☕️ The Simday Paper | First Edition
Editor's Note: This is a long post, so probably best enjoyed on desktop view!
Sul sul, my loves! Something a little different for you today ✨👇
A couple of years ago, I created a newsletter called The Sunday Paper for my Discord community, Equus-Sims. It was really well received, and I enjoyed creating the newsletter so much that I knew I wanted to bring it back here, but on a broader scale. Less equestrian niche, although there may still be a hint of that from time to time (the horse girl in me lives on 🐴🤠).
Think of this newsletter–now The Simday Paper–as a curation of my favorite CC and mod rec's, plus a peek into my own creative projects, gameplay, characters & stories, and personal updates. I may also look into hosting interviews, newsletter exclusives, creator spotlights, and other fun topics, but we'll see how it goes. For now, I'm just feeling it out. Trying it on again to see if it still fits. 🤭
Today's issue is free for everyone to enjoy! So grab your favorite cozy drink & read on. ☕️📰
– Christina
3 things on my fall bucket list – sims edition.
Build an autumn walking trail: Some people hate the time change, but I personally love how the shadows deepen earlier in the evening, like the season is telling us to slow down. Be present. The cooler weather calls me out of the house, too, so it's around this time of the year that I get the itch to build an autumn-inspired lot. This time, I'm thinking an inner city park with a walking trail. Here's the moodboard, which includes these cobblestones, autumn terrain paint, and ironwork fence.
Try out some fall foods in game: I don't know what it is about this season. I go all year long without needing sweets, then fall hits and I'm like gimme all the baked goods and decadent coffees! It has me excited to try out some fall recipes in-game, too, like these cinnamon rolls, mini apple pies, honey-spiced lattes, and S&S's incredible-looking pies.
Create a functional weekend market: I love a good weekend market, so I wanted to see if I could recreate something like that in my forever save and make it functional. Thanks to these grocery store NPC's and this adorable sales table, I'm able to have my Sims come here and buy anything from flowers to fresh ingredients to home decor! Oh, and there's complimentary beer & wine tasting, too! 🍷✨
Kicking off my forever save file + helpful links.
I've been watching a few videos on how to get this started. There's actually so much that goes into it in order to create a dynamic, functional save, but my goal is to tackle it with the least amount of overwhelm. If you're like me and you're just getting started, here's a few videos I've found to be super helpful in starting my forever save file:
How to Stay Motivated in Your Forever Sims World – I'm all about rituals, and this video helped me get into the right mindset for creating a new save file
Sims 4 Save File Tutorial – super helpful walkthrough for setting up NPC's, household management, & understanding MCCC settings
How to use WickedWhims – setting up your WW settings for less autonomy and more control over the chaos that is this mod 😂
MCCC Tutorial & Deep Dive – a comprehensive walkthrough of each MCCC setting to better understand the mod's capabilities
Current Project: Rebuilding Magnolia Promenade
Magnolia Promenade is going to be the downtown area for my fictional town of Twinbrook. For anyone who might remember, Twinbrook was the name of The Sims 3 Ambitions world, where my world lore, characters, and stories all originated back in ~2010. So far, the town will be made up of Willow Creek, Magnolia Promenade, Newcrest, & parts of Henford on Bagley. Each 'world' will work like a section of the town, which I plan to rename using midnitetech's world rename mod to fit my own lore.
Here's Twinbrook's world map so far:
🏡 Willow Creek – Estates, Woodhaven Country Club, Twinbrook Gardens, some retail
🛍️ Magnolia Promenade – Boutiques, high-end retail and restaurants + weekend market
🌲 Newcrest – Residential suburban neighborhoods
🐴 Henford on Bagley – Country estates with on-site equestrian center
The more urban worlds in game will make up the metropolitan city of Bridgeport, but more on this later! 🤭 Still cooking up plans, but it's all gritty crime and underground vibes so we're going to dive into Basemental's Drugs & Gangs to really bring the Neon City to life. 🌃✨
Things I've been liking lately.
Something I love to do for this part of the newsletter is share what I've been liking on my socials. I save a lot of posts and I think it's fun to showcase what's been catching my attention lately from within the community.
Here's this week's top 5:
Formal dinnerware replacements for the upcoming holiday season by beckskasims
These window recolors by saudade-sims have made the base game windows for Willow Creek actually usable 🥹
Ophernelia is starting a new series – I'm always so inspired by the TV drama story covers. I wish it was a 'real' show I could have my Sims watch in my own world 🤭
This was a thing I didn't know I needed 👉 UI facial expression overrides by vellesa that are far "normal" than the overly exaggerated ones that came with the game. NV's are also amazing! I've been using them recently before these new ones came out.
What's happening behind-the-sims.
I've currently got several open projects that I've been rotating between. Rebuilding Magnolia Promenade is my big renovation project, but I'm also working on a few other things as well:
Backyard fence & gate set – My next CC release, another conversion because I haven't been in the 3d-modeling mood lately 🙂↔️
The townie creation project – I'm going make a bunch of townies, and YES, I'm going to share them with you here. Complete with personalities, backstories, careers...everything you need to populate your own forever save. This includes my medieval sims, too!
My medieval save – Currently still building, building, building 🛠️ but I also have it on my list to outline my first story for the save 💗✍️ I still have pretty bad writer's block, so I'm thinking it will be partly gameplay-driven, with pics and captions of what's unfolding for my characters in-game. I'll run a poll and we can decide together which family or character's story will be featured first!
Realistic 4k horse skin override for TS4 – I've started converting my HD skin override mod from TS3! I will definitely share it here with everyone, and I can't wait for you to see it.
Character & world lore – I've just started using this Notion template to track my worldbuilding, and with it, all of my character bios, world profiles, backstories, etc! I plan to publish these as polished posts here on my Patreon so you can get to know everyone we'll be playing with + the worlds they live in! Here's a sneak peek of my latest sim:
My sims to-be-read list.
One of my favorite things about being a simmer is the storytelling aspect. It's WHY I love this game so much, and also why I'm actively building right now so I can join my fellow writers who have been brave enough to share their stories with us. Here are 3 stories on my TBR list from the community:
Heart & Soul by siminadeetoo – am I getting the Mandalorian "can't wait until he takes off his helmet" effect? Yes, yes I am sat for that moment.
Pandasims' legacy – a good place to start is here! Panda's writing hooks me every time a post comes up, but the visuals are also 🔥!
Starlightberi's legacy – gen 6 starts here. I've read all of gen 5 but need to catch up! Poppy's story was wild, and gen 6 looks even more gritty. Can't wait to dive back in.
The Everlust Series – I don't normally do blender series, but this one got me with its sexy vampires, deep lore, and a ship I can't get enough of. Oh, and the main character is named Kristina (spelled with a 'K' but I won't fault her for it 😉).
💬 Got a story or legacy rec from another simmer? Please drop it in the comments!
✨ In case you missed it.
I'm creating a maximalist-inspired restaurant! – I recently shared some pictures on my IG stories and Tumblr. This build is part of my Magnolia Promenade reno. The owner is an elderly woman who's much like the build itself–bold, flamboyant, & proud to be loud. I'm so excited for the way this build is turning out and can't wait to show you the full thing when it's finished!
I managed to dress the O'Neils up for halloween!! It was my first time ever posting something like this and I'm so pleased I managed to get it done – and on-time. 😂
💡 The simday prompt.
There's a tradition that comes with this newsletter: I can't let you go without dropping a little seed of inspiration for the week ahead with a prompt to get your creativity flowing ✨
PHOTO PROMPT
Share a photo of your OC's favorite fall activity on your socials 🍁
💗 A little PSA before you go.
I want to encourage all of us to take a moment today to leave a nice comment on someone's content you love. We get in the habit of consuming content without thinking about how much time went into creating it, and leaving a meaningful comment can go a long way in fueling someone's creativity. 💗 Small moves can make big waves. You could really make someone's day today with only a few seconds of your time! ✍️
Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed my newsletter, please give it a like or share it with a friend you want to inspire. 💌
💬 Drop a Comment: What's on your fall bucket list? (Real life or in game!
