News and Thanks from Oz!

Wow! We are humbled and grateful for the overwhelming positive response to Magic of Oz. I have gotten so many comments on how people have enjoyed the hunt and the sim, and it was truly all I could have hoped for the Grand Opening. Thanks to everyone who came and who continues to come back over and over to visit. In case anyone hasn't heard, we did extend the hunt to Friday at 10 SLT to hopefully give everyone a chance to get all the goodies.

To answer a few questions we are getting - YES, we are planning to expand and YES that does include residential areas. We are very excited about doing the residential sections, especially. Please stay tuned for that - more information coming soon!

I wanted to take a moment to thank some people without whom we could not have had such a wonderful opening. First and foremost among these is our builder, Jenne Dibou. Oz would not be what it is without her work. Jenne brought it to life. She is an extraordinary builder, with amazing talent and vision. We gave her our ideas, showed her some pictures - and she took those and worked her own creative magic to make one of the most beautiful sims I have ever seen in SL. It was as if she plucked exactly what we wanted right out of our heads and made it better than I ever thought it could be. On top of all that, she is SO easy to work with and the sweetest, funniest person you have ever met. The way Oz looks (and the way it performs! Fastest load time on sculpted prims I have EVER seen) is entirely due to her and she is owed all the praise for that. I cannot recommend her highly enough to someone looking for a truly unique build. She also makes all sorts of amazing things besides custom builds - skyboxes, prefab homes, clothing, incredibly detailed accessories, working toy trains, Greek temples, factory buildings, the list goes on and on. Her main store is a wonder and is worth a visit just to see it and take pictures. Careful, there's a creepy clown in there - don't say I didn't warn you! Visit Jenne's store - JD Mechanical Toy Factory here and if you loved our sim, send her a message and let her know.

Her partner in JD Mechanical Toy Factory and kick ass scripter Mandy Marseille was responsible for creating the script that ran the Ruby Slipper Hunt so flawlessly, as well as our other scripted items around the sim. I really believe she can make anything in SL bend to her will - if you need a scripter, I don't think you can do better than Mandy.

Getting the sim ready for the opening was a HUGE task and we had so much help from our friends. We would not have been able to survive that first day without their awesomeness.

Dove Swanson is the owner of Long Awkward Pose (best pose maker evar!) and she helped out in SO many ways. She gave us great advice, made tons of the most adorable poses that are scattered around the sim, donated uber prize packs and stood at the entrance of Oz for goodness knows how long on opening day greeting people and answering questions. I <3 you, you crazy funny chick.

Our friends Winter and Curvy also spent HOURS at the landing point, greeting people and answering questions so that we could keep things running, put out fires and grab a few hours of sleep. To our friends who thought the sim was good enough to post about on their blogs, the ones who donated time or prizes, and the ones who just listened to us complain about stupid shit or how tired we were in chat. I love ALL you bishes and thank you all so much.

To my partner - thank you so much. I don't appreciate you enough.

Ok, now that I've poured sappy sweet love on everyone - some business. We've had a lot of inquiries on store rentals, far more than the few that we have left open. We are planning a store expansion soon so if you could direct all rental inquiries to Magic Scribe, our rental manager - she will add you to the waiting list. We are planning to have regular events that we hope will be as fun as the slipper hunt - some really neat and creative stuff coming down the pipe. Stay tuned and subscribe to our update group (no group slot needed!) to be in on the scoop!

Oh yeah... I make jewelry. Some great new stuff coming that I couldn't get released before the opening - watch this blog for details ;)