Vintage Alarm Clock

Time is ticking by in good old fashioned style!

:) Hey everyone. I have another wonderfully nostalgic product release for you today. My Vintage Alarm Clock is detailed, colorful and fully functional. You can set it to your local time and add an alarm with email or IM notification. Ticking and alarm sounds are optional. Each purchase includes both a high and low prim version of the product.

Sales poster ^^

All available colors. My personal favorites are silver and blue. I don't usually do silver or white versions of my products, but I thought in this case it was kind of mandatory. While making this clock I also discovered some new color combinations that I hadn't considered previously. I particularly like the combination of the red clock with the green face. (I should have figured these colors would compliment each other, as they're opposite on the color wheel.)

The back of the clock. I actually borrowed a real vintage alarm clock to see what all the switches are supposed to do, because I honestly couldn't tell from pictures I found on the Internet. The way I ended up arranging everything isn't completely true to life, but I prefer this configuration. As mentioned above, each clock color includes both a high and low prim version. The low version is 15 prims and doesn't come with the switches on the back.

The face of the clock. I added a tiny handwritten "AnnaMayaHouse" right over the base of the hands. I thought it looked cute, and it's a nice personal touch :)

That's all! The Vintage Alarm Clock is now available through my mainstore as well as the SL Marketplace. On the SL Marketplace you can also download the pdf manual. One clock color is L$250, the fatpack is priced at L$750.

Mainstore Location

Vintage Alarm Clock on the SL Marketplace: black | blue | gold | pink | red | silver | fatpack

P.S.: Flickr winners! I've chosen three people who've added pics to the store Flickr pool to receive a box of goodies. I loved this pic by Flickr member destinyP. The use of shadows is wonderful and it was lovely seeing one of my items in a fashion spread. The second pic I chose is this one by jjjulia pearl. It's so fun and cheery and instantly put a smile on my face. Lastly I chose this pic by Strawberry Twig. It's downright adorable!

I will contact you guys personally and send you your prize. Your goodie box will contain a Vintage Alarm Clock fatpack and some other, wearable items from the store. I hope you'll enjoy! And thank you to everyone else as well for submitting pics. I love seeing what you come up with.

Mail Snail - updated!

He was a snail, on a mission!

:) Well, he still is. Hey everyone! A year ago almost I released my Mail Snail mailbox and today I am happy to report that this product has been updated to version 1.10. You can now have your friends pick up your mail for you, if you so wish. A customer requested this feature, which I'm very grateful for.

A few days ago I sent out updated boxes to everyone who has previously purchased a Mail Snail. If your box got lost in offline IMs however, or you accidentally declined it, you can always contact me to receive your free update. There's no need to include your transaction history for this, as I have organized records of all my sales. Just mention your name and the color of your Mail Snail and I will get back to you within 24 hours.

So what is the Mail Snail exactly? There were no changes to the mailbox prims, but let me repost the product poster for those who never saw the original release.

All the different colors: purple, pink, red, dark blue, light blue and green. (I'm using the shells as color indicators.) People's favorite seems to be pink, which is my favorite as well.

How does the Mail Snail work? Mail Snail is a fully functional mailbox. People can drop their notecards onto your Mail Snail, after which they'll see a letter fall in the mailbag and a line in chat indicating their message has been sent. (The note hanging from the mailbag tells people how to use the mailbox. If they click on the mailbox, they'll also see a more detailed explanation in chat.) When notes have been sent, you will be notified through email and/or IM. You can then retrieve the messages from the mailbox by left clicking and choosing "fetch messages" from the blue popup menu. The notes will be transferred to your inventory in a dated folder. As of version 1.10 you can also let friends pick up your mail for you by adding their name to the configuration notecard.

There are 5 possible textures for the explanatory note on the mailbag, accessed through the blue popup menu. The lines Mail Snail pastes in chat are customizable. You can also choose whether or not to display floating text over the mailbox, indicating the number of messages received.

As you can tell, there are a lot of settings you can customize to suit your personal needs. Instructions are quite tedious to read in-world, so after the update I figured I should make some pdf manuals. I'm hoping these will make reading easier. You can download them through my Mail Snail listings on the SL Marketplace, which I will link at the end of this post. (Click "Download instructions" at the bottom of the listing's page. You don't need to have bought the Mail Snail or even be logged in to do this.)

:) That's all. Mail Snail will be a little more expensive from now on, going from L$300 to L$350. The fatpack is L$1050. However, as stated previously, people who already own the product can receive their update for free. Any future updates will be free as well, and this is true for all my products.

Mainstore Location

Mail Snail on the SL Marketplace: dark blue | green | light blue | pink | purple | red | fatpack

Floral Energy Pack

The power of a flower, contained in one beautiful backpack!

Hi everyone. Today I am once again participating in Project Themeory. This week we had to draw inspiration from our favorite decade in the 1900s. I chose The Sixties and more specifically the flower power age. It has always seemed like such an interesting time to me and I would've loved to have been around back then to experience the social changes taking place. Also, the 'style' of the hippie movement I feel really fits in with my store, which is all about fun and colorful things.

So without further ado: my new product release! :)

A closer view of the backpack. I actually looked at quite a few photos of diving and pressure tanks to figure out how I should approach this project. Because I wanted to have a flower serve as an energy source of some kind, I figured containment and control would be important. That's where the idea of a tank came in.

The lock and pressure mechanisms. I had a lot of fun sculpting the pressure meter, because it added that touch of realism I was after. I tried to design this backpack as if it truly existed and could be functional. Combining that sense of realism with a quirky concept is what (hopefully) makes this product fun.

The peace symbol at the bottom of the backpack. I thought adding it here would be a nice way to further indicate my source of inspiration.

That's everything =^.^=

You can pick up the Floral Energy Pack for L$75 at my outlet store in the Meow sim. After this weekend it will go back into inventory, to be reworked for a re-release at full price.

Floral Energy Pack @ the Meow sim

P.S.: As always, you can add your own pics of this backpack to the store Flickr pool.

Snooze To Go

A handy little backpack for when you just need some shuteye!

Hey everyone. Today I have the pleasure of participating in Project Themeory. Project Themeory is a weekly grid-wide event. Every Saturday at 12:00 a.m. SLT a group of designers places an item at the front of their stores corresponding to a certain theme, to remain there until that Sunday evening. These items are all new and all priced at L$75 for that weekend only. Each week features different designers and a unique theme. You can join the in-world Project Themeory group for more info and notifications :)

Today was my turn and I am so happy to release this new backpack. My November theme was "I heart RL", which sparked not one, but many ideas. Eventually though, I decided to make something surrounding ... sleep! There's a couple of reasons for this. I do like to sleep/snooze/nap, obviously. (Especially after a period of exhaustion, a nap feels absolutely amazing.) But sleep as a phenomenon is also just really fascinating. We as humans spend close to a third of our lives sleeping. Yet, the need for sleep is little understood. I thought a sleep themed item would be particularly interesting for Second Life as well, since physical limitations don't apply to avatars in virtual worlds.

But anyways, here is my first Themeory release! <3

Closer look at the old alarm clock, with glowing moon and stars. I truly love vintage design. Nowadays I have my phone wake me up (as I'm sure most people do), but if I ever were to buy another alarm it'd be something like this. There's a definite charm to old design. For my Snooze To Go clock I had originally envisioned a transparent face complete with numbers and hands, but then I came to the conclusion that those time indicators didn't add anything. Just the moon and stars in the center looks cuter I think. The idea behind the product is sleep after all.

The front bow. I wasn't sure whether to add the ribbons or not, but a friend advised that I should. I find it valuable to ask for outside opinions like that. When you're creating a product, you tend to lose sight of how others perceive certain things. The ribbons do look nice and make the bow seem grander. So outside opinion wins!

That's all :)

You can pick up Snooze To Go for L$75 at my outlet store in the Meow sim (somewhat of a Themeory hotspot). After this weekend I will take it back into inventory for a while. When I've added some extra touches and created more colors I will re-release it, probably at around L$200-L$300. That won't be for next week though. I have something else in the works for then, ha! :D

Snooze To Go @ the Meow sim

P.S.: If you happen to buy Snooze To Go and take pics, you can add your photos to the store Flickr pool. I would love to see!

Office Cute

Cute yet distinguished looking, these office items will give you that all-important, business-y edge!

A friend of mine had suggested a while back that I release some of my sculpt work as separate items, and now I finally have. The Vintage Phone and Postal Packages I'm releasing today were originally made for The Mobile Phone and Snail Mail, respectively. I reworked their lighting and added more colors, hopefully preparing them for a long life inside many (colorful) Second Life offices. In addition, I think the parcels look quite nice alongside my previously released Mail Snail.

Sales poster for my Vintage Phone :)

All available colors: black, blue, pink, purple, red and yellow. My personal favorites are pink and purple, just because they're the cutest. I remember when I first decided to make this phone, I researched what materials old telephones would be made of. (Bakelite was apparently very common and interestingly enough it was developed by a Belgian chemist.) I also found vintage ads for phones and answering machines, which look wonderfully artistic now. I swear: research is often fascinating!

Sales poster for my Postal Packages :)

All available colors: brown, dark blue, green, light blue, pink and purple. Each package has a unique stamp and label. Each purchase also includes two full permission textures for the labels, so that the names and addresses can be customized and personalized. (The standard names and addresses are fictitious, of course.) My personal favorite colors: light blue and green.

Some last store news for this week: I'm retiring the following old pose and animation packs. They don't really fit it in with the rest of the store anymore, so I'll leave them up for another week and then take them back into inventory. You can pick them up at half price now, separate poses being only L$20. I do still like animation, but I'll probably start over with a different, more consistent concept.

That's all I think :)

My Vintage Phone and Postal Packages are available at my mainstore and on the SL Marketplace. The phone is L$125 per color, L$375 for the fatpack. The packages are L$150 for a set of two, L$450 for the fatpack.

Mainstore Location

Vintage Phone on the SL Marketplace: black | blue | pink | purple | red | yellow | fatpack

Postal Packages on the SL Marketplace: brown | dark blue | green | light blue | pink | purple | fatpack

Writer's Pouch

A while back Enktan Gully invited me to join his Dollar$tore initiative and today I'm proud to announce my first contribution!

Enky's Dollar$tore, formerly known as Enkythings, is a place where new residents can pick up inexpensive clothing, hair, shoes and other items. I went there myself as a newbie actually, which is why I'm excited to now be giving back as a creator. Enktan is currently in the process of reorganizing the entire store. He's created a new format, where dollarbies will be organized by creator rather than category. It's a great idea in my opinion, sure to connect new residents with stores that reflect their personal taste and style.

So this is my dollarbie: a little Writer's Pouch. It's an idea I'd had since a while and considered turning into a regular release. It's kind of sweet I think :)

Outside view of Enky's Dollar$tore. This place has such a distinctive layout. I still remembered it after 3 years! Ahh, those good old newbie days :)

View of the new Designers Section, which is filling up nicely. For now I'm on a little table because I have just one contribution, but future dollarbies of mine will go up here as well.

My little table. So cute! I hope this item will, in a small way, help support the location. All revenue from sales goes towards maintaining the sim and giving out L$1 payments to random newbie visitors.

That's it =^.^=

My Writer's Pouch will be permanently available at both my mainstore and Enky's Dollar$tore. At my mainstore you can also gift, like with any of my other releases. Hope you guys like! Feel free to submit photos of yourself wearing this item to the store Flickr pool.

AnnaMayaHouse mainstore

Enky's Dollar$tore

Mailman Iggy

He's a snail, on a mission!

I made another Iggy that I hope you guys will like. He may not be the most efficient mailman, but he prides himself on being the cutest. As with previous releases, Mailman Iggy comes in 6 colors: dark blue, green, light blue, pink, purple and red. There are also two versions: a non-scripted, pet version and a scripted, functional mailbox version. Initially I was just going to release him scripted, because I wanted that mailbox for myself as well, but then I figured some might enjoy him as a pet.

Read on by the way for my first ever Flickr winners! Two people who submitted their photos to the store pool will be receiving a fatpack of their choice for free.

Sales poster for Mailman Iggy :)

All the different colors. I can't really pick a favorite here. I wanted there to be as many 'traditional' looking mailbags as colorful ones, and I quite like both now.

Close up of the mailbag. The shadowing turned out rather nice I think. I might release this bag separately in other colors and with different stitching on the flap, but I'm not sure if it needs more detail. Could be cute though, and I've never really made a bag before.

Sales poster for Mail Snail :)

I'm using a different name for this scripted version to avoid confusion, but as you can see it's the same as Mailman Iggy sculpt-wise, bar a few prims.

So what does Mail Snail do? Mail Snail is a fully functional mailbox. People can drop their notecards onto your Mail Snail, after which they'll see a letter fall in the mailbag and a line in chat indicating their message has been sent. (The note hanging from the mailbag tells people how to use the mailbox. If they click on the mailbox, they'll also see a more detailed explanation in chat.) When notes have been sent, you will be notified through email and/or IM. You can then retrieve the messages from the mailbox by left clicking and choosing "fetch messages" from the blue popup menu. The notes will be transferred to your inventory in a dated folder.

There are 5 possible textures for the explanatory note on the mailbag, accessed through the blue popup menu. The lines Mail Snail pastes in chat are customizable. You can also choose whether or not to display floating text over the mailbox, indicating the number of messages received.

That's all there is to know I think. If you have more questions about this product, feel free to contact me :)

Below, the 6 available colors. Just adding this pic so you can see the notes. Apart those and the letter, these colors are the same as in Mailman Iggy of course.

There we go =^.^=

Mailman Iggy is L$225 for one color, L$675 for the fatpack. Mail Snail is L$300 for one color, L$900 for the fatpack. They're both available in my mainstore and on Xstreet.

Mainstore Location

Summer Store Location

Mailman Iggy on Xstreet: dark blue | green | light blue | pink | purple | red | fatpack

Mail Snail on Xstreet: dark blue | green | light blue | pink | purple | red | fatpack

And now: Flickr winners! I made a Flickr pool for the store a while back and I love the pics you guys have been submitting. I chose two that have been added since the release of Iggy the Snail to receive a special prize.

The first is this one by Flickr user newnewpon. I really like this outfit and her use of my Burger Vision Belt. Second pic is this one by Flickr user Dyn@Mite2009. Very cute and funny photo! I will contact you guys personally about claiming your prize. And thank you to everyone else who submitted photos as well! There were lots of cool and original entries. I'd love to see more, and I'll be selecting more winners in the future :)

The Tiny Mobile Phone

This week I have the pleasure of participating in the 'I Love Originals' fair!

'I Love Originals' is organized by Artist's Voice, a Second Life group dedicated to preventing content theft and educating the general public about copyright infringement. They set up this event as a form of positive reinforcement, which I think is a really wonderful gesture towards the community, customers and creators alike. For more information on this amazing group, please visit their website.

So, to celebrate, I made this little dollarbie. It's a unique recolor of my (much larger) Mobile Phone and will only be available for the duration of the fair, February 8th-14th, at the Ruthenium sim.

I love my Ruthenium store by the way :)

As you can see, I put the dollarbie at the entrance. You can still gift it as well, like any of my other releases. Just left click the vendor and follow the gifting instructions.

A few interior shots of the ground floor. Those cute little marshmallow chairs are by my good friend Summer Seale, particle queen.

Iggy the Snail, in pink and light blue, overlooking the rest of the fair. I rezzed a green Iggy over the store entrance as well.

Pic of the upper floor. One can't go wrong with a giant Benny the Bear! I put my pose vendors here, which you can't see in this shot.

There we are =^.^=

If you want this dollarbie, go grab it this week. It won't be for sale again after the event. And also: the slurl I'm giving out will take you directly to my store, but be sure to have a look at the other participating creators as well. (Some have special offers for this fair too :D)

I Love Originals Fair

P.S.: Please keep submitting your photos to the store Flickr pool. I've been enjoying seeing all your cool outfits and creative snaps. I've been busy with RL for the past few weeks, but new releases are on the way :)

Snail Mail

All the joys of classic mail in one handy, portable mailbox!

Snail Mail fits in with other 'communication' themed items I've been making over the past few months. I've been enjoying myself so much combining this concept with vintage influences to create cute, tongue-in-cheek items. On this new backpack you'll find: mailbox, blinking snail, packages, duct tape, stamps, note, letters, fountain pen, ink pot, cables and more! Making Snail Mail was challenging, but I really pushed myself in terms of sculpting and lighting. Hopefully it shows :)

Sales poster!

Both sides of the mailbox. I hadn't put anything truly personal on my creations up until this point, but I couldn't help myself with this backpack. So I added some 'vandalism', which you can see on the side with the package. I ignored a certain someone who thought it didn't really fit :P

Blinking snail, holding a stamp with my store logo on it. I'll probably release this little guy separately and in more colors very soon. I actually have a couple of ideas for him, not sure which ones to go forward with yet.

The package on the left side of the mailbox. I think the shadowing looks especially good here. This backpack is the first project where I used shadows so extensively. I didn't feel comfortable doing it in the past because shadows can turn out messy if not done right. (And lighting has definitely been a learning process for me.) In the end it meant a lot of extra rendering, but it does make a huge difference in my opinion.

For the stamp on this package I scanned a drawing I did as a kid. At first I'd planned to use creative commons pics off of Flickr. Then I decided to play it safe instead, so all the stamps are images I made myself.

Part of the fountain pen, and an ink pot. The whole cable mechanism looks great I think. The shadowing is more subtle here perhaps, but it does give it that extra something to make it look more real. I need to find another project to use these locks in, because I don't feel like parting with them yet.

The front package, a note and an opened envelope. You can just about see the backside of my Benny the Bear on the stamp :P

Closeup of the fountain pen and the stamps on the right side of the mailbox. The pen certainly deserved to be on another creation, after I made it for my Mobile Phone. The texture for the pen point was probably the one I spent the most time on, ever. Two of the stamp pics are of me, the middle one of my good friend Dave Weir :)

Letter dropping in the letter slot. Random combinations get made from a total of 5 stamp and 5 envelope designs. Letters drop every 30 seconds to 3 minutes. All the names and addresses are made up of course, though I did look up actual towns and ZIP codes. For the stamps I again used pics by me, which can all be found on my Flickr as well.

And finally, the lock on the other side. It seems to catch the light even better here. There's actually another lock at the bottom of the mailbox, but you'd really have to cam under to see that one.

There we are :)

Snail Mail is mod/copy and priced at L$450. I was mindful of prim size limits again and made sure this backpack can go very, very small. Should be fine for all child avatars. I hope you'll enjoy your purchase. This item is truly one of a kind <3

Mainstore Location

Summer Store Location

Snail Mail on Xstreet

Yalin 3015

Portable music reinvented, with the Yalin 3015!

For those who saw The Mobile Phone, this item is not entirely 'new'. I originally made this cassette recorder as a sort of answering machine for my backpack. It turned out cute though, I think, so I modded it to wear around the neck. Read on by the way for information on a special offer!

Sales poster for the green version :)

All the available colors: pink, purple, green, blue, red and grey. My personal favourites are green and red. The red one's coloring is a bit more diverse than the rest, which I found to work well. For those wondering about the name: Yalin comes from my SL name obviously and 3015 from my real life birthday, march 15th.

This cassette recorder is a personal design as you might've guessed. I looked at some reference photos, as I always do, but in the end I just made it realistic enough to be recognized as a cassette recorder and quirky enough to be fun to wear. I used to own a cassette recorder. Not sure it still works, if I still have it that is. I'm very much into modern gadgets and technology, but I get so nostalgic seeing old devices like this. I had planned to put 'vintage cassette recorder' on the poster, but hey: it's a cassette recorder, so of course it's vintage!

Closeup of the keys. Often the record buttons on real cassette players would be red, but I thought that would turn into an eyesore. The volume indicators were a bit tricky to map out, but I love adding detail like that to textures. I considered putting just 'volume' and leaving out the 'level', but I've seen that mention on different recorders and it makes them look even older. (Of course volume 'level', what else? We'd just say 'volume' nowadays.) I might overthink my stuff just a tiny bit, I realize that :P

More detail: electric plug and screws at the sides. Fitting this together was a pain, but all the extra tweaking really made a difference.

The spools and tape. It's a shame some of the detail gets lost when viewed at a distance, because the textures are rather nice. The tape does have that distinct shine to it.

There we are =^.^=

The Yalin 3015 is priced at L$140 per color and available at all my store locations and on Xstreet.

Mainstore Location

Summer Store Location

The Yalin 3015 on Xstreet: pink | purple | green | blue | red | grey

And now for the special offer: for a limited time only, you will get an extra color for free when you purchase this item. This offer is valid on purchases made before noon SLT tomorrow, september 18th, and open to group members only. If you haven't joined the update group yet, please do so by clicking the sign in my mainstore. When you've made your purchase, you can then send me a note specifying the extra color you want and I'll send it to you after the deadline expires :)