Tag: Freebies

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts Galore! How You Can Receive 606 Free Presents on Christmas Day!

Image by Yevhen Buzuk from Pixabay

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.

Fashion Fantasy: No group needed; 24 gifts of womenswear.

Fashion Fantasy for Men: No group needed; 24 gifts of menswear.

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.

Don’t forget to hit the December rounds of all the other shopping events, too, such as FaMESHed (running Dec. 1st to 27th, 2020; pictures of some of the lovely womenswear gifts you can pick up from the FaMESHed shopping event can be found here).

Christmas Day Presents from Stores

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.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Advent Calendar Gifts for December 20th, 2020

Here’s my blogpost with links to four lists of Advent Calendars and 12 Days of Christmas Calendars, plus my “Top Ten” Calendars you should not miss in 2020!

Today’s gift from 7 Deadly S[k]ins is a fatpack of freckled skins, called Maze. These skins come in five skin tones (taupe, oak, walnut, pecan and coconut), in both Bakes on Mesh/system skins and Omega skin appliers. The store group costs L$1,000 to join, but it’s worth it. (Or, if you prefer, you can pick up all the previous days’ gifts for just L$25 each, using my daily Advent calendar blogposts as a guide.)

The Maze skin by 7 Deadly S[k]ins in taupe

The gift from Virtue is this lovely pastel blouse and long skirt (the Virtue group id free to join):

From Entice comes this grey sweater and matching skirt (the Entice group is free to join):

Today’s gift from Baby Monkey is this shawl collar sweater, shown here with the pants and slingback shoes that were previous days’ gifts from the same 12 Days of Christmas calendar. The calendar is free, and you do not need to join any group; you simply pay L$1 for each item and your Linden dollar is automatically refunded.

Today’s present from the Advent calendar at NYNE Hair is this girdled shirt dress (you don’t need to join any group to pick up this gift):

For your final stops, may I suggest a couple of stores where you don’t need to join any group at all? Just teleport in with the SLURLs provided here, and slap the boards to receive a random gift, every day from now until Christmas Day! Simple as pie.

Our first destination is Addams, where you can find this large sign at the entrance. Hit it and you’ll get an item of women’s apparel or footwear!

Next is the hair megastore Alli & Ali Designs, where there are two blue Advent calendar boards as shown here by the red arrows:

Just slap each of them, and you’ll receive two random gifts from Alli & Ali (or, if you’re really unlucky, the exact same gift twice!). The random gifts include several snow white women’s and men’s hairstyles and beards, and a L$500 gift card good for any of the over 900 hairstyles in the mainstore. So try your luck!

Happy freebie shopping!

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free, Full-Body Bakes on Mesh Male and Female Avatars at Altamura!

At the Altamura store, you can pick up two free group gifts from the panels located at the entrance: free Bento, Bakes on Mesh-compatible full-body (i.e. head and body) mesh avatars! The Altamura group is currently free to join (normally it costs L$100), so these are completely free.

Here’s what the Movin’ On female avatar looks like, wearing the included skin:

And here’s what the rather handsome Take My Way male avatar looks like, wearing the Bakes on Mesh skin included in the package:

Now, there’s a catch. Both of these avatars do NOT come with a HUD. You cannot remove the hairbases or the lip layers on these avatars, which might pose a problem when using other Bakes on Mesh skins with them (I tried a very pale skin on the male avatar, and the lips looked dreadful). And the Movin’ On female avatar feet (which are Slink compatible) can only wear high-heeled shoes! No flats. (UPDATE Dec. 23rd.: I stand corrected! There is a HUD included with the female body, called the “Hide HUD”, which allows you turn on and off flat feet, mid feet, and high feet.)

Because there is no HUD with alpha sections, you will have to use the alphas that come with the clothing you buy (or repurpose from the SL starter avatar collection, such as these blue Alejandro shorts that the Take My Way male avatar is wearing). If you do need a set of alphas to use with clothing that does not come with them, you can pick up a free set from Little Black Dress at this SLURL (just click on the bag on the floor).

However, if you are not terribly fussy about your avatar, and you like the looks of these two, you simply cannot beat the price—completely free! Remember that these are both limited-time gifts, so don’t wait, hurry down!

I will be adding these avatars to my popular, constantly-updated lists of free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies for female avatars (here) and male avatars (here). Happy freebie shopping! Here’s your taxi.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Advent Calendar Gifts for December 19th, 2020

Here’s my blogpost with links to four lists of Advent Calendars and 12 Days of Christmas Calendars, plus my “Top Ten” Calendars you should not miss in 2020!

Today’s gift from Wow Skins is the Steffy skin in the sandy skin tone (the Wow group costs L$199 to join):

The present from 7 Deadly S[k]ins is the Hope skin in the cloud skin tone, which comes in both Bakes on Mesh/system skins and a Omega skin applier, in versions with or without the glossy pink lipstick (the 7 Deadl S[k]ins group has a group join fee of L$1,000 during the month of December):

Firelight Hair‘s gift from their Advent calendar is the lovely long Rebecca hairstyle, which comes with a three-colour HUD as shown (the Firelight group is free to join):

Time to bring out the soon-to-be famous Second Life supermodel 😉 Moesha Heartsong, to model some of today’s apparel, footwear and jewelry gifts!

Below, Moesha is wearing two gifts from JUMO: today’s gift of the gold and silver Stella jewelry set, plus the December 16th gift, the Sirena tied top and separate long skirt, which comes in a pattern to match the top plus the silver-grey version shown here. Remember that JUMO is one of the 12 Days of Christmas calendars where you can swoop down and pick up all the gifts at one time!

I leave you with the gift from Virtue, the Mireya outfit in grey and green (the Virtue group is free to join):

Also, don’t forget to check out the free Bento, Bakes on Mesh-compatible full-body male and female mesh bodies at the Altamura store, among their 12 Days of Christmas gifts! More details here.

Happy freebie shopping!