Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.
Be patient: Freebies can come and go; freebie stores like The Free Dove and Ajuda SL Brasil rotate their freebies regularly, so it’s worthwhile to visit every couple of months, just to see what’s new. It can take some time to pull together a complete look from various components picked up as freebies at different times from different stores and events.
Well, today I have the perfect example for you on how you can combine freebies from three different locations on the grid to create this beautiful princess look, something straight out of a fairytale!
A Disney princess look for zero Lindens!A closeup of the sheer overshirt and floral crown
Watch and learn how I created this look, step by step!
First, pay a visit to the Designer Showcase shopping event before it closes on January 25th, 2021, to pick up a very generous gift from the Tori’s Stylez booth (exact SLURL), a fatpack of the lovely, bare-shouldered Sylvana ballgown (just click the gift sign at the bottom of the booth; you will need to join the Designer Showcase VIP group for free to pick this gift up):
This gown comes with a HUD that allows you to select one of 16 different colours for the gown, but that’s not all! The Sylvana ballgown features a double skirt, and you can set the overskirt to be sheer or opaque using the HUD! Also, the top part of the gown and the skirt are two separate pieces, so we are going to combine the skirt of the Sylvana gown with a matching bodysuit for the top part of the gown!
Now, teleport to the Shy Doll store (which is located on a sim that only allows a maximum of 20 avatars at one time, so you might have to be patient). On a gift wall in the store are two free group gifts, the Alissa bodysuit and optional matching sheer shirt in rose pink and hologram purple! The Shy Doll Updates group is free to join.
If you’re lucky and get there before the vendor runs out each day, you can also snag a free L$500 gift card to the Shy Doll store, which you can use to pick up another two colours of the Alissa bodysuit and shirt combo! (If you happen to be too late to pick up the gift card, try again tomorrow.)
The final piece of this princess outfit is this glorious Spring Roses crown, which is a free gift from Aisling. Just teleport in to the landing (here’s the SLURL), select the teleporter to Aisling, then click on the gift in the gifts area as shown in the picture below (there’s no need to join any group):
Now, wear the rose Shy Doll bodysuit and sheer shirt, add just the skirt from the Sylvana ballgown gift, and tint it to match using the HUD. The beautiful floral headpiece is the perfect crowning touch!
The complete princess look
If you find that the beribboned, sheer overshirt is a tad too much, simply remove it for a beautiful bare-shouldered ballgown look, as shown below. You can also use the included HUD to turn the sheer overskirt opaque if you prefer a less fussy look.
There you go…simply add a few animated Disney birds and animals, and you’re all set to become the next fairytale princess! (Knight on a white horse is optional.)
All non-store pictures were taken at the Lost Unicorn sim.
Did you know that you can help support my work on this blog (as well as the Metaverse Newscast show), and get some great rewards in return? Here’s how.
But fear not! Instead of the blog, I have set up a brand new Second Life group, just to share with you everything I find as I scour the grid for freebies! Here’s the description of the new group:
Ryan Schultz (the uncrowned Freebie Queen of Second Life, and writer of the popular Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies blogposts on his blog, RyanSchultz.com) has started a new SL group in order to share news about the best bargains and freebies in the virtual world of Second Life, including hunt prizes and lucky chairs!
The logo of my new group
To join this new group, click on the following link and it should open up the group join window in Firestorm or whatever other SL viewer you prefer: RyanSchultz Steals Deals & Freebies. If that doesn’t work, then copy and paste the following group URI into the text chat window of your Second Life client software (type Ctrl+H to pull that up):
If all else fails, just do a keyword search for “ryanschultz” (yes, all one word) under the Groups tab in Search. That should definitely pull up my new group!
After some careful consideration, I have decided to charge a nominal group join fee of L$50. Yes, if I charge money for my advice, it means that I can now call myself a professional freebie fashionista!* For that small fee, you will receive every single tidbit of information about steals, deals, and freebies in Second Life, the very best advice on the grid on how to outfit your avatar for nothing or next to nothing, and still look like you spent thousands of Linden dollars!
And you will wear the group tag of Freebie Fashionista, to proudly proclaim your allegiance to everyone you encounter in your peripatetic travels around the grid!
Ermmm, maybe that should be a “Freebie Fashinisto” group tag for my main male avatar, Heath Homewood (lemme think about it…). Please note that I will be covering freebies and deals for both male and female avatars in this new SL group.
Note that this group is actually a spin-off of an internal group to which Vanity Fair (my main SL avatar), Heath Homewood (my main male avatar), and my small army of alts are subscribed, which turned out to be the most efficient and effective way to share SLURLs, notecards, and other vital freebie information between avatars. Unfortunately, that particular group was set to private, and I was unable to switch it so that people could search for it under the Groups tab in Search. Hence, this new group.
And you should also know that being subscribed to the group is even better than following this blog for news of Second Life freebies! Why? Well, you might be surprised to learn this, but I only land up blogging about 10-15% of the freebies I find on the grid! In many cases, I decide it just isn’t worth it to write up a blogpost for just one single freebie, even if it is a nice one (although I have made exceptions in the past, such as this post).
If you subscribe to the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals, and Freebies group, you will receive all of the unfiltered, unvarnished news about free items and great bargains from my fevered brain! (While I intend to sharply curtail by blogging about Second Life in 2021, I do still log into SL just about every day, to scout out the latest freebies.)
Now, a few ground rules. Like the blog, the communication in this group will be a one-way street, at least to start. I have decided to turn off group chat and group voice chat for this new group, at least for the time being, as we get set up. You will not be allowed to post your own items to the group (although I reserve the right to change my mind and allow some members to post items, if I think it will be a net benefit the group). As with the RyanSchultz.com Discord server, which I have been running for quite a while now, please know that I will not hesitate to step in and moderate if any problems arise. I expect you to treat each other with kindness and courtesy, even if you disagree.
I do hope that you will join us as we embark on an exciting new chapter of Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies! My coverage of Second Life freebies is still, far and away, the most popular part of my blog, according to my WordPress statistics, and I think that it only makes sense to use a communication method within Second Life itself!
One final note: I have recently updated the compilation and distillation of all my best advice for finding freebies in Second Life, which you can find here. Enjoy!
Fasten your seat belts! Today I will be telling you how to receive a whopping six hundred and six Christmas presents on Christmas Day, all completely free!
Many of the Second Life stores which have Advent calendars and 12 Days of Christmas calendars allow you to visit once on Christmas Day, and pick up all the gifts at one time. Very convenient!
Below is a listing of the stores, each with a brief description of the gifts, and a SLURL to take you directly to the calendar. In some cases, I have also included a picture of the calendar.
This task would have been practically impossible without the truly Herculean work done by Andonia, who shall be henceforth known as the Queen of the Advent Calendars! Nearly every day, Andonia criss-crosses the grid, hitting as many calendars as she could, and then posts pictures of each day’s gifts to her blog! Here’s her list of 2020 Advent calendars, which she has published on the Kinky Fox Designs blog. Please peruse it, to get a better sense of what kinds of presents each calendar offers, so that you may efficiently draw up a plan of attack for your Christmas 2020 looting and pillaging 😉 Thank you, Andonia! 🙂
For this endeavour, you will require only three things:
at least one free group slot (in many cases, you will need to join the free store group in order to pick up all the Advent calendar gifts; you can then leave the group immediately afterward to free up that slot for the next store on this list!);
one Linden dollar (for the 12 Days of Christmas calendar at Baby Monkey); and
at least a couple of spare hours to teleport from store to store! If you, like me, are stuck at home during a pandemic lockdown with some time on your hands, this might be the year for you to go a little crazy with the virtual freebie shopping!
Ready? Set? Let’s go!!! Remember that you will only be able to pick up all the gifts on Christmas Day (for some stores, Christmas Eve, but please see my note about special Christmas Day presents at a few stores at the very tail end of this blogpost). If your time is limited, I have listed what I think are the best calendars for apparel and footwear first, then all the rest in alphabetical order.
Christmas Gifts of Men’s and Women’s Apparel, Footwear, Jewelry, and Accessories
Baby Monkey: No group needed; 12 gifts of women’s apparel and footwear; pay L$1 for each one, and your Linden dollar will automatically be refunded. The gifts all come with a three-colour mini-HUD, and together they comprise a capsule wardrobe!
Petite Mort: No group needed; 12 gifts of womenswear.
UPDATE December 25th: the Christmas present from Petite Mort is this beautiful white ballgown!
Oubliette: No group needed; 12 gifts of gothic womenswear.
UPDATE December 25th: the final gift from Oubliette’s calendar is this gorgeous black ballgown, the counterpart to the white gown gift from Petite Mort.
JUMO: No group needed; 15 gifts of women’s apparel, footwear, and jewelry.
No Shot: No group needed; there are two calendars, one with 12 gifts of womenswear and the other with 12 gifts of menswear.
Ari-Pari: Free group join is required; 25 gifts of womenswear, home decor, and a L$250 gift card (Dec. 14th). Gifts can only be claimed once, so select Deliver on the blue pop-up window, and then be sure to click on Accept rather than Discard, because you won’t get a second chance! (UPDATE Dec. 22nd: I have been informed by the owner of Ari-Pari that I can get all these Advent calendar gifts redelivered via the redelivery terminal found in the store.)
EscalateD: No group needed; look for the green Advent calendar (the red one is for V.I.P. members only); 24 gifts of hairstyles and accessories; for pictures of the gifts, see Andonia’s blog or the listing compiled by the Russian Vkontake group Second Life – FREE (use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome web browser). UPDATE Dec 24th: Please note that on Christmas Eve, you only need to click on the green advent calendar ONCE, and you will receive a folder containing all 24 gifts! If you click on all 24 numbers, you will land up with 24 copies of all 24 presents!!!
UPDATE Dec. 21st, 8:58 p.m.: I forgot to mention Altamura‘s 12 Days of Christmas calendar! Free group join required; 12 gifts of seasonal menswear and womenswear, including free Bento, Bakes on Mesh-compatible full-body male and female avatars (more information here). As the Altamura group usually costs L$100 to join, you might wish to stay a member of this particular store group, as Altamura sometimes offers group gifts and discounts to group members throughout the year.
12 Days of Christmas gifts at Altamura include Bento, Bakes on Mesh avatars
Some other stores you might wish to visit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day include:
AppleTini: Free group join required; 24 gifts of women’s fingernails.
Amore & Amore: Free group join required; 24 gifts of women’s clothing.
Black Angel: Free group join required; 24 gifts of womenswear.
Blackbird Lace: Free group join required; 24 gifts of women’s apparel and footwear.
BYRNE: Free group join required; 25 gifts of women’s apparel, footwear, and accessories. UPDATE December 25th: You’ll need to take the teleporter to the Advent calendar. Most of the gifts are womenswear, but a few items are unisex, and the present for Christmas Day includes both a women’s dress and this men’s black Victorian-era suit, with either a red or teal vest:
The Christmas Day gift from Byrne includes this men’s suit, as well as a women’s outfit
Coveted: No group needed; 24 gifts of men’s and women’s wear, accessories, and home decor.
DM Design: Free group join required; 24 gifts of womenswear.
Donni’s Dollies: Free group join required; 24 gifts of men’s and women’s apparel and footwear.
Enchantress: Free group join required; 24 gifts of womenswear.
ROA Design: No group needed; 24 gifts of womenswear and accessories.
Sands Design: No group needed; 24 gifts of women’s clothing.
TrendZy: No group needed; 24 gifts of womenswear and home and garden decor.
Home and Garden Decor and Christmas Decorations
If you are interested in home and garden decor, including Christmas decorations, please visit the following calendars:
Chic Buildings: No group needed; while Chic does not have an Advent calendar this year, she has put up two calendars with gifts from 2017 and 2018 for a total of 48 gifts of home furnishings; for pictures, see Andonia’s Advent calendar listing on the Kinky Fox Designs blog (press Ctrl-F and do a keyword search for “chic buildings”).
Dench Designs: No group needed; 24 gifts of home and garden decor.
Flying Arts:No group needed; 24 gifts of outdoor Christmas decor.
Fonzo Fest: No group needed; 12 gifts around the Christmas tree; childrenswear, family poses, home and garden decor.
Illustrious: No group needed; 24 gifts of home and garden decor.
Kim’s Creations: No group needed; 25 gifts of home and garden decor.
Christmas Presents from Shopping Events
On Christmas Day you should also pay a visit to a couple of shopping events where the gifts are all gathered together. I have not added the count of the gifts from all these events to the total given in the title of this blogpost; there are so many, that I simply don’t have time to count all of them!
Cosmopolitan shopping event(running Dec. 14th to 26th, 2020): Free group join required; the gifts are in Christmas stockings hung on a huge Christmas tree near the entrance. Participating vendors are adding stockings to the tree every day between now and Christmas, so I would advise dropping by on Christmas Day and picking up everything at once. If you want to see pictures of all the presents in the stockings, please check the daily listing of gifts compiled by the Russian Vkontake group Second Life – FREE (use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome web browser).
The Christmas tree at the Cosmopolitan shopping event has dozens of gifts!
The layout of the stockings around the tree can be somewhat confusing compared to traditional Advent calendars, and you might land up collecting the same gifts multiple times. You might want to use this tip provided by SL blogger Chic Aeon: once you have clicked on a stocking and received its gift, right click on it, Select More from the pie menu, select More again, then select Derender, then Blacklist. You will no longer be able to see that stocking! (These are the instructions for the Firestorm viewer; I do not know what the equivalent is for the standard Second Life viewer.) This is a genius tip! Thank you, Chic!!
Another shopping event you should hit is SWANK (running Dec. 18th, 2020 to Jan. 8th, 2021), which has four large Christmas trees at four corners of the sim (be sure to turn up your draw distance in your SL viewer to be able to see them!), under which are dozens of Christmas gifts from participating vendors. You will need to join the free SWANK group to pick up these gifts of men’s and women’s apparel, footwear, jewelry, and home and garden decor.
Finally, the Firelight Hair mainstore has, in past years, allowed you to pick up all 24 hairstyles on Christmas Day, along with a free store gift card to use on any hair in the Firelight store. I don’t know if they are going to do that again this year, so be sure to pop in, just to double check on December 25th! The Advent calendar gifts are mostly women’s hairstyles, with a few male/unisex styles thrown in. The Firelight group is free to join.
Also, Entice usually puts out a store gift card as their Christmas present every year, so check that out too! The Entice group is free to join.
The Second Life Winter Shop & Hop event opened today, and runs until January 3rd, 2021. Almost all of the 180 participating merchants in the nine-sim shopping mall have a free gift for their customers, and today I blitzed through the entire mall from one end to the other, to bring you my picks for the most fabulous freebies from the event!
Please note that there are a lot more home and garden vendors than in previous years, which I will not be covering here. Today, I will be focusing on women’s apparel and footwear gifts. (If I have time, I may make a second run and focus on the non-apparel items you can pick up for your virtual homestead in Second Life.)
All SLURLs in this blogpost should take you directly to the location of the freebie in the Shop & Hop mall, so let’s just jump in, shall we?
Free Gifts of Women’s Apparel and Footwear
First up we have two gifts that don’t quite match, but what the hell…as soon as I found these items, I immediately put them on and wore them on the rest of my perambulations through the Winter Shop & Hop mall! The frilly magenta Fondle dress is the gift from Toksik, and the strappy red shoes are a present from the Enchanté store:
Vanity Fair models this truly sexy black lace Raelin slip dress from Baiastice (the black panties are included), which comes in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara, Perky, and Petite, Meshbody Legacy, Belleza Freya, and Slink Hourglass female mesh bodies:
Next we have this warm, wearable red blanket from Belle Epoque (you will need to alpha out your arms and hands!), plus these wonderful powder blue women’s patrol boots with a snowflake pattern, the gift from Lapointe and Bastchild’s brand SWEAR:
The detail on the patrol boots is amazing! These are keepers for sure! I may even design a whole winter outfit around them…
Here, Vanity Fair is wearing a green top and matching skirt, the gift from Entice, plus a pair of Storyteller glasses, the present from BONDI (which come with a HUD to change the colour of the frames and the tint of the lenses):
This tartan December minidress from Faida comes in sizes to fit Meshbody Legacy, and three versions of the Maitreya Lara body: regular, petite, and flat-chested.
The gift from Pixicat is this red-and-black Aspen cardigan, shown here with the Christmas ball earrings from Aleutia, which come in silver and gold versions in a full fatpack of colours, to match any seasonal outfit!
The Adita Santa dress from Luas comes in a fatpack of colours, shown here with the Aster boots from Eudora, which come in your choice of brown or red leather:
This year, several stores are offering more than one gift! AlaFolie has four gifts for you to unpack, including this Christine sweater and skirt outfit (which comes with a HUD with six different colours and patterns), and the knitted woolen Bonnet hat:
From Flower Dreams comes this bold, floral mesh dress called Kim, which comes with a five-colour HUD as shown. In addition, there are four other free gifts for women, all of which are applier/system/Bakes on Mesh outfits, some including wraps or shawls for various versions of female mesh bodies!
And Neve is giving you ELEVEN gifts in total this year: this year’s gift of the Lumos scarf with tiny Christmas lights (which includes a HUD with four options for both the colour of the scarf and the Christmas lights), plus ten gifts from previous years, all in one package! Below, Vanity Fair wears the Lumos scarf with one of those ten gifts, this festive sweater outfit from 2016, which comes with a HUD to change the colour of the top, skirt, sweater and belt separately to make numerous combinations!
Another festive outfit is this cropped sweater and skirt from 2019, each of which comes with a four-colour HUD, so you can mix and match:
And there are still eight more gifts from Neve to unpack! Hands down, Neve is the most generous vendor this Christmas at the Shop and Hop! Even if you have picked up one or two of these gifts in your earlier visits to SL, it is so thoughtful of Neve to make all of them available in one package!
Free Store Credit or Gift Cards
This year, quite a few stores are offering the gift of free store credit or gift cards (once again, all links are SLURLs to take you directly to the store locations in the Shop & Hop mall where you can slap the boards to obtain these offers):
Bumblebee‘s gift is L$500 gift card, to spend as you wish in their store;
EscalateD Hair is also offering L$500 free store credit;
Glitzz is giving away L$500 in free store credit, too;
Salt & Pepper is giving you L$250 in free store credit, plus a rather funny outfit;
Tachinni Clothing is offering L$150 in free store credit to everybody, and an additional L$350 store credit if you join their group (the group join fee is L$15);
and ViSion is giving away a fatpack of women’s leggings, plus L$500 in store credit to anyone who joins the ViSion group (the group join fee is only L$18).
And that’s it for me today! Happy freebie shopping! Remember that you have until January 3rd to scoop up all of these items, plus many more fabulous freebies.
UPDATE Dec. 15th, 2020: I forgot to mention yet another free gift card offer at the 2020 Winter Shop and Hop! The Annex womenswear store is giving away a L$500 if you join their free group here:
