Stylish with Substance

We had life things pop up, and now Valentine's Day is nearly upon us, while Fashion Week already is!

Expect the series to start today and last through the show coverage.

Beezy-beezy-beezy!

In other news, Bag Dream (and all my blogs) are moving and merging into one. Fabulista.OnSugar.com. Life changes mean I must simplify, but it will only be good things, still with separate sections!

Happy Holidays to all! I know we're a little late for Yule and Channukuh, but happy holidays to truly all!!

Little Gifts...

For the guys... eye candy!

[caption id="attachment_1421" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="click for slideshow from The Sun."][/caption]

For the girls... Discount Designer Shoes! (or just Shoe Porn!)

Discounted ... on BlueFly.

Whatever you deserve or your loved ones can afford, you must be wishing for something this holiday season. (Whether it's someone, a saved world, cash or a designer bag from Santa's sack.)

Now this poll's anonymous, so be perfectly honest about what thoughtful gifts you hopefully receive you wish would count in the monetary sense.

If there's no answer that sums up your truly nice and generous wishes, leave a comment with your "other".

[poll id="10"]

What's a bagista (a designer handbag lover) to do to mix her man (or woman) and her fabulous bags that, let's face it, may not be so male-friendly?

Follow this series starting soon here on Bag Dream! Upcoming topics:

• Size Matters : of your bag (what size purse to carry on early dates and when it's OK to let loose).


• Commitment: Dating and Variety of Purses : will a large rotation of bags / a new purse each date freak out your mate? Proceed with caution and gauge his comfort level.


• IT Intimi-date-tion : will expensive bags freak out your mate? Gauge your brand level introduction-timing by his purseonality type.


• Mr. Big (Bag) : Find comfort in finding who actually carries a bag larger than any of yours? (AND it's a manly-man bag at that!) Find out what activity this guy does that forces this!


• Meet the Purses (more important than meeting the parents) : When it's OK to introduce your fave IT bag (the one that surely just looks craziest to the male of our species).


• Lesbian Dates : How to feel out her purse-type-comfort.


• Explain Your Other Love According to his Purseonality : How to explain your purses to your guy (depending on his personality type).


• For the guys: poll(s?)!


• From the guys: opinions straight from their mouths (or typing hands).

P(urse).Script. As the series concludes, we should lead right into Valentine's Day, which will come after some V-Day bag suggestions!

Post.Purse.Script : Yes, the Designer Ella has found someone and is not at all jealous when discussing the big L! (No, not just Louis Vuitton anymore!) (Btw, yes, he's My Mr. Big Bag, lol. A purse-fect match!)

If you want to catch this series, then you may want to subscribe to our feed or bookmark/blogroll the site.

We recently started polling YOU on what we/I should write about here on Kiss Me Stace. You can add topics by clicking the "add an answer" link, typing, and hitting "vote". (See the placement in the above image.) Or you can vote for already-listed topics, just like a regular poll.

I needed to inform you about this because the only response so far is a vote for this very post (how to suggest topics). Clearly that shows a two-fold reason. You need to know about it and there's *some* wondering how this works, at least.

Can't find the poll? See another screen cap that might help below this mini review of the service we started using first, and what we use now (a "simple" plugin). Basically it's on the sidebar to the very right under the rotating topical poll.

I was using Skribit (research on Google) to do this, until I realized that they don't allow for placing different polls on multiple blogs. Well, they will soon, but for a subscription fee. This is nuts for a network of blogs, and a blogger who can get topic blocks. Especially since this can easily be done with the Democracy Poll plugin for WordPress blog platforms. Free and so simple! (One can still use the plugin for other polls / polls in posts, but I usually don't since the new WP version and it mix a little funky. Blablabla...)

OK so here's that promised image guide:

Feel free to have fun using this poll if you want a review of or opinion on something related to this blog!

Updated at 3:30 a.m.

You may notice a lot of changes over the past few days, or all at once, and there are more to come. (You may also notice breif periods of messiness or "maintenance mode".) C'EST FINISH, CHERIES!

Many will also be added to our other blogs on a schedule of most active (posts/readers) first. The top priority of changing all sites though is to add a matching top navbar for better linking/visiting/recognition between blogs.

One thing I feel I should announce already is our advanced search. It can now order by relevancy or only select from categories, include pages, etc. but you must go to the advanced search page for most of these benefits. Until there are more tweaks to our layout tiny issues like no link straight to advanced search will be available. (And if you feel the previews of posts search finds needs improvement - leave a comment and I'll see what we can do!)

From every search page there is that advanced page link, plus a link to search hints, which helps with any search at the site, for instance you may use quotation marks to narrow results! I highly recommend reviewing the search hints now for all your future usage.

One more note is that the advanced search is actually easy to use, since the default and/or most commonly desirable options are pre-set for you!

That is all for tonight, back to content posts in the morning! Which reminds me to notify you (if you haven't noticed or have wondered) about the upcoming posts schedule now to your right. This lets you know I'm no longer slacking on writing, for one thing, and also actually really helps keep me in line!

Enough boring blather for now. Most of the other changes are either practical wants or monetary necessities for me and merely aesthetic for you. So just get on to viewing the blog to get used to it (although, yes, more changes are coming). I hope you (will) like it as much as I do!

See you with interesting topics starting later this morning, like I said, and note it counts down the hours after 24, so I'll refer you there now. ;-)

This question is double-layered; first, do you blog on a luxury topic? Second, if so, do you loathe researching products or posting at all? Even with more posts often meaning more income from even a hobby blog that's monetized, certain posts or whole blogs (this one) can sometimes be just too depressing to post to.

Yesterday I plainly glimpsed a pretty COACH bag and felt hunger pangs so painful I had to stop any thought about blogging about designer bags.

How things are for me right now are such: Not only is my Blockbuster Online account on hold for 3 months, but I canceled my cable. No luxuries. See, I watch most of my TV online these days anyway, and I like it that way.

This has gotten so strange I log into my handbag-shopping Facebook application every chance I get just to rack up the free fake $100s. Easiest money ever, although fake. And then I don't spend it.

My whole shopaholicism has been cured this year, it went from downgrading what I spent my "extra" money on. From designer bags to cheap-thrill bags to bag-making supplies, to simply $2 online movies, to pretty much nothing pure entertainment anymore. This will be my stingiest gift giving season in my entire life, to boot. What am I requestiing, by the way? Gift cards to stores where I can replenish my wardrobe because I've lost a lot of weight and am swimming in pajamas, and just dealing. (People, pajamas are like my office attire, ok. Haha.) Pure necessity that I've put off myself.

Still the purses make me crave. They lure me like sirens until I'm trapped in despair. I'll never stop wanting those pretty, pretty purses. Sometimes, you know, it's worse to blog about what you love. This is kind of like focusing on an unrequited love for a living, without the catharsis of say lyricism. Ouch, indeed.

Le Sigh.

Apologies for no blogging lately (old story?) esp. for Black Friday. I had a topic geared more toward what Black Friday would be this economic year (bigger, smaller?)...

Instead of that "B.F." I found a different "thing" with those initials; a boyfriend. And there's no black (kind of including the "in the black" making heaps o' money re: last week, whoops) in my world view, only rose. The color of love.

*Pauses for you to recover from nausea.*

Since I started this blog, Ella has been single. Dreadfully single with hardly a date. The last date I blogged about actually never happened. I hate jinxing things, grr. I think this relationship is beyond and a little more mature than being jinxable. :-)

Anyway, I swear I'm trying to be better, better than last week's little self-imposed "honeymoon" and better than even before :-) and I'll blog more. Right now I'm facing fatigue, just a personal occasional issue that I need to fight and will also try harder with now.

Anyway, this holiday is not just about shopping and deals, it's about thanks giving. So I want to also note a thank you to my lovely readers. Thank you for not only sticking by me but encouraging me whenever I show you I need it. I love you (too). Blog soon! <3--Ella

Almost every day that I don't write, one "obstacle" my mind feels it faces is that since I've been writing infrequently, I *must* make posts count... this leads not to writer's block but to "topic block". I'm a nutty little squirrel, yes, so why not just poll my visitors about what I might always more often fall back on?

If you have other ideas, please please leave them in the comments! But do remember the direction I want the site to take. Thanks so much!

[poll id="5"]

I tried hard to spare you the technical details (you're welcome)*:

Our host tried to do their clients a favor by spring cleaning

database organization, and the resulting control panel was inevitably tidy, but they failed to foresee some customers' sites may have been forced down

until webmasters tweaked a config - like KMS unfortunately (but not my/our other currently active sites).

They stupidly did this on a Saturday afternoon EST - a non-working day when some customers may miss the e-mail to inspect our sites for any snafus. Le Sigh. We're up, we're good, and this particular issue is completely finished.

*If you're a techie and curious, just ask about the story. :-)