Jewelry Fair is an annual institution by this point in time in Second Life’s history, and it’s one that Freyja and I look forward to because it show cases some of the most remarkable examples of prim, sculpt, and texture work each year. This year’s fair is themed around the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast, which each of the four sims featuring an aspect of the tale. Being a fan of fantasy, the setting was certainly ideal for browsing ... not least because navigation was terribly simple and effecient. The build, while quite effective for its commercial purpose, certainly has a positive aesthetic quality to it with plenty of areas for photography.

Besides highlighting the sim, I’d like to note some (SOME, I stress) of the designers who provide jewelry for men on the four sims. It’s not complete, and for that I apologize!

Once upon a time there was a young princess who seemed like the perfect princess in all ways but one: she had a terrible weakness for jewelry. She could never resist an opportunity to add to her hoard of precious metals and glittering stones. Her parents indulged her with regular gifts and, when she grew older, suitors added to the flow of pretty baubles as they sought to win her favour. It seemed like her appetite for such treasures could not be satisfied.

(Then again, she never did have a chance to go to the Jewelry Fair, but you do—its open now!)

I decided to indulge in an attempt at a fancier than usual shot for the blog, with this close-up of Amanda since I am finding it hard to switch out of her at the moment. Both skin and shape is a lot cuter than what I usually go for, but there’s something about this look that has me staring entirely too much at my own avatar.

To kill two birds with one stone (except, I really disapprove of killing birds, with stones or anything else), I am also making this a final heads-up about two contests at Adam n Eve that end midnight SL time on the 19th. That’d be today. For the first contest, take a picture of yourself in your favourite lingerie down in the Adam n Eve store, and send it in to sachi Vixen for the chance to win L$ 1000 or some lingerie from her new range. For the second contest, fill out a skin survey and send it in to sachi Vixen for the chance to win L$ 1000 and one of the new skins.

Get the skin survey as well as the full instructions for both contests from the contest boards down in the store.

12 PM SL time has come and gone, and I am sad to say that no one actually took a stab at my little contest. Given this, I doubt there is a horde of people out there wondering just who hade made the eight bottoms in the lineup, but even so I will of course report on this. So, without further ado, here’s the list:

In the first image, from left to right, we have Lily Cedar by Exodi, Amanda by Adam n Eve, Chai Nova Tone 4 by Chai and Lovely Sundust Light by Curio. In the second image, from left to right, we have Amelie by Skin Within, Mira Este by Imagen, Portia Tone 2 by Adam n Eve and Bella Sunkissed by Tuli.

And since no one entered, that means no one voted on their favourite bottom either. This means I get to decide, and I don’t imagine it is a surprise that my top pick is Portia’s bottom. To me, it looks very natural, with a toned rather than clenched feel, and with shading that accommodates both smaller and larger bottoms. And that is why it is the top of the bottoms for me.

When the Skin & Shape Expo opened, I launched a little contest with an L$ 1000 prize for the winner. Unfortunately, it seems I have overestimated how much people stare at bottoms in SL, because not a single entry has been submitted so far. But(t), you have one more day!

By now, most everyone should be well aware that the Skin & Shape Expo opened today. There are tons of great designers present, and there are charity items too, so you have plenty of good reasons to check it out and buy yourself some lovely new skins.

I will definitely be doing some regular skin reviews over the coming two weeks, but I also thought it would be fun to mix them up with skin posts on different themes, focusing on different types of skins as well as on different features. Like bottoms, a top priority when I pick a skin.

So, in honour of all great asses out there, here’s the bottom line on a selection of skins available at the fair. Can you identify which designer is behind each behind? If so, read on for a little contest and the chance to win L$ 1000.

For the last few weeks, there’s been a great sale on all female skins at Adam n Eve, except the brand new, photoreal Angel skin. Tomorrow, work on restructuring the skin store will begin, and this will mean the retirement of several skins, including Adore, Alexandra, Celeste and Eve, to make room for several more photoreal skins.

So, this is the last chance to pick up the skins at sale prices (most skins are down 50%, except for Lily, Jodie and Persephone which are down 33%), and in some cases its probably the last chance to pick them up at all.

I didn’t have the time today to get any new shots taken of all the skins, but I dug som up from my Flickr, featuring Angel (not on sale), Persephone and finally a trio of golden graces, Jodie, Persephone (again, now from behind, and what a great behind it is) and Lily.

There are no pretty pictures with this post, since Ran and I spent all our picture-taking time this weekend doing shots for my Flickr, so that is where you will have to go if you want to see some sexy shots (naked pixels alert) featuring Adam n Eve’s latest skin, Angel.

If you’re already a fan of sachi Vixen’s skins, you will want to check this one out. And if you haven’t found her hybrid skins to your liking, you will still want to give this one a closer look. It is the first photoreal skin from sachi, and while I have to admit bias since I work at Adam n Eve, I really do think it is gorgeous (and so does Ran ;). If you drop by the store, you are very likely to find me standing around in just lingerie, because its such a shame to cover up more than you have to when you have that kind of skin on.

And if you like skins, you really ought to drop by the store, because right now there is a skin sale going on. All female skins except the new Angel skin have been temporarily reduced in price, some as much as 50%. So, get yourself over to Adam n Eve.

A little further along in this post, I will get around to drooling over the Catalyst boots from the Abyss, but first some brief ramblings about SL contests and about shapes.

As recent posts may have revealed, Ran and I have a thing for entering contests in SL. Partly, we’ve taken a liking to it because so far we’ve done very well, sometimes thanks to putting a lot of effort into piecing together costumes and sometimes thanks to a lot of luck (like being the only entrants in a very lucrative contest arranged by the Second House of Sweden). Lately, though, its been mostly photo contests that we’ve entered, and that’s all me being a show-off and Ran liking to take pictures. ;)

So, of course I had to enter a couple of model searches for magazines, specifically Glam and Homme (for some of my submitted pictures, see my Flickr), even though I know very well that my shapes are anything but traditional model material. They’re all supposed to be good-looking (though, perhaps not traditionally beautiful) and I am personally quite happy with the results, as each of the shapes has a pretty distinctive look. Including, in some cases, rather strong noses, which cause all sorts of problems with masks, veils and similar attachments.

Of course, that’s nothing compared to the problems you face when squeezing an atypical body into prim clothing or, even more so, prim boots. I’ve put a lot of effort into making my shapes as realistically proportioned as SL will allow and to make their builds relatively normal (but still idealized to some degree, of course). So, they’re quite short by SL standards (5’4” to 5’7” with the usual eye-height measure, meaning they’re actually a little taller than that) and they have a bit of meat (and muscle) on themselves. Most prim skirts can be made to fit fairly well (except very short ones that end up too long when stretched to accommodate the hips), but boots? That’s a different story entirely.

And that is what brings me to today’s featured item, which ended up being the centrepiece of and the inspiration behind the outfit I used for the aforementioned contest pictures.

It must be our lucky month. Either that, or Ran really does take decent pictures. ;) We entered the SF Design Valentine’s Contest, for which you were supposed to take a romantic picture of you and your partner wearing clothing from SF Design. There’s plenty to choose from there for an elegant and romantic evening (especially for men, which is fabulous, and there’s even some gorgeous period wear for men), but of course we just had to break out our matching Pirate Captain outfits. The end result (much helped along by Windlight and the freebie couple poses from LoveLace) was a picture that looks like it ran away from a romance cover. And yay, it won!

The colours of the day are by now rather obvious to everyone, and some stores are trying very hard to make sure we don’t wear anything else today. Or that we, at the very least, fill our inventory with red and pink for a rainy day. And why argue with that? ;)

Special sales on red and pink items can be found at Silent Sparrow as well as Stone Keep. So if your taste runs to either Victorian and Gothic or to Medieval Fantasy, you can be sure to find some pretty things at a good price at these stores. I would suggest giving the Banneret and Pointe du Lac suits at Silent Sparrow a close look and the Anne Boleyn gown at Stone Keep.

But be quick, because these sales are only going to be going on for a short time. I think the Silent Sparrow one will run 24 hours from when it was announced, so that will be to around 14.00 SL time tomorrow, and the Stone Keep I think ends at Midnight today.

Issue #2 of Sexy Second came out today, and I quickly scrolled through it to see if any of the pictures I submitted in their reader contest had made their selection of 50 sexy things to wear. I was quite thrilled to see three of my five submissions (all of which can be seen on my Flickr stream) in there together with lots of other sexy outfits. So if you need some good tips for what to wear to look a little special, the magazine offers lots of interesting ideas.

I do think competition wasn’t as fierce as it could have been if there had been a prize offered beyond being included in the magazine (which I personally think is plenty), but I am still really pleased that my pictures were chosen. After all, my shapes aren’t exactly standard model-material. ;) And I guess Ran was right about this being the best one as they placed it highest of my three.

Yesterday, Ran and I attended the very fabulous parties (yup, there were two of them, and we stayed up much too late to attend both since the first one was so much fun) held at the Fleur sim to celebrate the rebranding of Tete a Pied as Fleur as well as their move to just next door to Nicky Ree’s sim. The event was a glamorous Casino Royal-style party, complete with a roulette table that all the guests were encouraged to bet on (for free, ensuring that no gambling rules were violated). The lucky winners, and there were lots of those, took home Fleur gift certificates.

The list of attendees, for both of the parties, read a little like a Who’s Who in SL, all very daunting for two relative newcomers such as ourselves. But by the second round, later in the evening, I was back to my usual self making entirely !PG jokes whenever the chance was given. For some reason, and I may have to take some of the blame for this, the end of the second party ended up in the gutter. I think it all started with the yaoi ... or possibly the eyepatches ... Anyway, it was late, so that’s my excuse. ;)

Unfortunately, our computers were not up to taking pictures at the party (they were barely up at all, in fact ;P), but we figured we’d at least include a few shots of what we were wearing. Besides, it gave us an excuse to play with the freebie couple poses at LoveLace Lingerie.

Starting Midnight SLT on Thursday and running until Midnight SLT Friday, Adam n Eve will be having a “buy one, get one free” promotion for members of their update group. For more details, see the Adam n Eve blog. Then hurry up and get yourself in the update group if you’re not already members, and run down to the store to pick out the items to buy once the promotion starts.