*Second Spaces *Design Contest!

Interior decorators! Design enthusiasts! Folks who just love to put pretty things together in a room! Second Spaces is delighted to announce our first ever Shadowbox Design Contest!!

Exotic Getaway Shadowbox Design Contest

ex·ot·ic
adj.
Intriguingly unusual or different; excitingly strange

Here’s how it works: each contestant gets a Second Spaces shadowbox to decorate. “Exotic Getaway” can mean a lot of things — especially in Second Life! We have an expert panel of designer judges who will select our winners – we’ll be looking for creativity, clever aesthetics, smart use of prims, and an overall sense of design. Make your shadowbox a place where the judges will want to vacation! 😉 The contest will run for approximately 2 weeks, during which the contestants can organize their shadowboxes. We’ll wrap it up with an event on August 9th when the boxes are ready for viewing — we’ll have a live DJ and festivities, the judges will make their selections and we’ll announce the winners at the end of the event! It’ll be a party, so everyone is invited!

Here’s what you need to know:
– There are only 10 shadowboxes available. *UPDATE: August 6 — one box has become available again! If you think you can pull it off by Saturday, then get over there and grab it!** To enter the contest, jump over to the Second Spaces contest grounds, select an available shadowbox and claim it as yours. To claim it, you need to do three things:

1. You’ll see a rent box in front of the shadowbox; right click and pay $1L to rent the space.
2. Right-click and Buy the shadowbox for $0L. Do NOT Take the shadowbox into your inventory; when you buy it, you’re buying the original, so leave it sitting right where it is. Buying it will allow you to retexture the inside of the box as needed.
3. Send an IM to Elle Kirshner to let her know you’ve entered the contest!

– Only 200 prims are allowed in your design! That includes furniture, accessories, plants — whatever you use. 200 prims is all you get!
– No more than $1000L can be spent on your design! That’s right — it’s exotic on a budget. 🙂 On the day of the contest event, you’ll be asked to provide a notecard detailing all objects purchased and their Linden value.
– Your design elements can be purchased OR built by you! Now’s your chance to show off your building skills!
– Only the INSIDE of the shadowbox can be re-textured. The outside must remain textured with the Second Spaces background.
– You may place items just outside the shadowbox on the platform, if needed.

That’s it!! Prize categories and prize packages will be announced soon. Here’s what I can tell you now: the prizes are provided by some of the best furniture/decor designers in all of Second Life!

Contest Sponsors:
The Loft // Heart Garden Centre
Melino Style // Ramos Designs
Del Sol Furniture // Avenue Four

Don’t miss your chance — get over to the Second Spaces contest grounds and claim your shadowbox, then get to it! Keep your eye on the blog for more info on the prizes and the progress of the contest! Good luck!!

*Top 12* Summation!

Here’s sort of a quick link guide to the Top 12 places. I hope it’s been useful — I really, truly appreciate the great comments received here and in-world, and it’s been absolutely delightful to speak with several of the designers that were spotlighted in the list. I’m going to add a link over to the right of the page so that this post can be easily accessed going forward, and I really do hope it can be considered a toolkit of sorts for folks who are ready to claim their own second space!

Houses:

Part 1: Barnesworth Anubis Pre-Fab[ulous] Homes & Furniture [blog post]

Part 2: The Black Spot Shipyard [blog post]

Furniture:

Part 3: The Loft [blog post]

Part 4: Mezzanine [blog post]

Part 5: Del Sol Furniture [blog post]

Part 6: Rustica Home Furnishings [blog post]

Part 7: Ramos Designs Furniture [blog post]

Landscape:

Part 8: Heart Garden Centre [blog post]

Part 9: Botanical [blog spot]

Accessories:

Part 10: CAS [blog post]

Part 11: Avenue Four [blog post]

Part 12: Shade Fantasy Outfitters [blog post]

Thanks again to all for the positive feedback on this series. Stay tuned — I’ve got more evil plots that I’m hatching and plan to unleash on the world – you don’t wanna miss that! In the meantime, I’m going to try my best to resume regularly blogging; I have a few places I was contacted to review, so I want to be sure to get those taken care of first. Hope you’ll check back often!

*Designer Spotlight* The Loft

I attended the opening of The Loft’s new sim last night – and I was like a giddy schoolgirl in the hours leading up to it. 🙂 As I expected, it was beautiful. The shop is centered around a gorgeous courtyard; there’s a lot of empty space right now, but I’m sure that will be filled up soon enough. Check out the shadows from the trees – I love that!

The party was nice – The Loft folks had set up one of the empty spaces with a dance floor, tables, and a stage for the live performers. Phemie Alcott started the night with an impressive acoustic set – she did a soft acoustic cover of Umbrella by Rihanna which was just beautiful. Next up to the mic was Kafka Dinzeo who took us through a pounding set of live rap mixes, including one he made just for The Loft which was really fun. It was great to finally meet Colleen Desmoulins and Bethany Heart in person; Kingston Augustus, the third designer, was not in attendance.

I did wander around, of course, but I didn’t take a ton of pictures because I want you to go there and see it for yourself. Yes, you, dear reader! There were two new sets displayed that looked awesome:

AND there were pre-fabs, which is what I was most excited about. There are three displayed on the perimeter of the sim, and they’re all fantastic. My parting words, as I said my goodbyes and gave my thanks for the invite, were “Colleen, I’m going to marry all three of your prefabs.” I am. Seriously. You have to go see them — the details and the depth we know from The Loft’s furniture is all over these houses. The little details, the awesome textures – gorgeous. Here are exterior shots, just as a tease! From left to right, the Pusa Hilton, the Hattan Skybox, and The Bago:

I also loved that The Loft crew used the lighted tree from Heart Garden Centre as decoration in the party room. It IS the best tree ever!

Get over to the new sim to check it out, here. Go buy yourself one of those lighted trees at Heart Garden Centre, too, while you’re hopping around the grid. 🙂

*Holiday Stuff*

Ok, first — Happy Holidays, all. Second — I’ve been searching for cool holiday decor, and have not really found much that I consider above & beyond. Sure, you can find trees and wreaths and garlands and lights all over the place – some are nice, some are not – but I was looking for things a bit outside the norm, things with a bit more charm. I will continue my hunt, but I wanted to go ahead and share what I’ve found so far.

First, at Boudoir, owner Xia Xevious has several really cute, great quality items. She has Christmas ornaments that have exactly the texture I’ve been trying to create myself — and which has remained elusive to me. Great job, Xia — I am envious.

Xia has a collection of other items, shown below – great detail and nice features, like the color change. The snowmen are so cute that I had to buy them, and they now reside happily in front of my bamboo patch.

I also checked out Ramos Designs, one of my frequently-shopped choices for furniture and accessories. They have a large selection of Christmas items – again, a lot of trees, lights, wreaths, etc – all great quality, as expected from Ramos, and certainly worth checking out. I bought some lights to decorate the club, and I’ll have to post some pics of that later. Also, they had an awesome Santa chair, complete with Santa and poseballs. I swear I took pics of that…but I can’t seem to locate them. I’ll have to come back to that. Another thing they had at Ramos that caught my eye were some adorable and wonderfully detailed tabletop Christmas trees!! Wee and petite – I love them!

For my house, I didn’t get too fancy. I have my snowmen, of course, and I picked up a very nice and simple and *free* Christmas Tree from Mantra’s Doll City location. There’s a 4 prim version and a 10 prim version, and the trees are copy. Very simple, and slightly elegant — nice detail, again.

And now — I saved the best for last. 🙂 Of course, I had to check in at Heart Garden Centre, my absolute favorite place for SL plants, and those wonderful Heart girls did not let me down!!!!

The lighted trees may be some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in SL. I ❤ them beyond words. The poinsettia bush is awesome – you have to love a poinsettia plant during the holidays, and an entire bush? Absolutely. The detail, as always, is amazing. Man, I have been all about detail in this post — it’s important!

You can find Xia’s stuff upstairs at her Boudoir location in Roosa.

Check out Ramos Designs holiday items here on Ramos Island.

Check out Heart Garden Centre’s holiday items at their main sim. The lighted trees come in white, pink, blue, green, and red, and are available as singles or in landscaping packs of saplings or mature trees. They also have Christmas trees, garlands, etc — I picked up some poinsettia garlands that I’m going to put in the club, too. I’ll have to update once I’ve done that. Check it out – enjoy!

*Design Job* Ulrich’s Place

I decorated my friend Ulrich Renoir’s place several months ago, and am just now getting around to blogging it. Truth be known, there’s still more I’d like to do with it, especially landscaping around the patio and hot tub, and maybe Ulrich and I will venture into that someday in the future. Regardless, the place still looks great, and I hope Ulrich is enjoying it. (Ulrich is easily distracted 😉 and has been occupying his SL time with setting up his own rental properties – they look great, too, and there’s been mention of me landscaping those properties. In the meantime, check Ulrich’s profile Picks tab in-world if you’re looking for a cute rental house!)

The house is another great prefab from Barnesworth Anubis. The villa style doesn’t necessarily ‘go with’ the alpine hillside, but who cares. It’s a cool house. 🙂

We’ll start with the entry. The bookshelf is from the Loft3 — one of my favorites, of course. The planter in the corner was made by me, and I filled it with some gorgeous lillies from Heart Garden Centre — another one of my favorites. The Rocky poster was Ulrich’s, and the one item that he insisted remain in the house. No objections from me – I love Rocky! – so I made it a focal point. The Alabama posters are more creations of mine — Ulrich is an Alabama boy. 🙂 The rug is from Del Sol, an awesome shopping experience, and one that I should highlight soon. As you come through the front door and turn to your left, you see the awesome spiral staircase, and we set up a basic entrance. If Ulrich received SL mail, I imagine he’d place it on this table.

We kept the living room simple with a basic, tailored set from Ramos Designs. Ulrich had previously procured the candles and placed them in the fireplace, for which he received 10 decorating points. 🙂 The rug is from Van’s Home & Garden, and the mirror is from The Old Curiosity Shop. The Monkees poster is another surprise creation/gift from me to Ulrich. We both ❤ the Monkees.

At the top of the stairs, we have a small seating area. The chaise is another piece from the Ramos Designs living room set, and the dresser goes with the bedroom set, which is also from The Loft3. Both pieces of wall art are from The Loft3, as well. The rug is from Del Sol.

Finally, we have what Ulrich deemed the Love Nook. I’m not sure if capitalization is appropriate, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. 🙂 The seating is from Neva Naughty (heh heh), the white rug and the candles are from Ramos Designs. The pictures in the corner are more creations of mine, just for Ulrich’s house.

Check out these designers in SL:

Ramos Designs, Del Sol, The Loft3, Neva Naughty, Heart Garden Centre