Holiday pop-up stores for both St. Patrick’s Day and Easter are now open at Dench Designs. Each store offers holiday-based items ranging from décor to an array of animesh characters. These are two of five different seasonal pop-up stores that Amanda Dench uses to provide holiday-based items for her customers.
“I have Valentine, St. Patrick’s, Easter, Halloween and Christmas,” said Amanda.
Amanda came to Second Life in early 2007 and later that year she had begun building furniture. By the middle of 2008 she had opened up her first store to sell her creations.
In all that time she has remained successful because she listens to her customers. In fact, it was her customers who requested the St. Patrick’s shop.
“I opened it mostly because people were asking,” she said. “It’s not something that’s celebrated much in England these days,” she added, speaking of her homeland.
“I used to put St. Patrick's Day and Easter creations in my main store but not a dedicated space,” said Amanda. Then, as the number of creations for each holiday grew she decided to give each a dedicated space. That happened in 2018.
Amanda said she uses Irish music for a lot of her inspiration for the items in the St. Patrick’s Day store, especially the animesh characters. She pointed out that she loves an Irish jig and has some traditional Irish songs in the store. Both “Danny Boy” and “The Pub with No Beer” by the Irish Rovers greet shoppers
The St. Pat’s shop has a lot of animesh characters. When asked how many there are Amanda laughed and said, “Too many for sure. They are very high in land impact.” She said she pays Linden Labs for extra prims so that she can open these pop-up stores and create new characters for them.
“The two new ones are the Riverdancer and ‘Paddy’s lost his clothes,’” she said. She doesn’t worry about Paddy being mostly naked, though. “To be honest, he’s not a looker,” she chuckled.
“The Easter shop will have lots of bunnies, flowers and some religious builds,” said Amanda. At the time of the interview, she hadn’t put out her new Easter builds.
“At least Easter is later this year so got a lot of time,” she pointed out.
Amanda regularly creates original sounds and voices for her animesh characters. In fact, the wandering bunnies on the second floor of the Easter store feature her altered voice. And the drunk Easter Bunny’s voice is that of her RL husband. She was quick to point out that he didn’t need to get drunk to do the lines.
“He’s very good at acting,” she said. “I'll tell him what I need him to say and how and he usually does it in one take.”
In addition to offering items for sale, Amanda plans on showing her generosity by providing themed group gifts for each store.
“I haven't done one yet for the Easter shop. There is last year's gift for the FabFree group but that will need changing. I've not done one for St. Patrick's because I usually send it on the day via the group messages,” said Amanda.
"I like giving lots of gifts," said Amanda. "I like making loads of gifts because I know they are appreciated and make people smile. That is my main purpose, putting a smile on peoples' faces."
She has been putting smiles on people’s faces for 17 years now through here furniture, décor and animesh creations. That includes plenty of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter items now available at her two holiday pop-up stores.
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