Pinegrove Outdoor Arena

I know I've been scarce lately - this time of year is always horribly busy for me with preparing for our overseas holiday with my family, then throw in some horrid winter illness and I've not touched the computer much for play or creation. However, I am trying to get a few creations prepped for release while I'm away so hopefully things will pick up soon.

First up, this is a simple community lot I built for my own play neighbourhood ages ago but thought it was more fitting to wait until the winter to share it with others. It contains a large outdoor skating rink out front, surrounded with a mixture of pine trees and benches. The log cabin chalet has a small rustic coffee shop with a fireplace lounge, darts and a karaoke machine. Great little place to take a date for some fun. :) Furthermore, I've made a point to use minimal and all free content so this lot will be available for everyone and all machines. Download will be available this Moday, Dec. 3'07.

2 Million Downloads!

Whoot! An exciting milestone to announce - thanks to all you great Sims fans, players and downloaders out there, I'm proud to say I've passed the 2 million download mark; how thrilling! Thank you SO much for all your support, enthusiasm and suggestions!

More creations are on their way - I'll try to catch up on the Hallowe'en creations I had planned, I have some retro themed things lined up and last night I started to sketch out some of my Christmas creations so stay tuned for more shortly.

Merry Turkey!

Well, I didn't end up with time or motivation to get this set done in time for Thanksgiving but decided to go ahead with it anyway - perhaps some of your Sims have yet to finish their Thanksgiving dinners and can still get some use of out them. :)

So, this set features earthy brown and crimson tones. The base linens sport turkey track prints and the accent runners are turkeys in the straw. Since this set is later than I had hoped for, I'm releasing it immediately tomorrow morning, Mon., Oct. 15'07.

Now, on to the stack of Hallowe'en creations I've been planning! :P

The End of an Era...

It's been long in coming but I am pleased to finally announce that the garden flag series is complete! And to celebrate this monumentus occasion, I have rolled all the sets into a giant superset.

The superset will launch tomorrow, Fri., Oct. 12'07 - not that I expect any of you will have overlooked even a single one of these sets! :P

Now, having said that, I want to assure all of you flag-aholics out there that despite this closing announcement, there will undoubtedly be more flags released in the future. I expect I will likely create one or two booster packs of new flag designs a year, starting sometime in 2008. You should also be pleased to know, I have another one or two projects planned that will cross over and incorporate many of these flag designs that you love so much but more info on those down the road. ;)

Dinner Parties - Thanksgiving

If you own the Celebrations! SP, you can now enjoy some festive additions to the fancy dining tables, chair and buffet objects. Unfortunately the UV maps for these objects are not very good for patterned textures but after quite a bit of tweaking and fudging, I think I've settled on something that works quite well without looking overly silly - hopefully you agree. :)

This first Thanksgiving set features an olive green leaf-patterned base linen cloth with colourful gourds (small pumpkins & squashes) for accent runners and linens and bright orange bows for the chairs. Since Thanksgiving is already upon us this weekend, I've set it to publish tomorrow, Sat., Oct. 6'07.

Now, if I can get my pumpkin pies and potatoe casserole baked this afternoon in preparation for hosting my own family's Thanksgiving dinner, I'll see about making another one or two additional Thanksgiving-themed recolours for this set to release over the weekend. Wish me luck! :P

Thanksgiving & Autumn Flag Boosters

I decided to make some additional Thanksgiving and autumn flag recolours, since the original set containing these two themes is barely a handful large. Despite Thanksgiving weekend on the horizon, I managed to get this set rolled up and will be publishing it tomorrow, Wed., Oct. 3'07, so you can hopefully share them with your celebratory Sims over the weekend (assuming you haven't stuffed yourself with turkey until the sleepy chemical puts you to sleep). :P

The autumn flag 'booster' pack boasts an impressive 30 flags - what can I say, autumn is my favourite season! As such, it's going to take a while to upload and will be releasing later next week, Wed., Oct. 10'07.

I'm also hoping to do some more Thanksgiving-themed recolours if time allows tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week - I have some pretty harvest textures that I think would look smashing on some of the Celebrations objects so your Sims can decorate their houses for big family meals. We'll see how it goes. ;)

Flags for BV Lots

Wishing you had some rustic and tropical flags to place around your new Bon Voyage lots? Wish no longer, they're publishing soon! In fact, I found so many gorgeous homespun-style flags I decided to pull them from the country theme and give them their very own collection and I must say, they're some of my absolute favourites! See for yourself:

The rustic country and homespun sets will be releasing tomorrow, Sun., Sept. 30'07 and the nautical set will release on Mon., Oct. 1'07.

Collection Files - Updated & Added

I decided I wasn't happy with the way I'd done collection files for some of my mesh sets so I've redone them with a much more standardised approach to hopefully make them easier to deal with and recognisable. I also decided to add a community collection file to one of the sets that only had a residential collection file, just to make things easier for everyone.

Download the new versions here: Park Chess Set and Garden & Farm Tools Set.

Resized Trees #1

This set was created on request of minsmusic - I'm terribly sorry about how long it's taken me to finally get this otherwise easy set put together and published; I think real life is just now settling down into a groove so I kicked my butt into gear and finished it off.

Anyway, I decided to roll all 12 of the base game trees into one set with the intention of making additional sets for the EP trees shortly (in theory :P ). Each tree has been reduced to 70% of its original size and draws its textures from the Maxis originals so all of your existing and future tree recolours will also work for these versions. Look for them this Friday, Sept. 28'07.

Also, I realise I promised two more flag recolour sets this month and they have yet to appear. I have not forgotten (quite) and will start working on those immediately and get them published within the next week as well.

Backlogged Flag Sets

With starting back to work in August and so much needing to be done with that, a lot of my personal time was lost to recouperating from long and exhausting days. Classes have finally started this past week and we've met our new students for the year so things should hopefully settle down soon. So, I've been trying to get back on track again before Bon Voyage comes out later this week and I invariably become obsessed with playing the game (much like everyone else). :D

So, here are the business flags I had meant to post last month. I ended up splitting them into two sets - one with messages, such as 'open' and 'sale' (releases Tues., Sept. 4'07) and another with business concepts to advertise restaurants, salons, craftable shops, etc. (releases Thurs., Sept. 6'07).

I was also planning on releasing a country/rustic flag set in August but I've decided to hold off on that one for the time being. I'm thinking I'll release it and a maritime flag set later in September, so that you can better decorate your BV log homes and beachfront properties with them so stay tuned for those shortly.