Bringing out the good stuff in Second Life®: fashion, hot spots, freebies, etc.

I was browsing xstreet yesterday when these couches by Brookston Holiday caught my eye. The black leather club couch has me especially smitten ! They’re sold as full perm maps here, with texture maps that seem easy to recolor.

Exactly a year ago, as I sat there being very, very bored, I pretty much decided overnight to start a blog about the nice stuff in Second Life, and within 24 hours, the first post was up. I can’t believe I stuck to it that long ! It kind of proved addictive, who knew ?

Anyways, after 3 years in SL, I also have finally decided, as well, to start making stuff. And so to mark the day, it so happens that I have something I made to give you ! Me, myself ! I made this set of decorative plates, that I put out for free at the shop I just set up at creators pavillion, for all of today. Afterwards, I’ll be selling them 25L apiece. I think I may make more plates later, but for now this set will do. I sculpted and baked them, and learnt a new texture technique, yay !

Oh, and also I made these lamps, with a cloth over it. I’ll probably make variants later as these were really my first attempt at making cloth, and I kind of rushed production a little. And I ran out of prims already at the shop so I put out only 3 colours.

Update. I moved my shop to Cupcake, and anything I make will be found there for the foreseeable future. And thank you, thank you to everyone who came and bought something or was interested enough to pick up my modest gift too. :)

Following the closing of Cicada, Reda Bertolucci and Emilie Freund are finally releasing some of the sumptuous custom builds that they’d made for it as prefabs. My personal favourite wasn’t part of the houses that were selected for retail, which numbers three (the one I liked most among them being ‘Tanja’). Each model can be bought furnished or unfurnished and is very prim-savvy ! The houses’ rez-faux comes in the shape of a moving truck, that disappears after you’re done setting up your new home, which made me quite smile. Demos are here.

Each texture is unique and baked with shadows, giving a lot of realism without having to run actual live shadows in your client.

This week’s 50L Friday is bringing some amazing bargains, not least this barn by Turnip Sorbet that you can have for 50L only ! It is copyable and comes with a fence and props to put inside, though the props are sold separately, consisting of hay stacks, crates, and even a hay table, with a lace cloth (which I loved). Just the fence would be a steal at 50L, but all this ?! Turnip made the build to give her bunnies a home and is practically giving it away for a day, just to share ! It might be available only today. Grab it here.

Another 50L Friday bargain is this cute chandelier from Kyoot, and it is mod/copy.

Also cheap buys, this spice rack and teapot were made by Shizuku Halcali, and can be found at Kloka. 50L and 100L, copyable only.

One of Chronokit’s most recent releases, this table comes also in a smaller, square version and has several wood textures included.

As of today, everyone with a Premium SL account gets to pick their own free Linden Home, on specially designated sims, along with an allotment of 117 prims, not counting the ones from the house. Both a nice gesture and a smart move on the part of Linden Labs, this both adds value to Premium packages and should help bolster the growing home owning business in SL, both for land barons and interior designers, by giving more people a taste at playing house.

There are a few colour themes, and some structure variations on them, to pick from.  The houses are not modifiable and you cannot get more than 117 prims. All parcels are huddled close together. All these limitations are to encourage you to seek your dream land once you have outgrown your Linden Home, I suppose. And it’s really mostly free if you pay for your membership yearly, since you get the amount of your subscription back in the form of a weekly stipend (of 300L/week).

What I’m liking most about the houses being all so close is the sense of community that is going to come from living here, once more people have settled in. I have personally never had a Premium account, so I guess I will only come over to one of these as a visitor, but I can see this growing into something nice in general to have around !

There are so many private residential sims on SL, but I’ve always shunned from ever getting land on them because they can look so random altogether, you never know what your neighbour is going to put up, and you tend to put up “barriers” around yourself, either by living in a skybox or restricting access, generally ignoring everyone else on the sim. Now these Linden Home sims may be really uniform, but I can imagine people who reside there will likely be interacting more, with more neighbourly stuff going on. That could be nice.

More details here on the Linden Labs blog, and TP to one of the sims here.

Update. I just noticed there are 3 more types of houses, depending on which sim you visit: Japanese, Lord of the ring, and mountain cabins. I would describe the quality of the builds as “adequate”. Also, I have to say that after an hour, you may begin to experience a slight feeling of claustrophobia, as I did.

Here comes my last furniture spam of the day, I promise. And it starts with beautiful lamps from Phi. 150L, no mod/no copy.

Ishi I didn’t know and I think it has pretty awesome stuff and there are going to be so many more good things to come from it in the future, I’m sure. I got pretty enthusiastic today about their cottage. There was no demo, but the owner, Butterfli Summers, was kind enough to rezz a copy so I could look. It is pretty primmy but really detailed, and if you don’t have to count your prims, you might very well fall in love with it. It is so cute and charming. There are recesses perfect to place a little bed or a rug or cushions on and dream inside, while looking out the window… Butterfli also has the best pricing system as well. Her prefabs (she has two so far) cost about 1L per prim ! So this cottage is only 850L for, that’s right, 837 prims. But that means she has another build, a skybox, really cheap for sale next to it too !

Trash Wahwah, from the blog “Blah to wah“, has put out some really cute things of his own for sale, and this is his ottoman, I love the colours !

This table I made ! And I’m selling it at one of the stands at ALBERO, too. There are 9 colours, 75L each, and there’s a texture-change version too that costs 325L. The menu is slightly cumbersome to use, I’ll admit, but I’m hoping to replace it as soon as the texture-change script I got gets an upgrade. The tables are no-mod but I included three sizes. They’re kinda like stools in proportion. I had started to make those a couple of days ago and I kind of put them out on an impulse during the night and I didn’t even have time to think of a proper brand name. I didn’t want to be lame and sell them as “Lili’s tables”, though, so “North West” will do for now.

This week-end has quite a bit going on, home interior wise, with the opening of the Home & Garden section at ALBERO, and the debut of the “Spruce Up Your Space” monthly event, which has a variety of home interior designers each put out a creation at a discounted price, according to a proposed theme. Zedellbee Zuhal is part of the first round of designers to participate and here’s the vanity dresser that she has made in response to the “Cupid’s house” theme (with more of her other things below). You will find it at her ALBERO outlet, for 125L only this week-end !

Today Trace Osterham is officially opening Theosophy, his furnishings store with a first outlet at ALBERO Home & Garden. Beautiful woods, clean sober lines and muted tones sum up the first offering from this burgeoning brand. Check out these salt ‘n pepper shakers, aren’t they just darling ? More to come soon ! Prefabs are on the way…

I had to grab this at (pda) for the books inside !

You might want wood for your chimney, and I love this prop from Napoliy. Great textures on the logs !

This adorable board is Annunziata Macchi’s gift for the Starlust Valentine’s Day hunt. It should be at her Molto Bene satellite there. You can drop your pictures inside the polaroids. Will definitely be used !

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BettiePage Voyager has been making the cutest kitchen stuff of late, and her much awaited latest release is finally out ! New today are the pans, pots, rice cookers, and a kitchen counter complete with stove (also a little skybox too). At BP*.