Beach Cottage

Kay, yeah, it's been forever - I've been busy. Also, I haven't been creating as much, more story telling and all that jazz. I've basically given up on that contest I was planning. Sadfayce. (I don't have any more time for it with everything else going on.) BUT. Regardless of everything, I managed to build a small beach cottage. Now I'm very beginner-ish with my building, decorating, and gardening (as I found out at Living Sims, haha) but I really like how it turned out. I actually added a small lot on the beach and built this there. I started out having it decorated super weird and lazy, like all the floor is the same and the walls used to be the same color but I went in and put some more stuff to make it prettier - but you can always redecorate if you need to, yeah?

Let's start with pictures, shall we?

Front:

Back:

Bottom floor:

Top floor:

You can download this in .sim3package style (as I think that's the only way to begin with) here.

There is no CC, but I do have these EP's:
Ambitions
Late Night
Generations

If you don't have one of those, the items that go along with it will be replaced by something base-game.

Rainbowcy in progress!

Hey all! I know it's been a while. I've been pretty busy. I just started a new term at school but it's been knda crazy - I had to get an endoscopy on Tuesday because I've been having abdominal pain for the past couple of months.

Enough about medical crap. It's stupid.

Now on to the real reason why I am posting this. I started a rainbowcy on the official Sims 3 forums. I had been lurking there for a while and wanted to do this for a long time. Anyway, the name of the rainbowcy is A Touch of Star Dust and you can read it here. There's only one chapter as of now but I have plans for it and I'm excited to get this going. :)

Well, that's all. Contest will be approaching the beginning of April. Stay tuned for that. :)

~Shanna

Haley!

I FINALLY got around to taking shots of her outfits, both vanilla and with CC. The download file will have both versions so that it's easier on me. XD (As you will be able to tell, the CC version requires Late Night if you want her to look exactly the same.)

EDIT: Forgot to say that she is in .sim format. For those of you who don't know how to install this type of file, it's super simple and super quick. The folder directory should be MyDocuments/EA(or Electronic Arts)/Sims3/SavedSims and she will appear in your sim bin in CreateASim.

Haley Test (You can change her surname, but her first name is Haley.)

Personality:
Ambitious
Childish
Excitable
Party Animal
Virtuoso

Her LTW is to be a Master Mixologist, but you can change that. (Requires LN, and I don't know if it changes if you don't have the EP... Can anyone confirm or deny this?)

First, Vanilla version:

And the CC version:

CC list (links go to the item):
Hair by Anubis360
Athletic top by Anubis360
Pattern in nightgown by Camille
Pattern in swimsuit by Camille
(For some reason Camille's website was down for me. I'll look them up and specifically link to the patterns when it comes back up. Here is her thread on the LivingSims forum for now.)

~Shanna

Mod of the Week v. 2

Guess what I forgot to do last week? That's right, the Mod of the Week.

I didn't put much thought into it this time though. I haven't picked up any new mods at all. I may have to just post about another Twallan mod then. (His mods are, by the way, here. Check them out. He's fantastic.) I may even move this to less often (especially if I'm going to be hosting this contest!) and do it only once a month as opposed to once a week.

Looks like this time I'm going to have you guys check out the DebugEnabler. Twallan. Haha. This is a really neat little tool; you can do so much with it. I once made a building for a contest and used this mod quite extensively. I originally grabbed it just for the animations that are possible, but there is soooo much more to it than that. I can't even go into it all, because it's crazy much. (Check out the actual site for more info than I can give.)

Anyway, there you go. Now I need to get back to doing challenges and smoothing out the contest. I may just have my friends judge for me if I get no offers for judging. XD

~Shanna

Contest progress update.

A few weeks ago, I told you of a contest/challenge I was thinking of doing. I'm actually trying to fine-tune this contest, and I would like some ideas on what to name this. Leave suggestions in the comments, and I will put up a poll when I get enough. I also need a few people to help me with judging and possibly rewards.

Did I tell you what the contest is? No? *For shame!*

There are two shows on HGTV called House Hunters and Property Virgins. (There's actually two kinds of House Hunters: USA and International.) With both of these shows, they take a person or family and help them find a home by showing them different ones. Well, I was inspired by this and decided I wanted to start a contest. There will be two parts to this contest.

1. Building a house. You will be provided with a Sim/family and given three basic needs for a home. Your job will be to build a home for this Sim/family. While there is no need to decorate, you may decorate very minimally, almost like the home were up for show. Judging will be based on how well you fit the needs of the client. (I am debating whether or not to put a budget for the home itself.)

2. Decorating the house for after the move-in. Yes, there will be a decorating part to this. After the winning house is selected, it will be up for download here at this blog. This part is the challenge part; there will be no winner selected here.

There are a few conditions that must be met in order to participate:

• This is a Sims 3 contest/challenge. I am willing to have someone host a Sims 2 version, if desired.
• MUST be willing to upload house.
• Keep CC to a minimum, and keep the home to as close to base-game as possible. We don't want a home come challenge time that people can't decorate. If there is CC, make sure you tell us exactly what it is and where it can be downloaded. Keep it free as well, people. :)
• If you don't/can't participate in the contest, you are still welcome to participate in the challenge.
• Promote, promote, promote! I (or someone else) will make a small banner for forum sigs when I get the name finalized.
• You don't need a blogger account to participate; if you have a house you want to submit, feel free to e-mail me. I will put that out when it comes time.

Whoooo. That was quite the long-winded post! All right peeps, I'm way excited for this. I have a few names myself, but I have no idea what to call it... I'm kinda useless when it comes to naming things. *Sadface.*

~Shanna

Mod of the Week

I'll be starting a "Mod of the Week" special starting now. I think I might post them on Friday. If you have a mod that you think deserves this title, let me know in a comment and why the mod deserves this.

This week, the NoCD Mod by Twallan is the Mod of the Week. After I got Late Night, the CD action was really really loud. I found myself hesitant to play the game because I was afraid of what was going to happen to my CD drive. I found the setting in Awesome Mod to stop the CD reading during the game, but nothing to take the CD away completely. The noise was still there. I can't remember who I found it out from, but somehow I found out about the NoCD mod from Twallan. (He has amazing mods, like the StoryProgression mod and Relativity.) So I finally downloaded it, and it's basically amazing. Bypass the launcher (which is lame to begin with) and you got a fully in-comp game.

It's also super simple. He doesn't even have to update it. What awesomeness. :)

~Shanna

New Sim! And other stuff.

I want you to meet someone: Haley Test!

School, building, and other fun stuff I guess.

So I've actually been doing *something* productive in Sims! Hooray! I decided I wanted to build a starter home and so I am. I even created a new sim for building/testing purposes. Pictures forthcoming; I should actually be asleep. (I am really tired; I just don't fall asleep very easily! Oops!)

But hey, news: School started back up again and so my evenings are taken up by massage therapy school. I don't know how I feel about it yet... I was at a different campus the last term I went. (It's a long story; if you ask nicely enough I might tell some of it to you.)

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I may have broken my simmer's block! Hooray!

~Shanna

It's me! Here's an update on what I've been doing:

• Challenges from Living Sims. Or, at least, trying to.
• Contemplating on how to do a specific thing I was challenged to do... Hmmm...
• Creating a master-list of all the CC I have. This includes content I have not put into my game. It's been a pretty long and arduous task so far; I've only done 2 folders and found some stuff that I can't remember where I got it or the creator's name.
• I've been wanting to re-do a whole bunch of houses and build some new ones, then share them. I take so much but I can't do much in the giving department. Sad, yes.

I was going to get into the game and play around this evening, but it ended up with me creating that master-list. I may need help with this. As soon as it's done, I'll be able to be better organized. Hooray! It's kinda bugging me with how cluttered these folders are. Plus I've been meaning to do this for a very long time.

Anyway, I'm gonna go. It's 3:05 am and I've got stuff in the morning. Woohoo!

~Shanna