trot down to the wholesalers and pick up boxes of whatever... but in SL, once you have something, you can sell as many as you like forever. I really don't like the idea of someone else having full permission copies of my stuff (bar one or two trusted friends, of course :)

I've also had a couple of folders of photos from models looking for work. One looked very slick and professional, the other, well, didn't :P Either way, I don't tend to use models for my ads or box pics, partly because I work odd hours (I'm most active around 2-6am SL time), partly because I tend to do things like that on a whim, and partly so I can control everything about the picture. So I'm a control freak, bite me :P

My BLOTTD (Big List Of Things To Do, thank you Lindens!) is growing bigger by the day. I've ideas for a wedding range (opals, moonstones and diamonds!), more necklaces, rings & earrings, plus several items that have been sitting half-finished in my black hole of an inventory for months. I've also got some unreleased furniture that I want to make better anims for (I haven't touched Poser for ages!). I did try making hair a little while ago, I don't think it's good enough for public release though! *grins* I want to redo the textures to add more shine; it's also got some serious alpha issues. Shame, coz I love the feathery look alpha textures give. It will get redesigned at some point in the future!

So, today is update day again. We won't be getting web profiles this release (see here) which is a shame, it's the first 'shiny' in a long time that I've been looking forward to. Still, it's good that LL are finally realising that releasing features before they are ready is not a clever thing to do.

Enough rambling, I'm off to go build!

New Store Open

I've got a new store location, at Ocean City Mall in the Trouble sim. This is me dipping my toes into mall rentals and seeing how things sell :)

All of the new rings & earrings are available here. And I spent fecking ages putting them all on SLBoutique earlier today. I lost the will to live before updating SLX though. Maybe tomorrow. Or Wednesday...

My main store at Butsu continues on as always!

Purrrrr-fect New Look!

Neko Cai! =^o^=

I fancied something a bit different, and a trip to Temenos Island provided the perfect solution :)

Home to an amazingly talented bunch of kitties, I fell in love with just about everything in the (large!) store. I guess there's a closet fur in me, as I couldn't resist the leopard skin, matching ears and wonderful swishy tail.

Skin, ears, tail from Jungle Voodoo; hoodie, t-shirt, skirt and socks from Boneflower Designs; all by Zoe Llewelyn (view her blog here). Zoe hand-paints everything, and it's all fantastic.
Hair from Playful Kitten; by QuietlyCharmes Vega (who I met at the island, she is the most adorable kitty ^_^)
Boots, necklace, bangle from Shiny Things

=^ mew! ^=

Apathy Rules

Today, I just can't be bothered with SL. The past couple of weeks have been a creative roll for me, now I'm feeling burnt out again. Fleur and Starburst are packaged up and available in my store, I'll get round to putting them up on SLB & SLX sometime. I still have a huge list of things I want to make, but... not right now :) I tried being social and hanging at the Welcome Area, but every time I'm there lately I get hit on. Bleugh. I want a place I can go and chat, without being asked 'were R U?' 'how old?' 'wanna go somewere?' every five minutes. Does such a place exist?

Oh well. Back to RL for a few hours, at least.

Happiness is...

... a stable network connection. Bliss :)

My other half finally got sick of the unreliable wireless network we've had for the past few months, and came home with some goodies which he set up yesterday.

No more packet loss. No more dropped connections. No more lag spikes (well, a reduced amount!). I love him to bits <3 <3 <3

Back to basics!

I've decided that I don't have enough 'one-off' pieces in my store. By this I mean things that aren't part of a set (y'know, matching necklace, earrings, bracelet, ring, ankle chain, belly ring and god knows what else). So I'm going to make some basic individual bits 'n' pieces, whatever takes my fancy. I'd really like to say I'm doing a Twiddler with his 31 Do's in 31 Days, but there is no way I'd manage an item a day!

So here's the first. I started with a ring, because I loooove rings in RL, a girl can never have enough rings! I've called this one 'Starburst', it will be available in gold & silver, and in er.. (*switches back to SL to count*).. 10 different stones. Pics on the left show Silver/Ruby and Gold/Aquamarine.


I always wonder about adding bling scripts. I hate the uber-in-your-face bling with a passion (oh, my eyeballs!), but a nice little twinkle every now and again is pretty. Even that though, after a while, bugs the hell out of me (what can I say, my novelty threshold is way low!). I'm also adverse to adding 'bling on/off' commands, because they inevitably use llListen calls, which never are never good for lag. So I compromise, and stick two versions in the boxes, one bling, one without. Is that the best option? I dunno. Any thoughts out there?


Anyway... the first rings are done (minus boxes and packaging). I don't know whether to wait and have a massive blow-out of an update in, say a week's time, or just put them out as they get done. I'll think about it.

Frustration Abounds

I'm trying really really hard not to swear right now. For the first time in weeks, inspiration has hit and I'm in a building mood again. The textures are done, I have the picture in my head... but technology conspires against me. First, last night, the batteries in my mouse died the instant I managed to log in, today, my wireless network (which I have come to hate with a passion) is playing up. Staying inworld is problematic (assuming I can log in to start with), and building is a joke, prims rubber-banding all over the place. And then when I finally get a few prims in the right places, I realise the connection dropped ten minutes ago and none of it is being saved to the server.

Bah.

Maybe I'll go and kick the cat instead. (i'm kidding, honest!)