As promised, here are a selection of some of the wonderful freebies you can pick up as part of the Second Life 17th Birthday celebrations (more details here), which run until now until July 12th, 2020.
First, a pro tip: before you visit the Shop and Hop event, visit the SL17B Gift Boardwalk first. Why? Because many of the Shop and Hop vendors have also wisely made their gifts available here, as well as their booths at the Shop and Hop event. Trust me, you will find it much easier to get into these two sims than try to pry your way into the crowded, laggy Shop and Hop mall sims, which seem to be limited to 45 avatars each at a time, maximum. (Then again, so do the Second Life 17th Birthday sims where the Boardwalk is located.)
UPDATE June 20th, 2020: You should also know that there are a lot of gifts here at the Gift Boardwalk that are only available here, such as this striking, geometric design gown by Blue Rose Creations:
In this blogpost, I will be providing exact SLURLs to the locations at the Shop and Hop mall sims (not the SL17B Gift Boardwalk). Like I said, start at the Boardwalk first, and then, only if you cannot find it there, try to get into the Shop and Hop sims (I would strongly urge you to wait until July. The gifts aren’t going anywhere.)
I do apologize to you for using a pose stand for many of the following pictures. It just made going through all the gifts (well over 200!) a much less tedious process. I also tended to rely heavily on vendor photos of the gifts in the mall to decide what I wanted to unpack, wear, and show you in this blogpost.
Store Credits
First, pick up the two store credit offers available at the Shop and Hop event, which mean you can pick up whatever you want from the store later!
(UPDATE June 20th, 2020: I mistakenly had written that Blueberry was among the stores offering a store credit at the Shop and Hop, but that was back in March for their birthday, and I had even blogged about it then. Please accept my apologies for the mistake, and a thank you to Brinlea for pointing this error out to me in the comments!)
Bumblebee is offering a L$300 store credit here (just attach the HUD and click on it), and Addams is giving away L$500 in store credit here (just click on the sign at their booth).
My Favourite Clothes, Shoes, Jewelry, Hair, and Eyes
I don’t usually blog about eyes, but I will make an exception for these absolutely gorgeous Sahara eyes by Avi-Glam, available at their booth here. They come in both classic system and mesh versions (Catwa, Genus, LeLutka, and Omega). I just may be wearing this pair for a little while!
Blueberry is, once again, being extremely generous with her gifts! She is giving away a fatpack of lace-trimmed tops, plus a fatpack of bow slippers! Christmas came early, kids. (Speaking of Christmas, the pink leggings are an applier from Baby Monkey and were an Advent calendar gift from last December.)
AlaFolie‘s free gift is the Floralie Happy dress, trimmed along the bottom in black lace, which comes with a HUD with four different patterns (and you can also change the texture on the black top part of the dress to match the rest). You can pick it up here (and there are another four patterns of this dress available if you join the AlaFolie store group, which is not free). Here I have paired it with the long, wavy hair that Sintiklia is already well-known for! This is the Ruby hairstyle, which comes in 17 different colours and includes a styling HUD to wear each side forward or back as you desire (get it here).
There are some rather nice hair gifts available at the Shop and Hop mall, and this is another one: a neat and tidy, top-bun hairstyle called Kristen from Ade (here), which comes in a full fatpack of colours. The slate-blue floral tied shirt is the gift from Pixicat (here).
Lybra is offering two gifts that can be worn together as shown or separately: the top comes with two HUDs with solid colours and floral patterns, and the micro-miniskirt in matching colours and patterns (which thankfully includes panties to preserve your modesty!). You can get it here.
The hair shown below is yet another SL17B Shop and Hop freebie, the Candice hairstyle by Doux (here), which also comes in a fatpack of colours.
Bella Moda‘s genrous gift is this entire outfit: a gold and red party dress, shoes, and jewelry! This is the Celebrazione Crimson dress (available here), and all the little details on each of the pieces are examples of some truly lovely craftsmanship:
Here’s a closer look at the top of the Celebrazione dress, the necklace and the earrings:
Next up is yet another hairstyle fatpack, this one by Love, called (of course!) Lovely hair (available at their booth here), along with a sexy minidress from Pulse, which features a cutout at the back (not shown here).
The dress is sized for Maitreya Lara only, but it comes in no less than eight different colours: red as shown below, plus army, black, blue, blush, plum, white, and wine! The chain belt you see is optional and comes in four choices of metal: gold, silver, rose gold and onyx. You’re all set for the nightclub in this outfit! You can snap it up here!
(I know for a fact you can also pick up this dress and this hair at the Gift Boardwalk.)
Finally, we have the Be Mine floral headband and a moon collar from Tentacio (available here; please note that the creator has mistakenly switched the labels on the included HUD for the collar—Metal should be Leather and vice versa!):
This headband is completely adjustable in various dimensions (a feature I wish more accessories creators offered), and it comes in four different versions, with pink, red, white, and blue roses.
There are literally dozens of other gifts at both the Gift Boardwalk and the Shop and Hop mall; this is just a sampling of things which I particularly liked. There are also many home decor freebies available this time around, and tons of shoes, which I have not covered here except for the Blueberry and Bella Moda gifts.
Here’s a list of all the Shop and Hop sims. Again, I would caution you to wait a week or two until the crowd dies down and you can browse and wander in peace. The 200 participating vendors are also offering discounts on a selection of their merchandise, plus a few special items only during the SL17B celebrations!
Happy freebie shopping!
O.K., back to my vacation from the blog… 😉
UPDATE June 20th, 2020: I forgot to mention one more fabulous freebie, this beautiful deep purple and brown medieval/fantasy gown by Silvan Moon Designs! This is the Iona Destiny Elven gown in amethyst:
The set comes with a separate brown leather jerkin and arm-guards, which are one piece, in case you suddenly need to ride off to battle! The detail, as always, is delightful.
Now, I regret that I did not remember to save the SLURL for this last gift, but it is on the Gilded sim. Just look for a small suitcase on a fireplace mantel inside the store, to the right from the entrance.
