~Salvia~

So, new shop, and a new house.

This is the fourth house I've had in SL.  The second one was a mistake, I realized immediately, but the first one, and the third--the one I just left--were lovely, and I liked them a lot.  But the areas where they were got progressively more and more crowded and laggy.  I stayed with the last one for a really long time, or a relatively long time, in SL terms, maybe six months.

The area was lovely when I first moved there, the houses were spaced nicely, and there was a lot of open space.  It stayed that way for a pretty long time, then they started putting up more and more houses -- there were houses right up to my property line on both sides, and there was no longer any kind of cohesive theme to the area. 

And recently, some high rise buildings went up right next to us.  It was just getting too crowded.  So I started looking for something new, and found this new area on Cozumel last night.  The scale of the houses is a little off, I think -- the ceilings are too high -- but I like the look of it.  And even though the houses are kind of close together, they're all in the same theme, so it doesn't look junky.

I chose one of the more expensive ones right on the corner, so there's ocean on two sides, but it was still only $970/month.  A little more than I was paying before, but I think it's worth it.  I needed something with a little more illusion of privacy -- the last house was almost completely open, with no actual doors, and tons of windows.  Which was nice, but kind of exposed.  When I wanted to change clothes or take pictures, I felt kind of exposed.  This house is also bigger, and I think I can create an office upstairs.  It will be fun to furnish, I think.

While I was looking for houses, I found a row of beautiful blue Cape Cod houses in Myrtle Beach.  All of them were rented, but one of them was showing 0 full days left on the rent, and 0 prims, so I was thinking maybe that person would be giving  up the house and I could grab it, because it was exactly what I wanted.  I even thought, well, I can go ahead and get the house on Cozumel, and if the Myrtle Beach one opens up, I can get it and then let the other one go.

Well, last night I went to check again, and the rent still hadn't lapsed, but this time I clicked on the rental box to see how much it was.  Would you believe L$7,000/week??  Wow.  I did the math, and at the current exchange rate, that's like US$28.  Who would pay over $100 a month for a virtual house?  That just seems crazy to me.  Especially when you can get this kind of view for a little over $15?

Wow, it's been almost a month since I posted here.  RL has kind of been kicking my butt, and although I try never to mix the two, well, it happens.

I was even thinking of leaving SL, but I was online last night and found an empty store at Mischief Plaza, and grabbed it, and spent half the day today setting it up.  It's still a work in progress, but it's getting there.  I had already decided to re-brand -- since most of the things I make seem to have an Asian influence, the name "Origami" came to me the other night, and I decided to use it for my shop.

I still need to make new signs for some of my stuff, but the Kanji tees are up, and the rugs and cushions.  Isn't it cute?

 

Last night I put up some new Kanji tee-shirts.  This time I made them beige, and the symbols are kind of degraded and faded out.  I always try to choose a group of symbols that make sense together, like the ones I made near Valentine's Day (Love, Loyalty, Harmony, Grace, Eternity, Devotion, Destiny).  That time I made the "Love" tee free.

This time around they're Happiness, Forgiveness, Gentleness and Tao, mostly because I liked the way the words sounded together.  Individually, they're L$25, with the Forgiveness one priced at only L$2.  There's also a fat pack with all four for L$60.

~Salvia~ @ Mischief Bazaar

I've been thinking about the freebie thing and the various hunts and contests, and while this is probably stuff that I should keep to myself, when I occasionally read things like this in other blogs, it makes me feel like I should put my opinion out there, too, even though I don't think this blog is read by more than  few people.

I do very much appreciate the designers who give out free items.  I almost always look around the designer's store rather than just TP'ing in and grabbing the free items, and quite often I buy items there.  Frankly, I buy a LOT of stuff, and I generally learn about new shops by going there to pick up free items and looking around.

I give out free items from my little shop, too, and I can tell that a few people actually buy things when they get there, which is nice, and obviously that's the whole reason for giving free things -- to attract people to the shop -- but if they don't buy anything, that's cool, too.  I don't give things out with the expectation that people will buy anything else, nor do I expect a thank you.  If I happen to be around the shop when someone drops in, it's always nice if they do say thank you, but I don't expect anyone to go look up my profile and go to the trouble of sending me an IM or notecard.

I don't do that, either.  If I'm in a store and the owner is there, I will definitely thank them (often right before I blink out -- I'm pretty shy about starting conversations with people -- but that's only polite.

I don't understand people who complain about free things, but I also don't understand the designers who complain that the people who pick up their freebies aren't grateful enough.  Come on, if that bothers you, stop giving them out.  And as for the people who complain about people "group hopping" -- what else are we supposed to do?  With a limit of 25 groups, it's hard.  I have groups for my home, my store, and a couple of friends, so basically I have 20 group slots.  Most of those are filled with groups for the stores that I love, and I never leave them.  But I have a few rotating ones, and I admit that sometimes if someone is giving away a great freebie, I'll join the group to get it, then the next time there's another great thing from a different group, I'll drop the first one and join the second.  It's just common sense.

If you want to retain group members, the best way to do that is to consistently give good gifts.  It just builds loyalty. 

One thing I particularly like, that I haven't seen much of, is group discounts.  Moonshine does a thing where her new releases are discounted for group members.  I don't always buy the things, but if I like them, I do.  I also like the shops who give out special colors of things to their members -- they make a new release in four or five colors, then give away a sixth color to the group.  That's cool, and I stay in the groups that do that.

Oh, and I hate the "first 10 people here get the freebie," or the "first person to IM me gets a free thing," and I also hate the secret sales.  I get my email at work, but I can't sign in to SL, and it's disheartening to get those emails when there's nothing I can do about it.  I left the groups that do that, but so many of them are in FashCon now that there's no way to get rid of all of them.

I also hate it when someone gives a group gift, then removes it from their subscribe-o-matic machine.  It doesn't cost you anything, and as far as I can tell, it only builds ill will.  If I'm in a group and get a gift, not giving the gift to someone who later joins the group doesn't benefit me, all it does is make the new person feel bad.  What's the point of that?  I guess maybe some people feel privileged to have a item that only a few people got, but with the hundreds of thousands of SL members, what's the big deal?  When are you going to run into someone wearing the same thing?

And also?  A 2 or 3 hour sale or hunt might get you a big surge in traffic, but who in their right mind wants to hit a big store so full of people that you can't walk?  Or spend an hour walking or flying all over a sim looking for a tiny box?  I really enjoyed some of the Halloween hunts, particularly the one at Artilleri.  Some of the items were difficult to find, but not so difficult that you felt like the owners were laughing at you, you know?  And with all the SL issues lately, sometimes it takes forever for anything to rez, and more often than not I just give up, with a bad taste in my mouth.

It's not that I don't appreciate the effort.  I do.  I just think that sometimes things could be a little more user friendly.  Or just friendly, period.

I was trying on things last night and put on the beautiful new linen skirt from The Closet.  The light was SO beautiful--it was sunrise--that I took a bunch of pictures.

Seeing this skirt on, I realized that I could finally justify the Quartz Point Chakra Belly Chain from EarthStones, so I TP'ed over there and bought it.  I already had the necklace and earrings.  Normally I don't wear so much matching jewelry at one time, but this seemed to work pretty well.

Then I was working in my inventory, and found the gift card that Imperial Elegance so generously sent out to group members -- she has a new subscriber system that doesn't allow you to get gifts after the fact, so you can't get it now, but it's definitely worth belonging to the group, imho -- so I TP'ed over there to take a look, and ended up buying two poses from the "Cute Modeling" set.


And then I took a nap.

Credits:
Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Neutral
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Manicure: Skin Within "Celestial" Manicure
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Skirt: Long Linen Skirt, The Closet
Top: Taggy Tank in White from Surf Couture
Jewelry: Earthstones Quartz Point Chakra Earrings, Necklace and Belly Chain

Nissa Nightfire blogged my loteria t-shirts.  Too bad I can't sell them anymore.

I got an offline IM tonight from someone claiming that they have the exclusive license to use loteria images in SL and telling me that I would have to take my shirts down.  I don't know if it's true or not, I can't honestly imagine that anyone could actually have the right to keep someone else from using those images -- perhaps a specific image, but how could someone have the rights to any and all instances of something that is as old as the Mexican loteria is, and that are almost certainly in the public domain?

I'm going to do some research, but it's probably not worth making a big deal out of it.  I certainly can't afford a lawyer--this person is a big designer in SL--and I don't want to have a big fight about it.  And frankly, it doesn't make me want to fight, it makes me want to just give up.

I wrote in my diary tonight that a fall is always harder after a high -- I was feeling happy because I had sold a few of the shirts, and also that people had bought a few other things after coming by the shop after I sent out the message.  Of course, in my case making a few sales is still almost nothing, but it gave me hope that I might actually be able to make something work some day.  Now, I just don't know.

Probably overreacting, I know.  I got quite a few messages from some really lovely ladies, encouraging me and supporting me, and maybe tomorrow I'll feel differently.  But tonight I'm wondering if it's worth it at all.

Tonight I put up a set of new tees based on colorful Mexican loteria cards. The last time I was in Mexico I picked up a set of these cards, and I think they're fascinating. The game is similar to bingo; the cards are placed on game boards -- the tees picture several of these boards, each of which show nine cards.

I made five tees -- four of them are 20L$ and one is only 2L$.

Each box contains a tee-shirt extension on the underwear layer. I did check this time to be sure I had the right group tag on!

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mischief/211/42/22

I made my first FashCon notice about a week and a half ago; I had intended to make notices once a week, which is what is allowed, but you're also supposed to only make notices of new stuff, and I hadn't made any new stuff.  Then I thought, oh yeah, I did make some new stuff -- I made cushions with "Dream" poseballs in them, but they're not "fashion," of course.  Then I thought, oh, I should make a St. Patrick's Day t-shirt, so I sat down last night and did that, and then started playing around with cushions again, and made a "Meditate" cushion.

By that time it was after midnight, and I was getting sleepy, and I should have waited 'til this morning to put them out, but I just wanted to do it, so I opened up Photoshop again and took a photo of myself, sitting on the meditation cushion, wearing my new St. Patrick's Day t-shirt.  And I wrote up a notecard and mailed it off to the FashCon group.

I woke up this morning thinking, oh man, did I have the right group tag on??  And I thought, yeah, I'm sure I did, but no, of course I didn't.  When I got downstairs and checked my mail, both the new t-shirt and the meditation cushion had been autoreturned to me, and were in my Lost and Found folder.  Damn.

So this morning I sent out an apology, and attached the t-shirt itself to the  note.  Which sort of negates the whole purpose of giving out free stuff, which is to get people to come to your location and maybe buy some other stuff.  But oh well.  It needed to be done.

I sent a note to my landlord this morning asking if I could get on a waiting list for either a bigger tent, or a real shop.  I don't have that much stuff, but I'm running out of space/prims.  We'll see, I guess.

Credits:
Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Neutral
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Manicure: *Petit Ange* Nails, Green
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Capris: Icing Beachcomber Denim Capris
Top: My own - "Lucky" St. Patrick's Day Tee, available free at my tent at Mischief Bazaar
Shoes: KK Outfitters Lo-Tops, White
Jewelry: Earthstones Quartz Point Chakra Earrings, Kess Kreations' Cotidiana White Simply Pearls Bracelet

Procrastination pays off again -- I'd been meaning to get over to Second Wave Apparel and buy some of the new capris and cami's, but I couldn't decide which ones I wanted, and just hadn't made it over there yet.  Well, today they went on sale!  I rushed over and bought ALL of the capris, two fatpacks of denim minis, and ALL the cami's.  I should be set for summer now . . .

These blue glasses are from Artilleri, too.  She makes the best glasses.

When the sun started going down, I thought I looked a little cold, so I put on a recent Thimbles purchase from their 50% off sale a week or so ago -- the "Viewing Patrick Swayzie's Webcam" sweater.  Why the name?  It's a mystery.

Credits:
Shape: My own
Skin: Celestial Studios Charmed in Auburn, Tone 20, Neutral
Eyes: Miriel, Marine
Manicure: Fleur nails, French Beige
Hair: Gwen in Light Red from Tami McCoy
Capris: Second Wave Apparel, Perfect Fit Capris, Peacock blue
Top: Second Wave Apparel, Lace Trimmed Cami T-Shirt, Hawaiian Blue
Shoes: KK Outfitters Lo-Tops, White
Jewelry: Earthstones Quartz Point Chakra Necklace, Earthstones Beaded Hoop Earrings
Glasses: Artilleri
Sweater: Thimbles' "Viewing Patrick Swayzie's Webcam" Sweater
Pose: "Yay" - Creamy Cooljoke