09.16.07
Nothing new
Its unlikely I’ll get anything out this weekend. The motivation, she is not there. And then I’ve spent the last week texturing an RP sim and can’t bare the thought of playing in PSP again today 
But I did want to get this out to everyone. I’ve not seen very much advertising on the fashion blogs for it yet. Be there or be triangular.
09.07.07
Autumn Chill
I had a lot of trouble with this one. Not the actual creation of the design, that was fun 
But I agonized for hours over the permissions I would release it with, the pricing and, of course, the sales picture. I am still not happy with the sales picture but I think it’ll work out ok.
This set is being released mod/copy. Now my normal permissions are mod/trans and it was a tough decision for me to change that for this release. So why did I? Well this set comes with 6 different colour shirts, on both the shirt and undershirt layer, 3 pairs of footless wool tights and of course the dress, the top of which is on the shirt and jacket layer. As you can see, thats a lot of items on a lot of layers. Practically to the point where you can create 2 complete outfits.
Now I have no issues with someone wanting to give away the unused layers to a friend, newbie, whatever. Where I have problems is someone splitting the set and only selling part of it at something like a yard sale. I feel that if someone were to buy it that way then my items would be used to cheat another resident. And that just doesn’t work for me. So the decision was made and the outfit is mod/copy. Right now it is only available in world at my main store, however over the weekend I will get it out to SLX etc, and then you will be able to buy it as a gift for someone if you would like. Or IM me, I’d be happy to send it to someone for you
So the outfit. Well the dress is made from wool, a really dark brown that is so close to black in some environments you wont be able to tell it isn’t. I included the wool tights in light grey, dark grey and black. The shirts are basically a check shirt in 6 basically pastel colours, blue, light blue, orange, green, yellow and pink. The sales posters don’t even come close to showing all of the possible combinations of this piece but there is no way I can get all that in a 256×256 image, and to make it a different size would move away from the standardized look in my store.
So here is the sales picture (you’ll really need to click on it to make it bigger to be able to see the shirts pattern properly), and I’ve added some pictures below of my own to show some of the possible combinations
ok so my extra pics are thumbnails so this time you really do have to click on them – lol – and yes in the last picture I cheated a little in that the pants I used are not in this set. These are just some of the possible combinations!
09.02.07
Something old is new again
One of the first dresses I ever made in SL is this little black thing.
Oh and how I hate it! The side straps don’t match up, the area over the breasts has an extremely odd shape and a jagged edge, and whats with the dragon?!?!?! I have tried retiring it several times but keep getting requests for it and surprisingly it is a reasonably good seller. Well this weekend I just couldn’t stand it any longer and decided if it must remain in my store then it has to be updated!
And I will never, ever, play with side straps again. Ever. Now I know why they didn’t meet in the first place. The number of hours I wasted getting them right, and I ended up cheating in a few places. My hats off to anyone that does them well, because I wont be spending that amount of time again!
Having endured the frustration of making the damned thing I decided to have some fun with it and use a few interesting fabric textures. Panic not you purists out there, there is a black version
As always let your mouse do the clicking for bigger pictures
08.25.07
Something new
Although I don’t consciously design for RL seasons (after all SL doesn’t have seasons) I am inspired by what people around me are wearing in RL, and thats all seasonal.
I just re-read that sentence and felt like rolling my eyes and going “ya think?” ::laughs:: I amused myself enough that I decided to let it stay rather than rewriting it, hopefully I’ve managed to add a little smile to your day.
Talking about smiles, and new releases, and seasonal designs…. wow thats a lot to talk about in 3 sentences… anyway, my new release started with just the velvet jackets, then I added a pair of light linen pants to make this an Autumn look rather than Winterish.
When I put it all together for sale I felt this lent itself towards a lot of different options. You can buy the jackets individually, or as a pack of all three. You can buy it as a jacket and pants set (the pants are in the pant & underpants layer in case you want to wear some cute little boots with it) or you can elect to purchase the mega pack of everything.
Rather than put pictures of all the options here I’ve just put the pants/jacket set so you can see how they look, don’t forget you can get a bigger view by clicking on the picture. They are available in world now as well as Metamart, and sometime this weekend will be at SLX and on-rez. Oh in case you haven’t heard of Metamart before click here.
08.24.07
The Man Show
Very quick post because I should have been in bed hours ago. Check out the poster below, then visit for some seriously cool men’s fashions, and and of course some of mine as well The vendors are on the 4th floor, you can take either the elevator or the TP but either way if you are buying for a man, or yourself lol this is the place to be!
Edit : And that place would be The Palmer House Hotel, The Magnificent Mile Sim, 180/183/29. I would do a slurl but its late I’m tired and I cant remember how
08.17.07
Right so, there’s supposed to be a designer about here somewhere?
Despite rumors to the contrary I have not been spirited away by aliens or been locked away in the funny farm (although there are days I think that’s only a matter of time). But I have been trapped in RL, and totally unmotivated the few times I’ve managed to actually log onto SL. But I know thats no excuse! So to try and make amends, I’ve more than just the usual single release today I had several requests to release my RFL outfit in different colours, so I did. I have called this one Devi after the Sanskrit word for Goddess and have deliberately not included the jacket that was available with the RFL outfit and of course, neither will I offer the outfit in pink.
I have always loved the TV show Andromedia and most especially the outfits that Beka Valentine wears. She manages to be sexy and mean all at the same time without showing all of that nasty skin lol. So I was watching my DVDs the other day and of course I just had to get the design her outfit inspired out of my head and into SL. That is why my second offering this week is “Beka”. I used a moleskin look to the texture of the clothing, and it includes two different top versions, the pants and several glove options. Gloves you say? What do we need gloves for?
Well
The gloves started life simply as the bottom part of the sleeve where it wraps around the middle finger but then purely by accident I noticed it makes some cool different looks to the sleeve of the longer shirt. Hopefully you can see it in the pic, either way I included a few options for you to play with.
Oh and this outfit screams to be worn with some bad-guy kicking boots so I included the pants on the underwear layer as well.
Not fashion related, but then not everything in my store is, but I had a request to make a couple different models of my jukeboxes. And so I did. The pictures here aren’t very good because, well never mind, just because. But you can see what they look like. Oh and I decided to create a scripted set as well, so if you own the land you place it on or deed it to group on group land, it will control the music URL. There are 7 pre-programed channels on the jukebox. Actually I created the jukebox and my darling husband created the script inside and while he was at it he built a more modern version of the jukebox which is also available for sale.
And if you have managed to get this far… … I am thinking of trying my hand at shoes. Yes yes I know, my apathy towards prims is well documented so its practically a given that at some stage I will want to pick them up and throw them against a convenient virtual wall, but I’m going to try anyway. So there!
Hopefully my next lengthy absence wont be because the prims finally drove me batty and they dragged me away in a white suit – lol.
07.26.07
The end is nigh
The end of RFL 07 that is. Unfortunately RL has not given me enough time to make a new exclusive outfit for the festivities this weekend, but what I can do is include a $500 voucher for my store with the current outfit. It is a way for me to match any donations made.
This will be a low tech version of a voucher, nothing automatic. You will need to contact me, tell me what you want and we will exchange. You give me the voucher I give you the goodies
Just in case you forgot what the outfit looks like…..
07.16.07
Fat packs and other puzzling questions
I’ve been trying to work out if “fat packs” are worth putting in my store. I’ve done it for a couple of items, like the tube tops and Anchored Sweaters but I’ve never sold a single one and I’ve never had anyone actually buy all colours of an item at once before. I know a lot of designers do it and honestly it only takes one extra prim (and prim usage is not a problem for me) but it seems a waste to spend time on the sales pic if no-one is interested. So how many of you actually buy fat packs of clothing? How many would be interested in Catt’s Creations carrying them? (you watch the amazing dearth of comments to this post now – lol)
Fashion Heaven is requesting comments for an upcoming M2 article. They want to know how you feel about permissions. Do you want mod/copy or mod/trans in your clothing? I encourage everyone who might actually read my blog to visit and answer their simple questions. Because… I wanna know tooooo! Permissions is one of those things that have been bothering me for a while now. I sell exclusively mod/trans. I hate having clothing in my inventory that I cannot give away or sell, and as far as I’m concerned if it aint mod I’m not interested. So given that is my preference thats how I sell my clothing. But a lot of people prefer mod/copy and because of theft and general SL inventory screw-ups a lot of designers are moving in that direction.
I did think at one point of offering both versions but the idea of retrofitting all of my clothing gave me nightmares and I just couldn’t bear the thought of it. If anything was going to make me give up SL, having to go through that would have done it.
But.
There’s always a but isn’t there, nothing is ever simple. My recent clothing, like the swimsuits, the corset and the tube tops have been on multiple layers so that you can mix and match. And each of those pieces have been mod/trans. Which gives someone the opportunity to sell the layers they dont want to use. I certainly don’t mind someone giving the other layers to friends but selling the pieces just seems wrong to me. I made it as a complete set for mix and match, and thats the way I would want it sold.
Now I have no idea if this has happened, and I probably wouldn’t know if anyone did, and truthfully, once I have sold the original as trans I have no control over what someone does with it. I’ve certainly not been losing sleep over it but I definitely can’t wait to see what kind of results M2 gets. Will it make a difference to how I sell my clothing? Maybe. I don’t know yet. Possibly the only thing that will force me to change is getting ripped off, or the buyers of SL standing up and in one voice proclaiming “we want mod/copy”.
I lurk in a lot of forums. I admit it. My name is Cattrina Careless and I’m a forum lurker
What I have noticed in a lot of merchant discussions is a common theme, how much time is spent with customer IMs and customer service. Now I’m not sure if I’m doing something amazingly right or amazingly wrong, but I very very very rarely get IMs from my customers. I know I’m probably worrying about nothing but… well if its so common for other designers to have to spend large amounts of time with customer service, why aren’t I? And because I don’t get feedback from my customers I’m not sure if its because they are completely happy or just don’t feel like its worth the effort of sending an IM. And yes I think you can presume from this that I am also very insecure – lol.
What you’re still here? Man you must have nothing better to do today But seeings as how you are, perhaps you can help me answer my last puzzling question.
My prices. Now I’ve always hated how much it costs to buy clothing, yes maybe I’m a cheapskate but especially in todays SL where not everyone gets stipend for some people $L are a little scarce. I prefer to make my clothing affordable. But. Again with the but! I have also heard that cheap clothing is considered just that… cheap. So am I losing a customer base because I don’t charge more? To me that just sounds insane, but on more than one occasion I’ve seen someone recommend to a new merchant they need to increase their prices. Again not something I’m losing sleep over but it does make me wonder every time I see it recommended.
Well thats my random thoughts for today, congratulations to anyone who made it this far you are my hero’s!
07.15.07
Hey look, something new :)
Well I finally decided to do something other than swimsuits – lol. So this week I offer to you a satin and leather corset set. Or should that be sets (<– notice the s ) given that there is seven colour selections? Set, sets, whichever, they are out on the wall and ready for you eager buyers. Because I know you are out there somewhere…. right?
The set(s) comes with two variations of the corset, one over breast and one under breast. It also includes a g-string and a pair of lace top stockings.
They come on every top layer possible so you can mix and match them with almost anything. So we have Peach, Pink, Gold, Green, Blue, Black & Red which you can see in the little pics below. Did you know if you click on them you get to see bigger pics? Bet you did huh
07.10.07
Relay for life
At one point hmm late last year I think, it seemed every time you turned around there was yet another designer releasing something for RFL. This was also something I wanted to do because I believe that it is a great charity. But I didn’t want to be another person in the crowd, looking like someone just jumping on the bandwagon. So I decided to wait a little, after all RFL wasn’t just for one day, or one week, I had time.
And then I forgot.
I’ll admit it, its true. I forgot. Completely. Hidden in a fog, never heard of this RFL stuff, what that’s still going on? That kind of forgot.
Then last week someone said something that reminded me of my good intentions and didn’t I feel embarrassed! Even though the only person who knew I forgot was myself.
So I dedicated myself to making the best outfit I have so far. And I’m extremely happy with the result. I’m hoping that it has a wide appeal and make lots of lots of sales. Need to make up for the fact I was a little bit slower coming to the party then I meant to be. Well my father has been known to say that I would be late to my own funeral, so I guess it isn’t out of character
Anyway there are quite a few pieces to this outfit. I comes with..
- a shrug on the jacket layer
- a long dress (this is a system dress)
- a mini dress (yes for RFL I ventured back into prim world)
- toe pairs of pants, one with the RFL bow and one without.
- the top is of course the top to both dresses and the pants, so you only get one of those
So without further ado, my RFL outfit, available now in my main store.
