Calling All Designers! Join the Conversation at the Home and Garden Expo with Prim Perfect!

Sign up for our talks!

Following the success of our discussion / interview programmes at the Home and Garden Expos for 2011 and 2012, and the Christmas Expos and the Birthdays … well, you get the picture!  At the 6th Home and Garden Expo, running from May 24th to June 3rd, we are planning a further series of talks with designers and breedable creators.

These talks will take place outside our very special Greek taverna on the Prim Perfect sponsored region. But we’ll be telling you more about that later!

We’re planning to host events at 3pm every day.  If you would really LOVE to give a presentation, but can’t make that time, contact us and we will see if we can fit you in.

We are happy to host talks, presentations, interviews, question and answer sessions.  It’s an opportunity for designers to share ideas, for people to meet their favourite creators, for communities to come together and talk about their culture and ideas.  We’re very open to hosting what YOU want to tell us about!

If you would like to be a part of our programme at the Expo, please complete this form with your topic and preferred dates and times. We will try to fit in as many people as we can!

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Do you have news for Prim Perfect?

News story submission form

This is your chance to submit news for Prim Perfect’s special gardens issue which will be out shortly – and at the moment we are looking for news stories to feature in our popular News from the Grid feature.

If you have a news story to share about your store or your sim, you can use the special Prim Perfect news service, to submit your news story directly to the magazine.

All you have to do is to go to www.primperfect.net/news_form.html and complete the simple form. If you want an image included, send it to primperfect@gmail.com.

To appear in our next edition, we must receive your news story by 12 noon SLT, Saturday 4th May, 2013.

The news story might also appear on this blog, especially if the story concerns, for example, the kind of time-defined event we like to cover – a special store promotion, or a charity concert.

So what are you waiting for? Send your news to us – and see it in print very soon!

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Now We are Six – Prim Perfect celebrates a birthday!

Our First Cover

Six years ago today, I was exhausted.  I had been up most of the night, laying out the very first edition of Prim Perfect. Most of the work (I can modestly say) I did myself.  I wrote the articles, I took the photos, I sold the ads and I laid out the pages – all forty eight of them. I had help from a reporter who wrote an article, and from a designer who created the front page and laid out a few internal pages.  The rest was me.

So I was exhausted, but I was also looking forward to the party to celebrate the launch.  It was to include a charity auction, and that evening we raised enough money to put the roof on a school in Lesotho thanks to the generosity of designers like Sue Stonebender and Baron Grayson whose faith in Prim Perfect ensured that it got off to a flying start – quite literally, as the prize item in the auction was one of Baron’s ships, suspended gracefully over the square on Venice Island, the single region owned by Melody Regent, who had also backed the magazine from the start.

But it didn’t stay just a magazine for long. Six months later came the TV show – MetaMakeover, which later became Designing Worlds.  And then there was The Primgraph, Quest for the Golden Prim, Metaverse Arts, Happy Hunting! and The Blackened Mirror. And there have been specials and guidebooks for events (such as Home and Garden Expos and the 2012 Fantasy Faire). There have been campaigns that we played a major part in – such as Step Up! against content theft and One Billion Rising.  There have been parties, hunts, events, games, a lot of hard work, a lot of fun, and lot of friends and – considering everything – surprisingly little drama.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – cover

Six years later, we’re not having a party – but that doesn’t mean we see nothing to celebrate.  There’s a secret plan shortly to emerge, and we’re all hard at work on the new issue of Prim Perfect. We’ll probably party later in the month. We’re six now. I think we can party when we want to.

So today, on our sixth birthday, I want to say, quite simply, thank you to all the people who make Prim Perfect the prim perfection that it is – the people who have produced it over the years, the writers and photographers whose wonderful work fills the pages.  The advertisers whose support enables us to go on producing the magazine. The readers whose support and enthusiasm gives us some much pleasure and the willingness to go on, to improve and to always strive to be better.

Six years ago, I had a dream that here in this virtual world there could be a magazine for homes, for gardens, supporting designers and small businesses and nonprofits.  Six years later, I am so proud to be a part of Prim Perfect and all its associates, so lucky to have found such wonderful people to share my vision, and so privileged to have been able to create a voice that can speak for what I believe.

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It’s all about the Art (and the textures) in the new issue of Prim Perfect!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – cover

Welcome to our second issue of 2013 - and more of our new range of features in Prim Perfect magazine, as well as those you know and love!

This month of theme is Art – and we’ve expanded that to also look at textures.

And our inworld issue this month is full of gifts and tools for you, many designed to help you create you own items, as shown in the magazine! So as you read throughh the magazine, watch out for those gift tags  on the left or right of the screen – clicking on them will bring you something very special!

On the fine art front, Rowan Derryth supplies an Overview of Virtual Art, and a guide to some of the art that you might choose to display in your virtual home in Home is Where the Art Is.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Home is where the art is

Honour McMillan interviews the well-known Second Life artist Bryn Oh, and talks to a comparative newcomer to the art scene, Livio Oak Korobase. And I visit our Designers of the Month, Marcus Inkpen and Sharni Azalee, who combine fine art with superlative design on their beautiful region, The Looking Glass.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Bryn Oh

In addition, Honour McMillan supplies an introduction to the Linden Endowment for the Arts, while Tricia Aferdita explores ten amazing art galleries that you should visit.

If your tastes run to textures, you’ll find plenty of information in this month’s magazine.  Ceejay Writer interviews Hyasynth Tiramisu on the subject of the beautiful textures she creates for Silent Sparrow – more than that – Hyasynth not only gives a masterclass on creating textures – she has also supplied a very special texture free to Prim Perfect readers that you can use to decorate your own home.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Silent Sparrow

In addition, Ethan Westland looks at the importance of textures (and gives away a few secret texture-buying locations!) while Qwis Greenwood, in the second of our series promoting small business around the grid, has found three very exciting and very different texture creators to share with our readers.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Building a skybox

In our continuing series on building your own home, our designer (and phenomenal builder) Winona Wiefel will be teaching you how to create a door and windows and add them to the basic skybox that you created in Part 1 of the series.

And to help you with your building, there’s not only a copy of the skybox (which you can use as a model) but there’s also a pack of textures for you to experiment with too!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Building in Mesh

We also have the second in our major series on Mesh. Beq Janus supplies a simple entry to the world of mesh, touching on buying full perm mesh from marketplace with a rudimentary guide to texturing those – and giving a brief view of in world tools for mesh.

And she also supplies a mesh chair for you to start practising texturising too!

Then there are reports on the fantastic One Billion Rising event — the Second Life version of the global event that celebrates women even as it raises awareness of the issue of violence against women. And Beq Janus looks at the opening of Relay for Life and tells us all about the upcoming season of events.

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – The Looking Glass

Rosamoo Mendelsohn brings us Hunting News, while there are details from our TV shows, Designing Worlds and Happy Hunting!, available on Treet TV.

Our team of talented photographers, led by Judith Lefevre, PJ Trenton, Winona Wiefel, Wildstar Beaumont, and Honour McMillan, bring you some of the most artistic eye candy from across the metaverse.

All this with News From the Grid and more!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Art Galleries

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So how can I get Prim Perfect?

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Textures

If you prefer to read the magazine online but not inworld, there are choices. Firstly, there’s the wonderful Calaméo system, which allows you to moves smoothly through the pages, giving you the feeling of reading a real magazine. You’ll find Issue 46 here – and please do leave a comment!

But, if you like to download your magazines to read as you commute to work, or in the bath, or wherever, you can also download a pdf of the magazine from Calameo – or print it out!.

You can get the latest issue inworld – and copies of all our earlier issues too – at our new head offices in the Irish Isles.  It has a great cafe to relax in while you’re reading the latest issue too!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Art Galleries

We also have subscribe-o-matic kiosks throughout Second Life – so you can just click to subscribe. You’ll be sent a copy of the latest issue, and then you’ll receive your issues regularly!

Or you can have it delivered to you each month as an IntelliBook, by joining the Prim Perfect Readers group inworld. It costs nothing to join and, apart from delivering the magazine each month, we won’t overload you with chat or messages!

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – Ars Virtua

In addition to delivering the Intellibook version of the magazine, you’ll also get a link to the online Calaméo version of the magazine, so you’ll be able to access that too.

How to Join Prim Perfect Readers

• Inworld, open Search.
• Search Groups for Prim Perfect Readers.
• Click to join

Prim Perfect: Issue 46 – March 2013 – LEA

So … enjoy! And let us know what you think of our new edition!

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Do you have springtime news for Prim Perfect?

News story submission form

This is your chance to submit news for Prim Perfect’s March issue which will be out shortly – and at the moment we are looking for news stories to feature in our popular News from the Grid feature.

If you have a news story to share about your store or your sim, you can use the special Prim Perfect news service, to submit your news story directly to the magazine.

All you have to do is to go to www.primperfect.net/news_form.html and complete the simple form. If you want an image included, send it to primperfect@gmail.com.

To appear in our next edition, we must receive your news story by 12 noon SLT, Thursday 14th March.

The news story might also appear on this blog, especially if the story concerns, for example, the kind of time-defined event we like to cover – a special store promotion, or a charity concert.

So what are you waiting for? Send your news to us – and see it in print very soon!

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Celebrate Romance with the all new issue of Prim Perfect!

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

Read the latest issue of Prim Perfect online!

Welcome to a New Year and a whole new range of features in Prim Perfect magazine, as well as those you know and love! And, as it is February, we have a wealth of features and information about romance and romantic locations in Second Life.

On top of all that, this month sees the amazing event One Billion Rising—a global event that celebrates women even as it raises awareness of the issue of violence against women—and we here at Prim Perfect are delighted to be playing a part in organising the Second Life version of this event. You can read more about this in Honour McMillan’s article on Page 16.

For the start of the New Year, we are introducing three major new features.

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

Firstly, our designer (and phenomenal builder) Winona Wiefel will be teaching you how to build your own home, taking you step by step through the techniques you will need to do the construction and design yourself—and we’ll be supplying the textures and material you will need to follow our instructions.

Part One shows you how to construct a basic skybox. As a companion piece, Ethan Westland writes about skyboxes; it appears that, when it comes to design, the sky quite literally is the limit!

Secondly, we are undertaking a major series on Mesh—what it is and why it is an important tool for designers (and some of the hiccups it can cause). Beq Janus starts the series with a brilliant introduction. I do urge anyone who is thinking about designing in mesh or even just wondering what all the fuss is about to read this article.

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

Thirdly, we are setting out to discover small and thriving businesses across the grid. Qwis Greenwood will be seeking out the small, the unusual, the quirky, and the awesome—and all comparatively unknown. She’ll be looking into the secrets of their success, and it will be a great opportunity for you to join her in discovering what may well become the Next Big Thing!

There’s more about all of these new series, along with news of the winner of our “Design a Graphical Strapline” competition on Page 10.

We haven’t forgotten romance! In fact, Beq Janus has interviewed the amazing creator of romantic places Kayle Matzerath of Garden of Dreams, while Rowan Derryth has found ten wonderfully romantic locations. Tricia Aferdita offers a compelling look at the history and practice of romance in Second Life, and Ceejay Writer explores the steamy side of romance—by visiting the Steamlands, of course!

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

Cain Maven ponders the value of money in his regular column, while Bill Kaye gives us an introduction to the Centre for Business Development, and Lacy Muircastle brings us up to date with Homestuff.

Rosamoo Mendelsohn brings us Hunting News for this Valentine season, while there are details from our TV shows, Designing Worlds and Happy Hunting!, available on Treet TV.

Our team of talented photographers, led by Judith Lefevre, PJ Trenton, Winona Wiefel, Wildstar Beaumont, and Honour McMillan, bring you some of the most artistic eye candy from across the metaverse.

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

All this with News From the Grid and more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So how can I get Prim Perfect?

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

If you prefer to read the magazine online but not inworld, there are choices. Firstly, there’s the wonderful Calaméo system, which allows you to moves smoothly through the pages, giving you the feeling of reading a real magazine. You’ll find Issue 45 here – and please do leave a comment!

But, if you like to download your magazines to read as you commute to work, or in the bath, or wherever, you can also download a pdf of the magazine from Calameo – or print it out!.

You can get the latest issue inworld – and copies of all our earlier issues too – at our new head offices in the Irish Isles.  It has a great cafe to relax in while you’re reading the latest issue too!

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

We also have subscribe-o-matic kiosks throughout Second Life – so you can just click to subscribe. You’ll be sent a copy of the latest issue, and then you’ll receive your issues regularly!

Or you can have it delivered to you each month as an IntelliBook, by joining the Prim Perfect Readers group inworld. It costs nothing to join and, apart from delivering the magazine each month, we won’t overload you with chat or messages!

In addition to delivering the Intellibook version of the magazine, you’ll also get a link to the online Calaméo version of the magazine, so you’ll be able to access that too.

How to Join Prim Perfect Readers

• Inworld, open Search.
• Search Groups for Prim Perfect Readers.
• Click to join

So … enjoy! And let us know what you think of our new edition!

Prim Perfect Number 45 – February 2013

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Notice anything different about Prim Perfect?

We’re bringing out the new issue of Prim Perfect later today – with a range of major new features. And we also have a new strapline to celebrate.

Remember we told you we wanted to refresh out tired old 2007 strapline?  So we had a competition, and from today you’ll be able to see the winner in place on our blog – and in various other places too.

And who won the prize with this lovely new strap graphic you see above this post?  Well, to find out, you’ll just have to read the new issue of Prim Perfect – coming very soon!

(And no spoilers in the comments, please!)

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Do you have Valentine’s News for Us?

News story submission form

This is your chance to submit news for Prim Perfect’s Valentine issue which will be out at the beginning of February – and at the moment we are looking for news stories to feature in our popular News from the Grid feature.

If you have a news story to share about your store or your sim, you can use the special Prim Perfect news service, to submit your news story directly to the magazine.

All you have to do is to go to www.primperfect.net/news_form.html and complete the simple form. If you want an image included, send it to primperfect@gmail.com.

To appear in our next edition, we must receive your news story by 12 midnight SLT, Thursday 31st January, 2103.

The news story might also appear on this blog, especially if the story concerns, for example, the kind of time-defined event we like to cover – a special store promotion, or a charity concert.

So what are you waiting for? Send your news to us – and see it in print very soon!

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If you do one thing related to Second Life Today …

Well, actually, there are several things that you could do … and some of them are related to filling out forms …

Art
Or perhaps you’d prefer to pick up your camera and enter our special competition to design a new fraphical strapline for Prim Perfect.  Our old graphic was created in 2007 – and Second Life – as well as other virtual worlds – has moved on since then!  We are offering a prize of L$5000 for the best one we receive, featuring images of Second Life (and other virtual worlds) in 2013. And Froukje Hoorenbeeke has generously matched that prize – our winner will also receive a voucher for L$5000 to spend at her gorgeous store, Dutchie!

Dutchie’s Mesh Kitchen

We are offering five further prizes of L$1000 each for people who share with us pictures of the best indivdiual style icons in homes, gardens and landscapes. So get out there and record your absolute favourites!

You’ll find full details of the competition (which closes on January 15th) here.

Romance
And don’t forget to complete our special survey of how you met (whether in Second Life, real life or somewhere else entirely!). We are planning a feature article on this for our Valentine issue, and we’ve already received some great stories – make sure that yours joins them!

Sunset on Gilmour, photograph by Honour Macmillan

Last day for sharing your story with us is January 18th.

Centre for Business Development

Business
Finally, today (January 10th) is the last day to complete the survey being run by the Centre for Business Development who are gathering information that will be useful to use in identifying issues and provide them with what they hope will be a good basis to start developing strategies.

The Centre is is a collaborative group of business people working together to identify and improve areas that may be hindering growth in Second Life. Their aim is to be proactive in improving business growth, opening avenues of communication with Linden Lab and enriching experiences for SL residents.

So … what are you waiting for? There’s lots of things to do … and later, there may even be a jigsaw …

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How did you meet? Prim Perfect wants to know!

Pastoral on Dernier Lamento, photograph by Honour Macmillan

After all the gloomy posts of the last few days, we have something a little more fun for you!

Our next issue will be our Valentine’s Day Prim Perfect – and we want to feature your stories!

Many people have met their significant other in Second Life – and then gone on to meet and sometimes even marry in First Life.  Sometimes people have moved halfway across the globe to achieve this!

Sunset on Gilmour, photograph by Honour Macmillan

Others have met and formed deep relationships in Second Life, even though they accept that they will probably never meet in First Life.

And sometimes couples have travelled to Second Life together, and found new aspects to their relationship together, perhaps finding again something that has been left behind in the busyness of daily life, or perhaps discovering – in the amazing diversity of Second Life – something wholly new, and perhaps not even possible in real life!

Whatever your story, we would like you to share it with us.  If you’d like to be part of our special Valentine feature, complete the form below, and one of us will contact you.

So don’t delay – share your story with us – before January 18th – to feature in the February issue of Prim Perfect.

Pure Dreams Afternoon, photograph by Honour Macmillan

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