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.