Ah, Venice...

The spot on my island that I was most excited to build was a Venice-inspired city.  I had big plans for building the Doge's palace, St. Mark's Square, canals, gondolas, gardens, bridges...all the wonderful things that make Venice so special.

And I completely could not do it.  I tried to build fake buildings, I tried to build spaces that felt like Venice...and it was a complete disaster.  

I did like this museum build, inspired by a real church in Venice...of course, that church didn't have a dinosaur out front...so, I guess it's not really.  But I did like how it turned out, on its own little island with steps accessible from the canal (to arrive via gondola, of course!).

I was watching a lot of ACNH builds on YouTube and there were just so many beautiful builds.  One day I was just done with this first island...I just wanted to flatten and start over and time travel and be free!  And so, I did!  

I look back on this island with fondness and gratitude and it makes me so happy to remember these times with my villagers.  I'm happy I took the time to really get to know this game and to get to know my creative self better.  It was a scary time in the world, but on my island, life was good and meaningful and full of friends and creativity.  I'm so happy I found this game and that almost 5 years later, I still find life on my island good and meaningful.  

An English Flower Garden

By the time I had finished most of my island, I was growing bored of the tropical area near my Resident Services and Nook's Cranny.  I had a lot of hybrid flowers and was running out of places to grow more.  I decided to create an English style flower garden where I could showcase all my beautiful flowers.  I watered these to try to replicate them, but I never did get all the flowers to fill in to complete my idea.  But that's okay, this was only the beginning of my rainbow flower obsession.  (And coffee shop obsession!)

A Cottage in the Woods

For my house, I wanted a small cottage with a flower garden where I could keep bees.  I wanted the bee keeper's hive from the very beginning of the game...and did not get the DIY until after I had finished this island and moved on to other builds.

Instead, I have a lovely cottage in the woods, with a lovely flower garden, and down the lane is Able Sisters where we can buy all our cottage-core attire.  This is still one of my favorite house builds...even though a bee keeper's hive would have been perfection.

Graveyard and Rock Garden

I remember in the early game, Al gave me a gravestone.  I had no idea gravestones were items in the game and from that point on, I was obsessed with the idea of creating a graveyard.  I waited not so patiently to find the "western style stone" DIY...and it took AGES!!!!  As soon as I found it, I went to work creating a graveyard just outside of my spooky town.

I love a graveyard in real life, some of my best vacation memories are of visiting graveyards.  Some of my best childhood memories too.  You'll see more graveyards on future islands, but this is my very first and it's so, so lovely.

The rock garden was inspired by the movie The Village.  I thought it would be so great to follow a path (behind the pumpkin patch) through the woods and stumble onto a creepy rock garden filled with flowers of "the bad color".  You can see one of the scary red-cloaked monsters up on the hill to the right!

I'm so proud of this rock garden, because I made it without time-traveling AND on a sparsely decorated island.  I filled every spot I could with pathing and mannequins in order to get them to spawn where I wanted them.  It took forever, but when that last rock spawned, I was SO happy and it was well worth the time and effort.  

Spooky Town

I'm a fan of all things spooky and goth adjacent.  Fun shows like The Addams Family (both original and new), not really anything too gory or scary.  I was super excited to build a spooky Halloween town, but didn't have any of the pumpkin DIY's (one of the things I hated most about not time traveling, not having access to seasonal DIY's).  I did the best I could, creating a town square centered around a spooky well.  

Past that was an alley where you could buy potions and other spooky things.  Behind that, a tiered neighborhood lit by candlelight.

On the beach, one of my favorite little builds: a moon bathing spot.  

I learned a lot building this spooky town.  I wanted it to be so much more, with more items and spooky clutter...but I did what I could with the DIY's I had (oh how I longed for a leaf pile!).

The Pumpkin Patch and Apple Orchard

One of my favorite things to do in the fall is dream of visiting apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  I don't actually ever visit them, but I love the idea.  Of course I had to build an apple orchard and pumpkin patch on my island.  When I first started my island, I was SO happy that I had apples because I knew that there was no way to get them in the game unless you had them as your main fruit or sister fruit (or traded with ACNH friends, of which, I had none at the time).

I had seen a lot of different orchard design ideas and fretted about what would be the best for my island and the space I had.  I think it turned out really well.  I had big plans to turn this area into a full blown pick your own apple orchard and festival, but I found myself not really up to the task.  I tried to keep in mind that I would be building more islands in the future and I could always revisit an idea another time.

The pumpkin patch was mostly a way to make bells.  It wasn't really an aesthetic pick your own pumpkin patch that I would design these days.  But I still like the design and how the villager house was incorporated.

The Campground

When starting my first island, I couldn't decide on a theme (island themes were all the rage in 2021 and are still going strong in 2026).  I have so many interests, a multi-themed island seemed like the best idea.  

I knew a campground was a must.  When we were kids, our parents took us camping once every couple of summers.  While I wasn't super into camping, I did enjoy the long days spent reading Stephen King novels in the tent, or at the picnic table, or at the beach, or in the car.  I also enjoyed a campfire, and still do.  The smell of wood smoke is one of my favorite scents, even to this day.

Campsite design was a big deal in ACNH at the time, everyone wanted to have the best campsite.  I wanted mine to look like the wild campgrounds of my childhood.  Winding paths through the woods, follow the path most worn and it will lead you to the lake.  Bring a lunch, sit in the sand, swim until you feel sick from the waves and the sun, return to your campsite and sit around the fire while dad cooks dinner over the flames.  Fall asleep to the sound of crickets and wake up with the sun.

I think I captured that feeling pretty well.