Dog Collars Anyone?

I've had a request for a Canadian flag dog collar. Anyone else have a particular country flag they'd like made into a dog collar? LMK :)

You asked for it...rugs!

Rugs are the most popular item in my latest poll, so I've just completed two sets...one of Victorian rugs and one of Southwestern style rugs. A nice variety of colors and patterns are in these sets which are recolors of the Isotopia rug from Freetime. Hope you enjoy them!

The Cherry Kitchen

I'm not sure what possessed me to do a room. It took ages...first to figure out just what I wanted to do, then to pick the pieces and recolor them. And then recolor again. And again. I finally got the combination of reds I was looking for. Finally, uploading a room (and giving all the detail about where to find the recolors, what EPs are needed) took forever. That said, I hope folks enjoy it!

Poll results: Favorite eras

Here's the result of my first poll. I wanted to find out what eras folks liked. I'll use the results to guide some of my creations :)

Victorian 29.17% (7)
Gothic 29.17% (7)
Art Deco 25% (6)
Arts & Crafts 12.5% (3)
Art Nouveau 25% (6)
Retro 50s, 60s, 70s 41.67% (10)
Classic 1930-1950 12.5% (3)
Country 29.17% (7)
Modern 33.33% (8)
Medieval 25% (6)

A new poll is going up soon, so check back! Thanks for participating.

Wallpaper

I've been trying a lot of new things and am going to take a break from cloning and recoloring to make some wallpaper. Poll shows favorite themes to be 50s 60s 70s retro and gothic. I've got several cool sixties textures I'm working on and a few ideas for gothic papers, so check back.

A Day in the Sun

Took the day off and went outside. We've been putting in a huge garden and they were predicting rain, so wanted to get the corn, beans, cukes, and taters in the ground before the storm. It was a beautiful day, breezy, not too hot, and I was working on planting beans while sitting on my sturdy chair. I reached down for a tool and saw something move...a SNAKE! Yikes.

We have a lot of snakes on the farm, for the most part they are harmless black snakes. But this one was red and gold banded, thin, long and heading under my chair. My biggest fear was that my Jack Russell Terrier who was already under my chair would see the snake and attack it. We do have poisonous Copperhead snakes, and I was not sure just what this one was. Grabbed the terrier by the collar and pulled him to where I could see him...but the snake had disappeared.

Seeing as I'm disabled and getting up and moving is a major production, I started hollering SNAKE! SNAKE! and my husband hollered back from the house that he was coming. Those 30 seconds were about four hours long as I looked frantically for the snake while hanging on to my little dog.

Finally DH arrived and checked carefully under my chair and poked the weed piles around me...no snake. Then we spotted it slowly making it's way across the freshly tilled corn patch. From the safe distance of 10 yards and with the snake field guide in hand, we were able to identify it as a non-poisonous Eastern Milk Snake. Finally, it slithered off into the tall grass.

I am not particularly afraid of snakes, but having one within six inches of my hands and feet is just a wee bit too close.

It's never a dull moment here on the farm, but I'm happy to have returned this evening to my comfy chair and computer!

Hmmmm...I wonder if I can make a snake that could visit a Sim's garden??

Bang! Bang! Bang!

That's the sound of my head hitting the wall. I was so thrilled to have fixed the problem of my invisible content. Went back through Simpe and did not change the names on the textures and all the vintage posters showed up just fine. Of course I had to flip them all horizontally as they were originally displaying as mirror images.

Uploaded everything to TSR. Decided just to be on the safe side, to download and test a few. Did so. No object. Sims2pack claimed to have installed the files, but nothing was showing in the Downloads folder. Tried multiple times, no go.

Aaargh. So am going to have to work on this some more to see what dumb thing I've done now. The vintage posters are really cool...actual posters that recently went up at auction. I have a bunch of travel posters as well as some circus, magic, and general advertising pieces that are so cool! Posters go back as far as 1896 and are in terrific condition. Check back....I'll get these to work one way or another soon :)

Want to create? Try the tutorials :)

Seems like learning to create stuff for the Sims is an evolving process. First you use the tools that came with the game (Homecrafter and Bodyshop). If you are like me, you stumble around a bit trying to figure out how to get that wallpaper to tile properly or matching up what part of a texture shows up just where in a piece of clothing.

Then you move on to trying recolors. I did so with Wizards of Simpe, which is pretty easy to use and is good for doing basic recolors (like putting new images in wall hangings).

Then it's Simpe itself...and that's when I found things got complicated. If you are a Star Trek fan, remember the Pakleds, the race of simple-minded beings that "looked for things that make us go". They don't know how their technology works, they just want it to go.

That's me. I boot up a program and start blundering about with it. Eventually, I either give up or figure out how to make it do what I need.

Except, that didn't work too well with Simpe.

So I broke down and (gasp) read some tutorials. Not only that, I worked through the examples. Multiple times! Thanks to munchkin-brat, SimAddict99, Tlkaska, Xanathon and others, I finally managed to successfully clone and recolor some objects. Woohoo!

Now we will see if I can actually make some of the stuff I've had ideas for.

So, if you are wanting to improve your skills, check out the tutorials! They're great.

Simpe!

I think I finally have a clue on how to do recolors using Simpe. Thanks to a whole passel of wonderful tutorials, I got it installed correctly and working. Next stop, learning to clone objects! If you haven't checked out the tutorials in Content, it's well worth doing so...they are VERY helpful.

Just uploaded a batch of exterior walls. I think the shingle set will work well on Victorian houses. Trying to figure out how to add the fancy gingerbread along the roof line. I think it can be done on walls, but not sure how to make it line up properly on the angle of the roofline.

Wow! Thanks everyone!

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded my stuff, I now have enough kudos for this minisite! Currently I am working on learning how to use Simpe properly and plan to do some major recolors to create a Fifties kitchen. I also have been trying my hand at skins. Made my first "photo" Sim ...he was supposed to be Adam Baldwin (as Jayne Cobb from Firefly). He's pretty much a resounding failure :) Around here we call him "Pathetic Jayne". So it's back to the drawing board.

When not making horrid skins, I'm working on wallpapers or remaking designer clothes. I've got a batch of retro walls in aqua and chocolate that are really cool waiting in the wings. I think I'll do a set of men's clothes again soon too.

Well off to finish working on my minisite banner. Thanks again everyone for downloading my stuff and writing me such nice comments!