From sim to shining sim

Second Life has made me feel really good about myself lately. I’ve spent a lot of time watching the horrific scenes from Haiti and wanting to do something to help. You can read a little more about how I found a way to pitch in on the Avatar Weekly website.

Just to update that article, the skybox on Scribble has now raised in excess of TWO MILLION LINDEN to benefit the earthquake victims of Haiti. That’s nearly $8,000 US dollars – not too shabby when you consider their original goal was to raise a few hundred bucks. They also have a corporate sponsor who’s going to match that, and the skybox will be there through at least Sunday, January 24. I’d love to see it hit the three million Linden mark.

As of the time I’m writing this, 1,275 Linden of that came from the objects I donated to the cause. Yeah, it’s a drop in the bucket, works out to maybe $2.50 in real money. But it’s SOMETHING. And it came from things I created myself. The national flower of Haiti is the hibiscus and I’ve taken some pretty good photos of those, so I picked three, made a frame texture in Photoshop to go with them and put them in a box. I included a full-perm version of the texture I put on the box – it was kind of an experiment, a sailboat silhouetted against an ocean sunset, done entirely in Photoshop with no base images except for the sailboat, and THAT’S pretty much unrecognizable from the original.

Then I got the idea, since I had Haiti’s national flower, to do something with its national bird, the Hispaniolan Trogon. I found various photos online to use as a guide and sketched the bird sitting in a tree, then added a hibiscus. I used Photoshop to color the whole thing, which didn’t turn out badly considering it took me less than two hours from start to finish. I may do up a spiffier version when I have more time and send it out free of charge to everyone who purchased the one at the Haiti fundraiser skybox. In case you were wondering, the idea for that came from OMGWTF Barbecue with the land provided by Radio Signals of Scribble.

Meanwhile I’ve been busy writing and editing for Avatar Weekly along with writing for a new publication called Siren Magazine, and also trying to get my shop made over. My breedable pets menagerie has grown to include pigs and two kinds of bunnies in addition to the chickens and turtles – definitely a few more blog posts in there when I have time! And after more than a year of running around in mostly freebie clothing, I’ve discovered Second Life fashion – AND HOW. Don’t be surprised if a “What Vic is wearing” feature starts appearing here.

Meanwhile, get your butt to Scribble and check out the Haiti fundraiser. There are all kinds of items from all kinds of vendors, and 100% of EVERYTHING sold goes to the American Red Cross for disaster relief.

Did you ever have one of those nights when someone mentions a store having a really great sale so you TP there and check it out, and then you think of something else you want, or somebody tells you about another sale, so you TP there, and end up spending your whole night TPing around to go shopping?

That was me last night. I gave up on what was left of my sionCorn (too primmy, too laggy, tired of having to buy fertilizer), so I harvested it all and then found a place selling cobs for 25L. They had four cobs so I bought them all and converted them all to chicken feed (hopefully a Martian chicken is in my future!). Then I saw Rai’s post on Plurk about 5L clothes at Winterstock – OMG, GO! Fat packs of gorgeous halters and tops for FIVE LINDEN! Plus a giant Ferris wheel to ride, and a lot of shops giving away some really nice free stuff.

Also hit up Oxy’s Dresses, which is set up beautifully, very nice displays, AND has a whole room full of awesome freebies. Got some more nice freebies at fri.day’s. They’re having a huge holiday sale, and I also picked up a really cute hair in four colors for only 75L. Normally I prefer flexi hair to sculpted, but the texturing on this is GORGEOUS.

Nicky Ree has BEAUTIFUL stuff and some quality freebies as well, and Simone has beautiful dresses and gowns for 150L – trust me, they’re worth a LOT more. I’ve recently discovered Icing and I LOVE her stuff. Make sure you go upstairs to the bargain room! I got some cute dresses and an adorable outfit called Beachcomber (it’s the one I’m wearing in my first SecondLife365 snapshot on Flickr), although my favorite is All Eyes On Me. I have Brandi to thank for giving me an Icing gift card!

I tend to be Linden-challenged, so I’m all about the freebies and cheapies and big sales – the NICE ones. When I was a n00b and had no Linden at all, I wasted a lot of time grabbing any box titled “Free women’s clothing.” Forget that, I’d rather hit a couple of designer stores and grab two or three really nice freebies than waste half an hour grabbing everything within reach at one of the freebie megalopolises.

One thing I really want to add – if you find a freebie or cheapie that’s really a nice item, try to support that merchant by buying a regular-price item from them if you can afford it, and recommend them to your friends. I bought a few items at regular price, but I still came out WAY ahead when you compare all the stuff I ended up with to what I spent.