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| Lludmila waits for a house to rez at the Collabor88 Home and Garden Showroom. |
I've been remiss of late - not posting anything on my blogs. I've got lots of good reasons. Well, reasons, anyway. It's hard to photograph, trim, write up, document items. So I have decided to just list a few favorite shops here - and post some photos if I feel like it.
This post is limited to houses and furnishings. I have no end of both - much of which was exceedingly cheap or free, "free" being my favorite color. But there are several shops I will go to and actually pay for things. Okay, I cheat with Trompe Loeil - I get that stuff from Collabor88. Oh, I dread the coming of Collabor88 each month - knowing how little resistance I have as well as how difficult it is to even get in there in the first week to ten days.
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| Frostbite Cottage, Willoughby Lakehouse, Cortona Villas, Rustic Cabin, Beach Bungalow, oopsie - Outdoor Rock Shower, Chatham Loft Skybox. Note how some houses hover in midair. |
So, that's my first shop: Trompe Loeil. I have counted 12 houses/buildings from Cory Edo, whom I follow on Plurk where she entices us with unfinished versions of things for Collabor88 and FaMESHed. I avoid FaMESHed because I think the wares there are over-priced. Some of these TL structures have only been deployed long enough for me to say, "Ooooo, miiiiine." I've lived in others. By "lived in" I mean I kitted them out with furnishings and spent some time with them. They are all gorgeous. They are perfection. And that is my only quibble with them. I don't live in perfection in RL, so a lack of scrapes and dings makes me uneasy. "Perfection" is not necessarily realistic.
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| Barton Creek Tower section, Caramel (with Trompe Loeil furniture), the Moose that made me so happy, Westlake Mini in the trees. |
I have only four buildings from L2 Studios, but I have used them all. L2S structures are all about dings. My absolute favorite house was the Caramel, which has been deployed several times. The Westlake Mini was out for ages because I liked it so much. By "ages" I mean many months. Second Life time works like dog years, only even faster. The Writer's Shed is now up on Awen - and is sprinkled with quirky things from Art Dummy, Kusshon, Ionic and Sway's.
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| The Writer's Shed - in some artsy midnight mode. |
Waldinsel is littered with my buildings and Waldron suggested I could just pile them all up at 100 meter intervals, but he's nice enough to let me stick stuff all over and I don't want to wear out my welcome. And too many houses are distracting. Yonks ago there was a hunt on some island where you could get a coffee shop, if you found the egg or whatever the prim was, and that building lived in my inventory unused (typical) until recently. I was so intrigued by the overly generous freebie (I think an entire building with really nice textures is pretty darn generous) that I went to the shop's showroom and looked at all the houses. I picked one called, prosaically, "08" and purchased it. The two of them now stand side-by-side on a huge grass prim (oh, so much easier than trying to arrange a house on uneven ground), "08" now filled with almost every piece I've ever gotten from this last favorite shop-where-I-will-actually-pay-for-stuff, Zinnia's.
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| Cambodia inspired jungle pool (subscriber gift), psychiatrist furniture, bathhouse (and HY's 08), more Zinnia stuff. I'd add more, but frankly, there's so much. Go look at my Flickr pages. |
I love the colorful southwestern style from Zinnia's. Sure, I've accumulated some free stuff through the hunts from there, but I've also bought quite a bit. As colorful as it all is, it all seems to coordinate. I haven't been so happy with decorating since I found the moose head to put in the Westlake Mini (see L2S photos above). There is no more room in "08" and I've already had to remove a bed so I could put in a daybed instead. And if she puts out something else, I suppose I'll have to sacrifice some other furnishing to stick back in a file folder for a while.
There are so many other places with great things (Post is one that springs to mind), but these are the main three.
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| The Dreaming House is probably just up long enough to admire it. Sigh. |
Shops:
Trompe Loeil Mainstore
Collabor88 (Several favorite shops are regulars there - Clawtooth & Barnesworth Anubis, for example. Collabor88 opens on the 8th day of each month and is heck-on-toast to get into.)
L2 Studio
Zinnia's
Other Locations:
Lludmila's Pied a Terre in Awen (Wormhole to Chatham Loft skybox inside)
Willa Waldinsel (a collaborative work in progress)
Cafe Lludmila (just 'cuz)
