Hi everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying the summer and getting some rest before the next big Mara event -- Mara's 22nd Birthday. Thank you to everyone who has been donating. If you would like to help out, August's focus is listed below. If you have never participated in Mara's Birthday, I included advice from Xenious and Gennie about the birthday game as well.

AUGUST (Marapets Birthday, Plushie Party)
Birthday, Party, anything from previous birthday events, Fiesta, Celebration, Gift Bags, Pinata, Plushies, Plushie items, Lint, Stitch (Stitched in October), Plushie Fairy items, Origami, Papercut, Foldi, Punk, Steampunk, Clockwork, Desert, Desert Treasure Chest, Desert AU, Luxor, Indiana Bones, Kamilah (Kamilah codes in September), Arabic, Stone Age, Prehistoric, Stone, Anjet, Anubis, Lava, Fire, Tiger, Leopard, Panda, Red Panda, Dalmatian, Shaved, DNA Minipets for Transumption Pyramid, Binary Codes for Wonky Pyramid, Magenta, Enchanted Dips, August

NEED HOSTS FOR UPCOMING MONTHS - Check your calendars to see if you can help out at least once in September, October, November, December, or January.

WELCOME TO ALL IDEAS, here are some previous things
Dress Up Contest
Quest Contest - Halloween Snowman, Tweetly, Secret Santa, Santa Claws, or a random one
Caption Contest
Art/Graphics/Coloring Contest
Short trivia games
Scavenger Hunt
Bingo
Word Fill In
Crossword Puzzle
Word Search
Logic Puzzle
ATM Community Story
Word Decoder Puzzles
Word Scramble

2026 Calendar:
8/1-8/15 ATM Design a Marapets 22nd Birthday Banner
8/4 Plushie Party (Last year - lots of new plushies, enchanted plushies, and return of Enchanted Plushie Treasure Map)
8/13-end of day 8/21 ATM Birthday Bash (gwylynnsgarden) https://www.marapets.com/blogs.php?entry=505421&id=2039393
8/13 Party Treasure Chest
8/14 Birthday Time Machine
8/15 Marapets 22nd Birthday

DESIGN A BIRTHDAY BANNER FOR THE CLUB
8/1-8/15 Design a Marapets 22nd birthday banner for the club by the start of the birthday event and earn 50K Club Points for each banner. Maramail me the link so I can add it to the club banner blog and award your points.

LINK TO ATM BANNER BLOG: https://www.marapets.com/blogs.php?entry=504080&id=2039393

ATM BIRTHDAY BASH (Gwylynnsgarden)
https://www.marapets.com/blogs.php?entry=505421&id=2039393

[img]https://images.marapets.com/items/cd_bday6.gif[/img]

Welcome to the ATM Birthday Bash!

To get us in the Birthday Party mood, all club members who enter will earn 10,000 club points as well as a chance to win a Happy Birthday Remix! All you have to do is post an image of your character in your best birthday party costume on my blog.

To post a picture of your current doll (it will stay that way and not change): type the word "DOLL" in caps with square brackets around it. Like this, except no spaces:
[ DOLL ]

Don't forget to leave your username as well.

This event starts August 13th when the Party Treasure Chest is released and will run until August 22nd. (That means, just like with Marapets stuff you need to submit your entry on the 21st or earlier.) The Happy Birthday Remix winner will be chosen by a random online list generator on August 22nd. Points will also be awarded on August 22nd.

Good luck!

BIRTHDAY INFO (from 2025)
As you browse and play the site as normal, a 'Birthday Gift' may show up in a box. When you find it, click it and you will earn Seconds to spend at the Birthday Party. If you're lucky, you may even find Account Upgrades Credit. Once you have an Invitation to the Birthday Party (see how to get this below), you can spend the time you have earned there, where MP and Party Bags will fall from the sky. Collect as many as you can before your seconds run out to win these prizes!

Visit any player who is currently Online Now and click the button at the top of their profile to invite them to the party. Each player is different - they could already be at the party, napping (or still completing their Easter Egg Hunt) but will give you either MP or a Pinata prize. If you have already earned 60 Seconds or more from the Birthday Hunt, you may find a player who did actually read the RSVP and will give you a copy of their Party Invitation. You can then use your time to party and earn prizes!

HELPFUL GUIDE to prep for the birthday event. If you don't already use a visited links app, go check out Dani's guide. It's so much easier to do the birthday event, trick or treating, and caroling with a visual color change.
https://www.marasites.com/?name=Dani&page=LinksVisitedTutorial

HELPFUL ADVICE FROM 2025 - INFO ABOUT BIRTHDAY GAME - advice from Xenious
"You need 60 secs before you can play ...
The best strategy is to save up 300 seconds before you party. Bags fall faster the longer the game goes. Faster bags means more bags! You don't want to party early and cheat yourself with fewer bags. One 300-second party is better than five 60-second parties or two 150-second parties. 300 is optimal.
Example data:
9 bags at 60 seconds
19 bags at 120 seconds
40 bags at 180 seconds
70 bags at 240 seconds
101 bags at 300 seconds
What about parties "ending early?" Why do bags stop falling when you still have time left? Bags stop falling once you reach a certain number of total bags (mp + gift bags) caught. To prevent wasted time at the end, avoid catching mp bags. If you only catch gift bags, you won't reach the limit, and you can keep catching gift bags up until your time runs out."

advice from Gennie in forums on 8/20/25:
"The thing about seconds is, if you have more than 60 an get an invite from player profiles, you get capped at 300 seconds for playing the birthday game.
BUT, if you don't go for the invite, you can go higher than 300 seconds.

I'm currently at 330 seconds.

I'll be going for my invite via Profile clicking' once I hit 420, which will give me 7 minutes to play the birthday game, rather than 5 minutes.
I often wait to go til I have 360 or 420 seconds, which gives me 6 or minutes for the game. Mostly do to the game running slower for me than others.. despite having decent net speed....
If I did 300 seconds I might grab 50 bags, but at 6 or 7 minutes, I often end up with 80 or 90 bags. so it's worth putting in the extra effort for longer seconds.

This does mean i cut into profile clicking, during the gathering of seconds, but I still end up with ore than enough from that to,.

It helps to find what works best for you. Cap at 300, or push for more minutes of game play by avoiding profile clicks."

WAYS TO EARN CLUB POINTS THAT ARE WORKING (Ian has been working on clubs. Hopefully we can switch back to MP sometime soon.)
9 Points per post on Club Chat
9 Points per item donated to the Club
9 Points x rarity of item donated
9 Points every time you enter the Club Quiz
9 Points every time you enter the Club Raffle
And through club events & club chat events

Have a great month and good luck collecting all those gift bags and pinatas!

Gwylynnsgarden