oh no! The Oziversary has been taken over!

"Help!" cried Dorothy. "The Wicked Witch of the West is trying to take over Oz! Will no one helps us defeat this evil plot?"

If you fail to answer Dorothy's call for help then I'm afraid, poor soul, that the Witch already has her claws sunk deep into your heart and you are beyond any help I can offer you - but those still pure of heart listen well.

After one glorious year filled with happiness and golden sunshine, a cloud of gloom is descending over Oz. From Munchkin Land to the great City of Emerald itself plans were being made for a glorious celebration to mark the one year anniversary of Magic of Oz and the good fortune the fair Candy and the gallant Malk have brought to the land. However, the Wicked Witch caught wind of the plans and is now meaning to hijack the celebration, steal all the anniversary gifts for herself, and allow only the flying monkeys to dance at the balls!

We need your help to save the Anniversary Celebration! Starting Monday, October 12th, citizens and friends of Oz alike will join forces to defeat The Witch's evil plans! 21 merchants of Oz have made gifts for those brave enough to battle The Witch. Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, has learned that The Witch intends to capture the Silver Slippers and thus take control of the celebration. Glinda has made an infinite number of copies of the Silver Slippers to hide all over the Magic of Oz sim in order to confuse The Witch.

The fake slippers are of no use to The Witch but if you find a fake pair of slippers and follow the directions hidden in them, Glinda will reward you for helping to increase the Wicked Witch's confusion! The Silver Slipper Hunt will run for the duration of the anniversary celebration, October 12-18, so be sure to find some time to come and help confuse The Witch.

In addition to the Silver Slipper Hunt, there will also be a photo contest, fishing contests with unique items to find and lindens to win, and dancing, dancing, dancing! More informtaion to follow in subsequent posts, but remember Oz is counting on you! Mark your calendars, The Silver Slipper Hunt starts on Monday, October 12 at the Magic of Oz sim! Come and defend Oz from the plots and schemes of The Witch!

(thanks to Elizabeth Tinsley for the write up of the story!)

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 ;)

Magic of Oz Grand Opening! - Find the Slippers Hunt!

YAY! It's finally here! The Magic of Oz is opening to the public TODAY at 9am SLT!

We've got a ton of things going on for the sim opening Friday and Saturday. An Epic Hunt - Find the Slippers Hunt has some extraordinary EXCLUSIVE prizes from designers like Silent Sparrow, Miriel, Schadenfreude, Long Awkward Pose, The Stringer Mausoleum, Juicy, MnM Design, Designs of Darkness, and the list goes on and on! Follow the Yellow Brick Road at 9AM SLT today! The hunt runs all weekend long :)

A CLARIFICATION on the hunt! There are TWO types of hunt items - ruby slippers, which spawn RANDOMLY around the sim. Touch them to receive the prize. They will disappear and come back in another place on the sim. There are also green slippers that will be permanently placed around the sim. Those you need to RIGHT CLICK and buy to receive the prize. IM Candy Cerveau or Malkavyn Eldritch with any questions :)

Katat0nik has an exclusive Dorothy dress at her location at Magic of Oz, Violet Voltaire has marked her Lollipop Guild jewelry sets at half off, and Risusipo Jun, a fantastic Japanese designer has a Special Edition Wizard of Oz chipmunk hat that will blow you away! You can win it at the gumball machine in the Town Center of Munchkin Land, just $10L and each time you get an adorable chipmunk!

Our other vendors are Sn@tch, JD Mechanical Toy Factory, Treasured Visions, Eye Candy, Draconic Kiss, The Laughing Academy, KO Designs, and more...

Tonight we have a Wicked party at the Witch's Castle with a Spooky/Goth theme with DJ December Dollinger from 6-9 SLT. Come dressed like you belong with the Flying Monkeys, mwahahaha! Prizes for Creepiest Outfit and Best Witch!

Saturday the hunt continues all day and then at 6 pm SLT meet us at the Emerald City for a Masquerade Ball! The Theme is the Sim itself, so come Green and Sparkly, Dark and Spooky, or Bright and Colorful! Wear masks for prizes! Prizes given for Best Costume - Male and Female.

Sunday we still have the hunt all day - and Sunday night at 6 pm SLT is the Dead Wizard party, because your gracious hosts will probably be nearly dead by that point ;) Come in your fashionable best, or a potato sack, we don't care! More free gifts randomly distributed - and a special surprise event at 7 SLT!

Here's a checklist of the hunt items:

[LAP] - Magic of Oz - Poses Inspired by the Sim #1
[LAP] - Magic of Oz - Poses Inspired by the Sim #2
[LAP] - Magic of Oz - Poses Inspired by the Sim #3

The Stringer Mausoleum gift #1
The Stringer Mausoleum gift #2
The Stringer Mausoleum gift #3

Schadenfreude Down the yellow brick road

Schadenfreude Oz earrings
Schadenfreude Green Spectacles (copper)
Schadenfreude Green Spectacles (gold)
Schadenfreude Green Spectacles (silver)

~silentsparrow~ (oz) swimmy fishie (wear me)
~silentsparrow~ Gift#1 Luxe Corset and Mania Vest

~EC~ Magic of Oz Exclusive Bracelet
~EC~ Magic of Oz Exclusive Choker
~EC~ Magic of Oz Exclusive Ring

~JD~ MTF Shoulder Buddy Swamp Tree
~JD~ MTF Sitting Scarecrow
~JD~ MTF Sitting Flying Monkey

Witch's Castle by Malkavyn [small]
Witch's Castle by Malkavyn [large]
Munchkin Land by Malkavyn [small]
Munchkin Land by Malkavyn [large]
Emerald City by Malkavyn [large]
Emerald City by Malkavyn [small]

(Miriel) Bird of Paradise Headdress - Gold/White/Morganite

JUICY { Chunky Red Magnolia Bracelet }

Come see the magic! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Magic%20of%20Oz/132/117/24

The Magic is Almost Here...

Things are getting pretty exciting on our sim, we have an opening date! October 3rd, huzzah :) We did a stress test a few days ago and the response was really positive... we had several nice folks blog about us and lots of people came out just on word of mouth - since we didn't publicize the test at all. We have SO many stunning pictures on our flickr group that people took (http://www.flickr.com/groups/magicofoz/pool/) but our friend Berry did a spectacular picture of the whole sim I wanted to share... (click picture for full view)



Here's some links to the blog posts about the sim:

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/09/off-to-see-the.html

http://juicybomb.com/2008/09/15/magic-of-oz/

http://reflectionsplaza.blogspot.com/2008/09/exclusive-preview.html

http://jdmtf.blogspot.com/2008/09/magic-of-oz.html

That last link is from our FANTASTIC builder's blog. She rox my sox. <3.

We are putting the final touches on the build, setting up our stores, and adding people left and right into our rental areas including Katat0nik, Sn@tch, Juicy, Step Up Poses, and The Laughing Academy. If you are interested in renting a space, contact Candy Cerveau or Malkavyn Eldritch in world or email me at eyecandydesigner@gmail.com. More details on the treasure hunt with exclusive prizes coming up soon =D