Secret Santug Holiday House Swap 2015!

Homes and Tomes proudly presents:

Secret Santug Holiday House Swap 2015

It’s that time of year again as the holidays slowly creep up on us… that time of year to make someone else’s year-ending incredible and exciting.

The Secret Santug Holiday House Swap is a fun exchange meant to bring smiles to decorators of all skill levels. Simply put, this is a name-drawn-from-a-hat “Secret Santa” style gift exchange of a decorated home. We will assign each of you (the Santug) a home to decorate. In turn, someone else will decorate a home for YOU!

WHO: Anyone who wants to join in.

If you aren’t an incredible decorator, that’s fine. People love to receive houses, no matter the skill level. This is about fun and the spirit of giving! You’re giving someone a smile, no matter what you do. After all, you’re building a house for THEM! All for them! It makes people feel SPECIAL to get a house like that! So stock up on house items, because we don’t care what your skill level is. If you want to spread a little holiday cheer, and receive some in return, while having fun decorating, this is for YOU!

If you don’t celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or what have you, that’s OKAY! We’re not celebrating them. We’re celebrating FROSTFELL, Norrath’s winter festival. Remember, we’re in EQ2. We’re celebrating a holiday that we can ALL enjoy together. Merry Happy Cheerful Exciting Special Frostfell to you!

WHAT: Secret Santug Holiday House Swap

WHEN: Signups are open NOW until November 29th, at 3 PM Pacific.
You will receive your home signups ON or BEFORE December 1st.
Decorating will run from December 1st to December 23rd.

PLEASE DO NOT PROCRASTINATE! We don’t want anyone panicking the days before That Holiday With A Tree In Real Life With All Those Evil Songs On The Radio because they haven’t finished the house yet. You have 23 days to work on this house. Use them wisely!

WHERE: ALL SERVERS can participate! The bulk of the event will be happening on Antonia Bayle, since that’s Homes and Tomes’ home server. However, in prior years--and this year--we’ve arranged it so that other servers can participate on their home servers, too!

WHY: Because we like to spread holiday cheer! We’ve found that quite a few people don’t get a chance to give or receive gifts. This holiday isn’t all about gifts, it’s about caring for yourself and others. However, nothing says “I care” quite so much as a personalized home in a game where you spend a lot of time. This is a gift that doesn’t cost any real world money, so even the least wealthy of EQ2ers can both give and receive this gift.

HOW: To sign up, please send an email to HomesAndTomes@gmail.com IN THE FOLLOWING FORMAT--This is so that if there are any updates to the contest information, we can easily reach you in a manner you won't miss. Sometimes if we post updates in the forum thread, people miss the updates.

If you're leery of using your normal email address, Google email is free, and it's quick to sign up! Just create a gaming email account and have it forward your emails to your main account. That way, your privacy is assured, and you won't miss any contest updates.

Subject of the email: SSHHS2015 ServerName.CharacterName
Server Name:
Character Name:
Character Race:
Character Gender:
The city the house you want decorated is located in:
The home address:
Home theme; if you do not have any ideas, please write “Decorator’s Choice”:
Do you want any Frostfell decorations put up in your home?:


WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU SIGN UP:

• Choose the home you wish to have decorated. Try to keep it to a 4 room house or smaller, although you can choose a bigger house if you have an awesome idea. Keep in mind that this awesome idea needs to be decorated in 23 days or less, though!
• If you are on AB, give JAZABELLE trustee on the home you choose to have decorated.
• If you are NOT on AB, please give JAZABELLE trustee.
• Change the name of the home to SSHHS2015 ← VERY IMPORTANT! Do not modify this at all. Even if you have multiple houses you’d like to have your Secret Santug pick out of to decorate, name them all SSHHS2015. No spaces! All capital letters! There's a very good reason for this--if you're guilded with someone who's also doing the SSHHS2015, or you don't have Roleplay or Anonymous set, this prevents people from being able to figure out whose SSHHS house you're decorating. It preserves the surprise.
• Make sure the home’s public access is set to “None.”
• Map out what you want to have done. In a player written book placed in your SSHHS2015 home, please list character name, character race, character gender, home address (just in case your Santug decides to leave the house with the book, and can’t remember where it is), and home theme. If you do not have any ideas, please still place a book with your character name, character race, character gender, home address, and “DECORATOR’S CHOICE.”
• Please make sure that you have at least 60 days paid upkeep if your home is not a prestige home.
• Once all of that is done, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, enter the home after December 1st, until it is announced as completed on the 23rd!
• When you complete your home, please REPLY to your original SSHHS2015 entry email alerting the organizers that you've finished decorating your gift.
• If you have any questions, please REPLY to your original SSHHS2015 entry email. This is to ensure that your questions are not missed, and to keep the inbox clutter to a minimum.

DETAILS:

• Please DO NOT sign up if you think you won’t be able to finish a house in this amount of time. If you do that, the organizers have to scramble to finish the home that you left partially done.
• Please DO let us know if you sign up, and a real world emergency happens that causes you to be unable to participate. We will happily take over the home for you, as long as we know that we need to!
• There is NO maximum and NO minimum on the amount you can spend/have to spend on a house. We’ve seen gorgeous homes of elm. However, we would like you to try and keep it under 100 platinum. If you choose to go over that, that’s your choice.

Who to contact if you have questions:
Jazabelle or HomesAndTomes@gmail.com (preferred)

Happy Merry Cheerful Festive Fun Sparkly Frostfell!

SUBJECT: SSHHS2015 HallsofFate.Emeraldina
Server Name: Halls of Fate
Character Name: Emeraldina
Character Race: Wood Elf
Character Gender: Female
The city the house you want decorated is located in: New Halas
The home address: Honor Homesteads, as when you enter the tunnel and to your left.
Home theme; if you do not have any ideas, please write “Decorator’s Choice”: Explains further in the book at the home.
Do you want any Frostfell decorations put up in your home?: Yes

[ Additional message: I don't mind decorate 1 house more, if there's someone who don't have a person to decorate their house. ]

SUBJECT: SSHHS2015 Public Test.Spiritmaker
Server Name: Public Test
Character Name: Spiritmaker
Character Race: Sarnak
Character Gender: Female
The city the house you want decorated is located in: Gorowyn
The home address: Lower Tenements [2-room status-free; to the right of the bank as you enter that area]
Home theme; if you do not have any ideas, please write “Decorator’s Choice”: Decorator's Choice; can use what's there, including the travel portals...come to think of it, that might be the theme; whatever works ;->
Do you want any Frostfell decorations put up in your home?: sure, if the decorator wants!

If you use any Marketplace or other bonded items, let me know when/if/etc. you'd like them back. I'll definitely see to it they're returned to you if I move from there as well.

Spiritmaker is a level 100 Carpenter, so she can do a lot, decorating-wise, and being on Test, she'd have access to the Latest and Greatest FF recipes! ;-> I'd prefer to be assigned a smallish (4 rooms and under) place myself, since Real Life is getting weird again. Not so weird I don't think I can do this, but I draw the line at things like the new Estate of Unrest or a 7-room Kelethin. :-/ And I do better work with a definite theme in mind; it can take me forever just to come up with one. ;->

Uwk

Reminder:

Signing up in the thread is awesome. It bumps the thread, and lets people see what other people are requesting for their homes. However, you also need to send an email to HomesAndTomes@gmail.com.

The email is so that if there are any updates to the contest information, we can easily reach you. If you're leery of using your normal email address, Google email is free, and it's quick to sign up! Just create a gaming email account and have it forward your emails to your main account. That way, your privacy is assured, and you won't miss any contest updates.

D'oh! Thanks for reminding me: SEND THE ENTRY IN VIA EMAIL!

Uwk

P.S. Is it Jazabelle that we set access to no matter what server? Or is it a different spelling, depending? --Uwk with the Old Kitty Eyes

Server Name: AB
Character Name: Tenchigirl
Character Race: highelf
Character Gender: female
The city the house you want decorated is located in: Qeynos Capitol District (South Qeynos)
The home address: 15 Tranquil Way [ 4 room ]
Home theme; Lady Liae Croae and Family Frostfell
Do you want any Frostfell decorations put up in your home?: yes please

edit: I'll email too asap, just need to fix my email account.

Looks like it's Jazabelle for everywhere, I think.

Just sent my email.

Probably, it's just that in earlier times it was Jazabelle for AB, and Jazabella, or some other variation, for the other servers. Just want to be sure!

Uwk

It was Jazabella on Oasis. Luckily, when Oasis merged with the other servers, I got Jazabelle on the new server. So it's Jazabelle everywhere now, as I have one on each server!

Woot! Good to know; I'll jump on there and Publish completely!

EDIT: whoops, okay, so "Publish" is the wrong term...but it's ready to go for sure now. ;->

Uwk

(Bump).

Server Name: Maj'dul
Character Name: Daemora
Character Race: Arasai
Character Gender: Female
The city the house you want decorated is located in: Freeport
The home address: Maj'dul Merchant Apartment (3 room apartment)
Home theme; if you do not have any ideas, please write “Decorator’s Choice”: "Decorator's Choice
Do you want any Frostfell decorations put up in your home?: Either way is fine (this is not intended to be a Frostfell themed home, but rather a place Daemora can enjoy any time of year, but she won't object to FF deco being included).

I had noticed it was email for entry so I sent my email, but I'll go ahead and put the info here too. I thought it was odd we were sending our entries by email and not posting them here, but figured you had your reasons for doing it that way.

Edit: Just want to note that I've added both 100 and 200 count item expanders to the home.

Might as well do both!

And yeah, they did emails last year as well, since I think the PM area was getting chock-a-block?

Uwk

Bump again.

We'll probably not have to worry about bumping for too much longer, once all the mergers calm down and Heroes' is over for this year. ;->

It's a popular event!

Uwk

Attempted to sign up. Currently I am consumed with both excitement and nervousness x3. If I get accepted it will be my first time desigining a home for another chara outside of my toons ^^

Good for you! I'm still mulling it over myself. New decorator & carpenter, not sure if I'm ready to start designing for others yet.

Tinrae, AB is a server just chock full of decorators, so I'm sure if you need any help obtaining items from recipes you may not have yet, there are many who would be willing to help out. They are all so nice and helpful there.

I'm on Maj'dul server, so unfortunately I can't help you out but if there is anyone on Maj'dul server who needs help, please be sure to pm me in game on Daemora or here on the forums. I have all carpenter recipes through lvl 100 (though I won't have the new expac recipes for a while), all tinker recipes through tinkering 450 (with exception of possibly some looted recipes), and all holiday recipes. Rares must be supplied, however, for recipes requiring rares, as I don't have many rares available. I am also able to purchase some faction items as well, so if there are any faction items desired, be sure to ask and if I'm able to obtain them, I will do so at only the coin cost of those items.

I am in the same boat...sort of...While I am a level 100 carpenter, I feel my skills with furniture/tile placement is still greatly lacking. I tried using the Home Decorator software >.> but it is way to complicated and takes far more time then I am willing to commit too. In addition while I have only published one house and am currently/simultaniously working on 2-3 others [easily distracted]. Compared to many decorators my skills still don't feel quite up there..though I am still most nervous about tile placement which is incredibly difficult for me...however...from 'free-styling' the houses I decorate, I have/am learning a great deal. Which is all I can do, learn learn and learn some more x3