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Happy

October 11th 2012: Slippers!

It's cold and wet outside - which means my favourite season is here again. And once again our Sims will get to enjoy weather of their own with the Seasons expansion pack which is out in November amid rampant speculation about the future of The Sims 3 (Maxis reports that no, Sims 3 is not coming to an end just yet which just leaves cynical marketing as the only obvious reason for the close release dates of Supernatural and Seasons).

A wise person once said the route to happiness is to take comfort and joy from the simple things in life. One of my simple things are the wonderful Marks & Spencers Per Una slipper boots. Today I thought I'd share this with everyone by way of this little update of boots for all the family (well, most of the family - others will simply have to man up and deal with the cold).

The Per Una slippers typically come in pink, fawn and purple, but of course your Sims can have theirs in any color or pattern they choose. And best of all these digital foot warmers are free for you and your Sims.

Annoyed

September 8th 2012: The end of a bad summer

I must confess I am not a summer person. It's always too hot, it's always too busy and typically on top of hayfever, I will invariably wind up sick with something annoying.

This summer I managed to waste a whole month with the flu, contracted after a very ill-advised trip into London a few weeks ago. Being a country mouse I forgot that when friends who live in London say refer to the 'city' being 'empty' due to the Olympics, what they mean is LITERALLY just the city of London, which is a mile square portion filled with monuments and the offices of various financial institutions and NOT the huge part that surrounds it where people live, work and shop.

So thank goodness it's now September, hayfever season is over, my neighbour's screaming children have been packed off to school and therefore there is now at least the possibility of creative ideas. Well, at least during Monday to Friday.

For today please enjoy this modest selection of terrain paints (14 in all), there are 3 sets, spooky cobblestones, some beach sands and some barn textures for your equestrian Sims.

Worried

July 6th 2012: Anniversary Prep & Artist Vacancies

It's that time of year again when it's time for us to start thinking about anniversary projects.

I'd always hoped that next year's anniversary event would be something rather special, however there are very few of us nowadays and there are only 10 months left to go.

Of course 10 months probably seems like quite a lot even so, however our 5th anniversary event (the largest we've done to date), took 14 of us 8 months to create, so with most of our resident artists retired, the remaining months will provide little time.

With this in mind I am somewhat grudgingly posting notices about open vacancies across the site. I say grudgingly not because I don't want new creators to join, but rather because there has not been a lot of interest over the past few years and the general standard of those who have applied has been awfully low.

Obviously I can understand why, aside from the fact that our audience has changed somewhat, most creators who have the level of skill I would consider, already have a home and generally aren't looking to move.

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, there's no harm in asking, so if you are an experienced custom content creator for either The Sims 2 or Sims 3, who would like somewhere to share your creations with the world (and I do mean the whole world), then please contact me.

You can send previews of your items (or URL's to work already online) or request additional information by emailing me:webmistress@parsimonious.org.

Deadlines for all open vacancies is August 30th 2012 with no exceptions - anyone who has not at least made an enquiry will not be considered after this time.

Embarrassed

May 24th 2012: Objects, Objects, Objects

At last Sims 3 Furniture is online!

There isn't a lot of content because the site administration and the recently completed(ish) make-over has sucked up ALL of my time for pretty much the last 2 years.

Aside from administrative headaches I'm also generally very wary of the huge potential for problems, because even using the easiest tools available to make these items, they are enormously complicated and a large portion of it is beyond my control (my input begins and ends at the meshes and textures where there isn't a huge amount to go badly wrong).

It took me a long time to get to a level of comfort with Sims 2 object making, and even now I'm very aware of just how much I don't know, so the infinitely more complex Sims 3 scares me more than a little. It's much harder to diagnose and replace a broken object in 3 verses 2, so there is a great deal of pressure to get every object perfect first time (which is nearly impossible).

Of course the other irritating factor is that I've had to ditch a large number of potential designs because EA or some other artist has published something depressingly similar over the past 3 years!

Anyway, better late than never, I hope you enjoy the items I manage to make. I want to promise tons and tons of gorgeous updates, but after all this time I know better! Of course I will try, I always do, but until we have more contributors across the site, and I have some help with the site administration, my time is just too limited to do all the creating I want to do!