Exploring the Countryside Christmas Theme

A brand new theme has arrived at the Wshop just in time for the winter holiday season. It’s the Countryside Christmas theme, and it was chosen as the winner out of three different themes by readers on Webkinz Newz.

The Countryside Christmas theme is interesting because it creates an outdoor scene, but you build it in an indoor room. The outdoor look is achieved through the wallpaper and flooring.

Another interesting aspect of the Countryside Christmas theme is the Cottage Kit, which you must build by asking your friends for materials.

But before we delve too much further into the individual pieces of the theme, let’s take a look at the big picture. The Countryside Christmas theme is made up of 13 pieces. These pieces range in price from 800 to 180 kinzcash, with the Cottage Kit being the most expensive item in the theme.

Here’s a look at all of the individual pieces in the Countryside Christmas collection:

The Countryside Toboggan Hill is the second most expensive piece at 600 kinzcash. The Toboggan Hill is interactive – your pet can actually slide down the hill on a little sled:

As you can see in the gif above, my Countryside Cottage is still a work in progress. You build the cottage in three stages, and each stage requires that you ask your friends (including Webkinz Hosts like Amanda Panda and Ms. Birdy) for the supplies.

Here are the three stages of the Countryside Cottage:

One piece of the Countryside Christmas theme that I especially like is the Pine Tree. The Pine Tree is neat because it actually has four different “looks,” depending on which way the tree is turned:

I like how the size of the tree and the pattern of the snow both change as you turn the tree.

The Countryside Christmas theme contains two different types of tiles – Road Tiles and Frozen Creek Tiles.

First up are the Road Tiles, which look like a vehicle has driven through the snow. There is a straight piece and a curved piece:

The Frozen Creek Tiles, just like their name suggests, look like a frozen body of water running through your outdoor scene. There’s a straight piece and a curved piece here also:

The fence pieces in the Countryside Christmas theme are interesting because even though the two types look alike, they actually work in two completely different ways.

With the Countryside Christmas Fence, you can place it anywhere INSIDE your room:

However, the Countryside Border Fence is for outdoor rooms and must be placed along the EDGES of your room:

The last two pieces of the Countryside Christmas theme are the Christmas Tree and the Snow Covered Lamp Post, both of which will mix and match well with other holiday themes:

So what do you think about the Countryside Christmas theme? Do you plan to buy some of the pieces or maybe even create a whole room? Which piece of the theme is your favorite? Let me know in the comments – the first five people to comment will get a Countryside Christmas gift via kinzpost!

Cyber Monday Deal

I spent the weekend covering the huge Black Friday Sale at the Ganz eStore, so I’d be remiss not to mention the Cyber Monday deal happening today – 50% off the purchase of 60,000 eStore points or more! That’s 60,000 eStore points for $25!

Ganz is also celebrating Cyber Monday with the arrival of the Holly Fox. I purchased one this morning, and I’m really looking forward to adopting it – I think my Holly Fox will be  a girl, and I’ll name her Noel!

The sale on eStore points is good for today (Nov 28th) only, so hurry and get yourself all set for buying Christmas goodies, like surprise stockings and tinsel crackers!

Food Dispensers for 1800 eStore Points!

If you pay close attention while you’re playing Webkinz, then you’ll often see some special food floating across your screen. For instance, there have been Marshmallow Bunnies, Rainbow Lollies and even a Gumdrop Clover. These floating foods are actually promos for food dispensers available at the Ganz eStore.

So what is a food dispenser? Food dispensers are virtual items that provide one consumable food item per day when clicked on. For example, I have a Theater Chocolate Dispenser in my theater room, and I click on it each day to get a Theater Chocolate Pop to feed my pets.

Food dispensers are especially fun if you like to collect food or trade for unusual food items in the Trading Room in the Clubhouse. Some of the most fun and unique foods come from food dispensers…so why don’t I have more in my rooms?

Well, most food dispensers cost around 6,000 eStore points, and I usually spend my eStore points on clothing items and mystery bags. But, if you really dig through those Black Friday Sales at the Ganz eStore, you’ll find several food dispensers on sale for 70% off! That makes each food dispenser only 1800 points each!

I found four food dispensers in the 70% off section and purchased one of each of them:

1. Party Punch Dispenser
2. Webkinz Icepresso Machine
3. Pink Popcorn Machine
4. Milkshake Machine

Let’s take a look at the foods these items dispense and how they will look in your pet’s room.

First up is the Party Punch Dispenser.

The Party Punch Dispenser looks like a ghost ship, so I put it in this Halloween party room:

When you click on the Party Punch Dispenser you get a glass of Party Punch:

Next is the Webkinz Icepresso Machine:

I think the Icepresso Machine is a perfect fit for a cafe or coffee shop themed room:

The Webkinz Icepresso Machine dispenses one Ice Frothy each day.

Now let’s take a closer look at the Pink Popcorn Machine:

To me the Pink Popcorn Machine seems like the perfect match for a slumber party, so I placed it in this movie/birthday/slumber party room I’ve been working on:

When you click on the Pink Popcorn Machine, you get a bowl of popcorn.

Last up is the Milkshake Machine:

I liked the idea of putting the Milkshake Machine in a diner themed room.

You can click on the Milkshake Machine each day to receive one 50’s Diner Milkshake.

Do you have any food dispensers in your pet’s rooms? Which food dispensers are your favorite? Let me know in the comments to receive a special food via Kinzpost!

Decorating with Black Friday Deals

One of my favorite Webkinz activities is designing rooms. (I’m still hoping to win that Room Design Award trophy someday!) There are a lot of great items in the Wshop, but I have to admit that I’m pretty hooked on the awesome furniture you can find in the Ganz eStore.

Some of my favorite decorating finds are actually on sale for 70% off right now. I thought it would be fun to showcase some of the rooms I’ve designed with these very inexpensive items.

For example, several of the items I used to create this “Library Bedroom” are on sale for 70% off right now:

My Library Bedroom is still a work in progress, so excuse some of the misplaced items. 🙂 The important thing is that you can make a room like this too with some of the 70% off items available during the Black Friday Sale.

First, we have the Persian Cat Library Wallpaper and the Persian Cat Library Flooring.

I also added a couple of Persian Personal Bookcases and two Bookworm Chairs.

Here’s a room I designed for my Grumpy Cat. Over in the lower right corner you can see a couple of Moon Flowers that I used for decoration.

Moon Flowers are 70% of 750 points, which means a final cost of only 375 eStore points!

I imagine that this room would be perfect for a Pageant Queen!

In the upper right hand corner you can see the Jammed Jewelry Box and the Jewelry Box Toy Chest I used to help decorate this room.

It took me quite a while to put this room together because I kept changing up the kitchen area. I finally traded for a second skunk strips fridge.

Between the two skunk striped refrigerators I’ve placed an Iridescent Counter.

I also used the Skunk Stripes Flooring.

I really love Halloween, so I made this Halloween party room last year and filled it up with lots of pets in costumes. I used the Halloween Dance Wallpaper, the Halloween Dance Floor and the Halloween Stereo System.

In this Butterfly Garden, I used the Aquamarine Butterfly Tree:

I know it doesn’t make sense to have a topiary in an indoor room, but I just love the way the Rosy Dolphin Topiary looks with all the other pinks and blues in this room I made for my Pink Dalmatian:

So those are just a few ideas for ways to use the Black Friday Sale items in your room designs. Which sale items do you like best? Have you been shopping the Ganz eStore sale?

Cash Cow 2 Trophy Challenge

I’ve been so excited about the Black Friday Sale at the Ganz eStore (and all of my other Black Friday shopping, too!) that almost forgot that this weekend is your chance to win a Cash Cow 2 Trophy!

I prefer the original Cash Cow game, but Cash Cow 2 is fairly easy for me, and I definitely want one of those trophies! 🙂

As you can see in the picture above, in order to win the trophy, you need to earn 200 kinzcash playing Cash Cow 2, spin the Wheel of Wow one time and feed your pet 3 glasses of chocolate milk (at the W shop for 6 kinzcash). Overall, it’s a pretty simple challenge, which I really like because some of the other trophy challenges, like the Dashing Dolphin, were too hard for me. (I’m still bummed I missed that trophy!)

If you have a bit of a hard time with Cash Cow 2, here are a few tips to help you earn your trophy faster:

Hint #1: You only need to match up two blocks of the same color in order to remove them, unlike Cash Cow which requires three blocks of the same color.

Hint #2: Be sure to remove the cracking colored square first or else you have no chance of a perfect round (clearing all of the blocks from the board). You have 4 turns to remove the cracking color block before it turns gray and can’t be removed.

 

Hint #3: Try to remove as large of a “chunk” of blocks as you can at one time; this gives you more points.

Hint #4: The lightning bolt block will remove all of the blocks of one color.

Hint #5: The special block that looks like the top of a soda can will remove a 3×3 block of squares. It’s helpful to save this block until the end so you can remove remaining blocks that don’t match each other.

Hint #6: The special block that looks like a battery with a lightning bolt on it will remove an entire line of blocks. Again, it’s best to save this special block and use it at the end of a round to remove all the remaining blocks that don’t have color matches.

Hint #7: The plus sign block will do one of two things, depending on how many blocks are currently on the board. If there are a lot of blocks on the game board, it will “rain down” more blocks. If there are a lot fewer blocks on the board, a whole line of blocks will rise up from the bottom. It’s more beneficial to game play to have the line of blocks rise up from the bottom, so wait until you’ve cleared a good bit of the board before using the plus sign.

Raining down blocks:

Adding row of blocks to bottom:

Hint #8: After you get past the first few levels, a special block with a “x2” on it will be introduced. When this block is included in a group you’re removing, you get 2 times as many points. You want this group to be as large as possible.

 

I hope these hints will help you earn that Cash Cow 2 Trophy even faster! Do you have any tips for scoring big on Cash Cow 2? Let me know in the comments!

A Mysterious Mixture of Mystery Bags

If you’ve been reading my blog, you probably know by now that I really love to collect clothes for my pets. One of my favorite ways to collect clothes is by purchasing Mystery Bags from the Ganz eStore.

Typically Ganz releases a Mystery Bag for each season, like the 2016 Spring Super Mystery Bag and the  2016 Summer Mystery Clothing bags. I usually buy up quite a few of these and make an “unboxing” video. If you haven’t seen them  yet, you can check out my 2016 Fall Mystery Clothing Bag video or my  2016 Summer Mystery Clothing Bags video.

Sometimes  instead of Mystery Bags it’s a food for your pet that awards a surprise, such as Fall Fest Soda or Winterfest Cookies. The clothing bags are my favorite, but the food packs are fun, too. I’ve done an unboxing video for Winterfest Snowflake Cookies and for the 2016 Fall Fest Soda.

One of the things that I love about the annual Black Friday sale at the Ganz eStore is the crazy low sale prices on Mystery Bags from past years. Say maybe you missed the 2016 Carton of White Chocolate Eggs . Well, right now it’s available for only 3500 eStore points!

I’ve got several bags to open, and I’ll post a video as soon as I can. In the meantime, what surprises have you won in bags or with special foods in the past? Do you enjoy Mystery Bags, too?

Black Friday Sales! Big savings and lots of fun!

The Ganz eStore is having a HUGE Black Friday sale. Whatever items you’re in the market for, the eStore has got you covered. There’s 70% off on items including clothes, furniture, wallpaper and flooring. There’s 40% off select exclusive online pets. And that’s just the beginning!

One of the highlights for me is the 50% off sale on CandyKinz pets and CandyKinz theme room items. I used several pieces from this collection in my “Good Ship Lollipop,” which won me a free virtual Pet of the Month from a Webkinz Newz contest.

For instance, I used the CandyKinz Lollipop Chair and the CandyKinz Wishing Well in my design. I created the pathway use CandyKinz Pathway Tiles. And I even included the CandyKinz Gumdrop Sofa!

I thought the Licorice Fish was so adorable that I bought one of those, too! I’ll adopt it this weekend so I can put up a video and show you how the Licorice Fish looks in Webkinz World.

Another pet I picked up this weekend is the ultra exclusive Sugar Plum Sparkle Pegasus. This online pet is ONLY available during the Black Friday weekend sale at the Ganz eStore, and once the sale is over, this pretty purple sparkling pet will be gone! I’ll adopt her this weekend too so I can show you what she looks like in Webkinz  World. (I definitely think my Sugar Plum Sparkle Pegasus is a girl!)

It’s time for me to go eat some lunch – but I’ll be back later today with more reporting on the Black Friday Sale at the Ganz eStore. And I’ll do a post with some hints for earning the Cash Cow 2 Trophy (only available this weekend!).

 

The chewing noises are back…and so am I!

Hey everyone! I’ve missed you all so much! Life has been busy in the “real world” for a while now, but I’m back and ready to blog!

Webkinz got a Wednesday update today, and the chewing/swallowing noises are back. So what do you think? Do you like them or wish they’d go away again?

Don’t forget to login on Thanksgiving for your gift basket and other fun activities and prizes, and stay tuned to my blog on Black Friday as I keep you updated on all the awesome sales happening at the Ganz eStore, including the Sugar Plum Sparkle Pegasus and 70% off assorted items. (The Sugar Plum Sparkle Pegasus will ONLY be available through November 27th!)