Happy winter holidays friends. My gift to you this holiday season.I hope that you will enjoy and be inspired by this selection of things that I have found recently.Happy 2011
Textures
Stripe texture maker 
color numbers to use in stripe maker
Free wood textures
Public Domain Images
Free stock images
Photoshop tools and tutorials
Photoshop keyboard shortcut 

Amazing photoshop tutorials
Photoshop Brushes
Graphic design tools
Some seriously cool free fonts
Eye candy  free trial download

Inspirational eye candy
Designflavr
furniture and home decor inspiration
Deviant Art 

Bebe Shoots the Moon

Lunar Eclipse 2010

Last night , I had  the idea to stay up to watch the lunar eclipse. A very silly idea because I often fall asleep around 11 PM, computer on my lap  surrounded by cats while pretending to dance or build with John in Inworldz. Last night was no exception. I went to bed thinking that I would have to settle for watching video in the morning. I had forgotten that I am usually awakened at approximately 3:30 AM almost every morning by the nature call of my over 50 year old female bladder. I know that that is TMI, but it is the reason I got a chance to witness this once in a lifetime event and to actually get a half decent shot of it. Happy solstice!

(edited to add additional photo)

I believe...
I believe in Santa. I believe in the goodness of people. I believe in the magic and warmth of the holiday spirit. When all is so dark, the festive holiday lights arrive to pick you up. In spite of some pretty horrific family tragedies and/ or deaths that have occurred all in December, winter remains my favorite time of the year, especially around Christmas.

Way to go Inworldz! 25, 000 residents!

InWorldz, what's not to love?

Primmy holiday goodness has arrived @ Mooville

Finally... holiday trees have arrived at Mooville! Freshly cut and decorated. On display in all of their primmy goodness.It was a lot of fun making these,  and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did while making them. 

As if that were not enough, Snowglobes are here too in the holiday store. Some are table top models and some you can hang on your primalicious tree.Be sure to check back because I am on a roll and  I will be making these all winter.

MOOVILLE- Live*Work*Play (InWorldz Url)

Have a happy............Bebe

A look back @ Steelheart Village

It started as a if you build it, they will come moment. I had a dream ....to have a place where all kinds of people could live work and play together, especially folks new to SL.
When I discovered SL, about 2 and a half  years , ago it was because of a not very positive newspaper article. I was curious to discover what kind of thing could make people so stupid. (still haven't found out.) What I did find was a great way to meet and  have with fun folks from around the globe. I had a great time meeting new friends and even learning to build. I wanted to have some place nice for my friends to hang out in and after consultation with  friends, the idea was born.

About a year and a half ago, I bought a 1/4 sim of Linden Mainland through an auction. As other land became available in the sim, John  snapped  it up. All in all, we owned 3/4 of the sim. We named our little venture, Steelheart Village.

Our village was our second life home after giving up homestead island living, as we spent all of our on line time there. We created to a group member sandbox, a movie theater,a community center, several rental cottages, an arcade,  nature areas with fishing and free horseback riding, and a Linden featured destination art gallery .

We hosted free holiday and builders marketplaces, built a ice skating pond and winter wonderland complete with a weather system.



Winter  at Steelheart

 




Holiday Market and Winter Wonderland

 

We have also played host to numerous stores, a dance plaza, Serene Bechir's poetry reading group, live music, live theater and comedy, Brendan Shoreland's  English Folk club , and John's amazingly cozy Black Kitty Pub.


Live Theater - Talented  Villagers





Steelheart Village Birthday Bash
 Comedian Sella Scarbridge( top rt), Singer Songwriter Lexus Melodie(left) Fiddle wunderkind Beth Odets(rt)

 

English Folk Club hosted by founder  Brendan Shoreland

It was also home to villagers who would otherwise have no other place to call  home. It was our little community and I thank those of you who helped to make it what it was. On December 8th, 2010, this dream will be over ...a mostly pleasant memory and I will miss it.

 On Wednesday at Noon SLT, the last village performance of the English Folk Club will mark the closing of Steelheart Village and my stepping a way from paying tier in Second Life. You are invited to come and reminisce with us, I have it on good authority that it will be fantastic! Brendan and Serene have found a new home  in the Village of Mystery and their idea of bringing world folk music to SL will live on. The Gadgeteria store with the amazing Profile Sniffy (lol) and Sit N Win will also live on, but in much smaller digs.

As for me, I will not bash SL or Linden Lab as it is a waste of time to do so. I'm not leaving SL, I'll will still own a tiny bit of land near friends, and I still have the business to run. I plan to visit with my friends and attend events that interest me. I live happily as Bebe Mahogany and (alt) Bebelou Naidoo in InWorldz  now....In an ocean front sim called  MOOVILLE  in Soda Springs.There are some stores, but it is not a mall. There is a place for being creative, hanging out and being entertained. Some friends from SL have stores there and I may add more. We plan to have live music music too.I don't have to worry about making tier, I  can do what I think feels right and looks right. I'm not sure what Mooville will be yet, what kind of sim it will be.  I can tell you this, There will be no drama and no stress. Mooville (Inworldz link) is my dream now ...It's all mine..It is where I live, work and play. It is my virtual playground...and you are invited to come to come play there is plenty of room.

Bebe

Princess of the Flies pt.2 or Bebe goes to Hell

My darling wonderfully gifted and creative child is still in denial. Has no clue why she did it or why it might be a problem for me. or for her. On Wednesday and Thursday , there seem to be no end to the wave of flies. How is this possible?  A quick check on-line tells me why. These little females can lay 500 EGGS! That was some serious banana. Must have been chock full.of larvae. Getting sick thinking of  it...
 I am going to Hell,  I know it for certain.I have  taken the lives (and souls if they have them) of what seems like 1000's of  fruit flies since this whole thing started.
My mass murder spree started on Tuesday with me swatting at them with rolled up newspaper. Not a very effective technique. I am reminded though of a  story that I read as a child....."Take that!" as she struck the flies such a heavy blow with the newspaper that no fewer than seven lay dead upon the table, while the others flew up to the ceiling fan in great haste."Seven at one blow!" said Bebe with great pride. "Such a brave deed ought to be known all over the metaverse , and it won't be my fault if folks fail to hear of it."
I ran from spot to spot trying to catch groups of them until I thought, this will never work, I'll be insane by the end of the day.  Think of other methods.  Think Bebe.Think.........

Method 2-  Fly Strips,  Ok, a bit old fashioned, and kind of disgusting to look at, good for catching a hundred or so.

Method 3- Isopropyl alcohol (wearing protection) in a spray bottle, knocked them down and killed the ones hanging on the counters and on the cabinets. Result, disinfected counters and flies refusing to land.

Method 4- Traps made  out of Mason jars and sniff sniff, my Shiraz. Let the flys go in ... cover quickly with a plastic lid, quick swirl  to get them wet, and let them drown.   Not very effective cause you have to stand there and catch a bunch in the jar . Another downside I didn't like having to share my good wine with a bunch of pests. Method 4A, Trap with apple cider. Produced nothing , I guess they don't like organic cider.

Method 5- (after consulting Google) Made the trap out of Mason jar,  a banana peel  and plastic wrap. Place  peel in jar, cover with taut piece of plastic wrap and poke holes with a fork  in wrap. The holes are big enough for the flies to get in, but they cant find the hole to climb out. This method produced  amazingly good but disgusting  results. I suppose the buggers were partial to bananas. By Friday,  The jars were full and audible buzzing was heard coming  from the jars.  Our  house is almost fruit fly free now and I can get back to the business of being creative  in Inworldz.
What happened to the flies in the jar you ask? Did  I release them outside or not.... ? You know the answer. I am going to Hell and my darling wonderfully gifted and creative child is still clueless (and will not be near bananas for the foreseeable future).

Princess of the Flies

I have been absent from virtual worlds for a bit now because I have been fighting what seems like a losing battle. I don't know when it started.with my daughter, but I guess it was bound to happen sometime. My daughter who is now 9 had started expressing dislike for certain foods, bananas in particular. This is unusual because ever since she came into our lives at the age of 6 months, she has loved food passionately! This is a child who loves Lima beans, sushi and Brussel sprouts and the one who asked me to serve broccoli and cauliflower at her 6th birthday party. Totally opposite from her brother who  lived on nutritional supplements and refused to eat for 5 years.
 I discovered on Tuesday  that I had a  fruit fly problem. I didn't think anything of it until late in the day when they seemed to be everywhere. I went a bit nuts swatting flies and looking for the source. They seemed to be hovering around the fruit basket and around the  kitchen food locker where canned good and baking supplies are kept. I checked the fruit and  that wasn't it, checked in the locker .... nope, nothing there. The more I moved, the more the flies went  buzzing about  EVERYWHERE!!!  EWW.  I knew at that moment, that the source had something to do with my kids. If you are at all squeamish, stop reading here. If you are a parent of bright and  hyperactive kids, read on, you will understand.

The flies seemed to be more concentrated near where my daughter sits for meals. I confronted her and she  acted like I  had 5 heads. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt  , as my late mom and Mark Twain used to say. I knew I was on to something.  Long story shorter now...... My darling wonderfully gifted and creative child as I shall call her, has not been eating all of her breakfast or lunch. Mornings have been tough for her and me too because she is now in an independent school 25 minute drive  instead of the local elementary school which is a 3 minute walk.  No rolling out of bed at 7:45 anymore. She is slow and unfocused and would rather read  and chat rather  than  eat and go to school. Don't get me wrong, she loves school, she is just not organizedWhile I am getting ready thinking she is finishing up her breakfast, she has been wrapping  up uneaten food in napkins and hiding them out of sight under  the buffet . This explains a lot, especially where all of my cloth napkins have gone. While this is a very creative idea, it  made me spend hours scrubbing and swatting and sacrificing my wine in effort to trap the bastards.
I suffer with severe seasonal allergies --- stuffed up nose  until the killing frost, so I am pretty much useless in the detecting scents department. I should have been a fruit fly... I would have easily found the rotting banana, rolled up  in my Battenberg lace napkin, looking very much like a corpse in a murder mystery movie. I would have also found the  bite sized shredded wheat nuggets, bundled up in 2 of my favorite napkins, still  moist from Monday's milk. And .... and..... all in all about a weeks worth of assorted tidbits from meals, all bundled up neatly in napkins. There is good news. All of these neat little bundles were in the pewter platters and bowls stored under  and not on the carpet. And the kitchen source? A quart sized plastic Chinese soup container,  with oatmeal and BANANAS! the mother lode!  I spent all day searching  for the buggers  and there they were, unbelievable. Just out of broom and mop range.   Exhausted, from dealing with the family and sending hundreds and hundreds of fruit flies to their death, I sat down and  managed to drink a fruit fly free glass or two of wine before falling asleep at the keyboard . Sigh
Day two...... Wednesday stay tuned.....

It seems to me......

It seems to me that we matter.What we say matters , if you take the time to understand where we are coming from, you will see, that we matter too. We may not be the big kids, the in-clique..... the popular ones, but what we have to say matters...... to us and maybe to you if you take to time to hear us out. Do not dismiss us.... Do not think that all we do is whine and complain.  Take a look and see if there is a real problem and address it. Because one day , we will grow tired of being dismissed and leave. This is not a threat, it is just what happens.

distressed chic chicken feet

Ok, so it has taken a little longer than I thought to write something for you. Non-pixelated friends and family have demanded a lot from me lately. I had hoped to chronicle  what I thought would be a joint project with John. Instead, I took it and ran with it working on it in the wee hours of the morning and not documenting a thing.
 It started when John  introduced me to Baba Yaga  recently. He was sculpting roosters and  made a giant pair of chicken legs that he jokingly dangled from his building platform. You know how it is... one thing leads to another and the idea was formed, Baba Yaga's house. For those who are unfamiliar with this Slavic folk character who flies around in a giant mortar kidnapping small children, I suggest that you  look her up. I mean a house with dancing chicken legs? How cool is that? I had to make Baba Yaga's house. Well it's actually Bebe Yaga's House.

It turned out to be much  more livable than I thought it would be. Originally designed for Tinies, it grew into a cabin sized house with a loft, large enough to use as a home for all shapes and sizes. Kind of distressed chic with chicken feet...Just in time for Halloween, my favorite holiday.

You are invited to pop by Mooville, Soda Springs InWorldz anytime to see them lined up along the mighty Moo River. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soda%20Springs/145/132/24 (cut and paste into chat and TP)
Bebe

A bit about me.....

I should let you know that I am not a writer, I am a talker... so I tend to ramble and get long winded. I currently live in 2 virtual worlds, Inworldz and Second Life. On occasion, I visit the OS grid and have made infrequent visits to Blue Mars and to Meta7.  IRL, I live on the East Coast of the US and I also love to travel and take pictures. I've  lived in 5 US states, 3 countries.I've also visited many other US states and about a dozen other countries. I enjoy learning about the similarities and differences of folks from all around  the globe. I suppose that is why I love virtual worlds.... you never know who you will meet and where they might be from. (IRL I am a SAHM and  mixed media artist. I'm currently very interested  in fibers. I create up-cycled children's clothing and adult accessories.)
Second Life was my first venture into virtual world. It  gave me a chance to meet folks I never would have met. It also gave me a chance to be creative in a whole new way. I would not say that I am a master builder, but I do like playing with prims. It took me a while to figure out how to turn those blocks into something I could be proud of.
In SL,  I am Bebelou Naidoo  and I live in Steelheart Village in Kirkoswald sim. We recently tiered down and have a tiny version of the vision (1/8th of sim) that it  once was. I wanted to create a place where folks could live,create, work and play. With my partner John, we  assembled/built a movie theater, sandbox, arcade, community center, plaza for dancing, huge skating/boating  pond, fishing ponds, secluded spots, art gallery,residential cottages, stores and a pub. Steelheart even had it's own weather system and its landscaping changed with the seasons.  It was a great little community.
But something happened...It didn't work for us anymore, everyone wanted a mall with cheap rent where they could set up a store and forget it.The "gimme, gimme, freebie greed" culture proved too much for us. We tried to resuscitate it for year, but now the village community is dying, it is on life support now,  a dark shadow of  its former self. Only a few small stores remain and the small fishing pond where poetry is read weekly and the pub. It isn't all gloom and doom though. The Black Kitty is a bright spot of my SL existence.
The Black Kitty Pub plays host to a weekly LIVE music event. The English Folk club, founded by SL musician Brendan Shoreland, and hosted by poet Serene Bechir meets Wednesday at Noon SLT and brings live acoustic  folk/roots/people's music to us from all over the globe. Three different musicians play a 1/2 hour set each , free of charge to all who want to listen. They play for the sheer love of playing  music- no pressure, no tip jars.....just music. It is for this reason that I continue to own land in SL. This part of my dream still lives.
As Bebe Mahogany, I am beginning  to resurrect  my dream in InWorldz. I love the feel of InWolrldz. It is fresh, friendly and folks are creative and curious. My visit to InWorldz  felt right from the very beginning. In December 2009, I heard passing mention of a different kind of Open Sim grid. When I ventured in, it felt comfortable and welcoming, even though there were only  5 or 6 people on at a time and I spent significant amounts of time bald  and doing a cross-legged salute. InWorldz appealed to the pioneer adventure traveller spirit in me. I always vacation off of the beaten track. Good times were had at the coffee shop. Founders El and Legion were so friendly supportive and helpful getting us all settled in. I realized early on that I fit in and I would eventually have a home in InWorldz.
Mooville in the Soda Springs sim is the place where I live, work and play.... Starting fresh  opened my eyes to building. I couldn't just run out and buy it. I also began to embrace my Nikon and CS4. I dream of flying to get the perfect shot of old windows and the mighty MacGyver pen tool. There are stores and more to come.... A (Ubiquitous) Garden and Landscaping center, A General store ( with actual thing-a-ma-bobs), Architectural salvage shop (direct to you from my travels), Framelight Textures and the Music Pier. There will be rental houses and gathering/hang out places and live music very soon. I have been inviting my SL friends over  to join me while I build my creative home. Want to join me? Come on over, there is plenty of room to spread your creative wings too.