Thank you for participating in our 'Day at the Beach'-monthly theme! Now that April has arrived - it's time for our new theme. As they say: "April showers bring May flowers" and it's quite a fitting name for this theme. With the Earth day, Earth hour and Earth awareness it's time we bring this through in our games as well.

April Theme - Eco/Environmental friendly or simply green living
Think Green. Anything related goes in this theme - from lots hidden in the forest to clothing from recycled materials. Don't forget the fantasy creatures living in the woods on pure solar energy!
As always, you will receive a theme-appropriate, handmade participation sticker for your efforts. This month's theme and sticker have been brought to you by the lovely Lidiqnata!

The Rules

• The usual Creator Guidelines apply to all uploads.
• Anything goes, as long as it's somewhat related to the theme - see inspirations above
• Only uploads that are uploaded before the 30th of April and after the announcement will receive an achievement sticker. We will look at the date it has been uploaded to the queue, don't worry about waiting times for moderating.
• Tag your upload with this tag:themegreen.This way it is much easier to keep track of uploads and we know that you are participating in the monthly theme.

These are the creators and their creations that participated in last month's theme:
Those who are still in the queue,will be added once they are approved

Avatar	Creator	Upload	Game
	ApolloHerpDerp	Idyllic 'Ideaway - 1br 1ba
	Charmful	Sandy Beaches Camp
	Deestar	A Day at the Beach by Arelenriel
	Mr. Mayhem	S.O.A. Boardshorts Pack
	joandsarah77	House Boat-Tropicana-No CC
	CatherineTCJD	The $6-Million-Dollar House ~ A Beach House on a Beach Lot
	Michelle	Adele's Worn Beach Set Recoloured
	efolger997	Beach Bungalow
	porkypine	Hawaiian Prints
	porkypine	Hawaiian Print Surf Shorts for your female sims
	iCad	New England Beach House
	mayasims	Wet Blue Speedo Bathingsuit
	Amura	Brisa [beach style house] NO CC
	tsyokawe	Dinky Dwellings: Beach Bum Shanty
	Nymphetamine	Knotty Paintings
	PanAm103	Low Country Beach House
	Ninjababe09	Bikini Beach
	gummilutt	Funtopia
	Amura	Kairikufuu](Asian style beach house) NO CC
	Michelle	kativip's Boat - Overturned and Recoloured
	dharden	Default replacement - BG bikinis for AF + custom recolors
	Deatherella	Fruit Punch Beach Wear
	Mia200	The Maroubra - 3BR/2.5BA
	Katai	Open Aloha Shirts for Men
	KarenLorraine	Surfpoint Apartments
	lidiqnata	*African prints on swimsuits*
	lauratje86	Seaside Worker Career for Teens & Elders
	Fergus' Mind	Grey Gardens
	justJones	Beach Mini Set
	artrui	Beach house: Dreamingwater (Visions 1-3)
	planetcheese	Coco Beach Cottage - Vacation Home

Everyone of you should have received their participation sticker by now, unless your upload is still in queue in which case the queue mods will get to it as soon as they can. Disclaimer: I tend to do too many things at once. If by any chance I've missed your upload, didn't add it to the table, didn't give you a sticker, please post and I will fix it.

Klaartje and I were chatting and thought there might be some inspiration needed - so here we go for ECO INSPIRATION brought to you by Klaartje and Kiri. There's plenty here for meshers, retexturers, recolourers, builders, and more!

Ecological is about being kind to the planet, and in the olden days when I was young it was summed up in "Reuse, Recycle, Reduce". Nowadays it has other words too - Organic, upcycle, sustainable, carbon footprints, genetic diversity, environmental issues to name but a few.

Wiki - Sustainable Living
Wiki - Earth Day

Some other Words to inspire:

• Natural Fibres
• harvest-able fruit and vegetables
• wind turbines (functional)
• Organic Farms
• Urban Gardening
• Reduced meat foods - vegetarian and vegan meals
• bikes, mopeds, roller-skates
• water conservation
• small house living
• recycling - bins, institutions, etc
• biofuel
• up-cycling

All of these words are good for Google searches - images. :D

But here are some images to inspire!

Blog post on Living Structures








Some ideas for people who retexture or recolour

• Sims 2 Walls and floors in sustainable materials
• Recolouring Eco stuff that has already been done (thinking especially of the suitcase chair) :D
• Sims 3 patterns in sustainable materials
• Clothing made from cotton, linen, and natural materials.
• Posters promoting Eco awareness

Cool theme!

I have some farms which may fit quite well but I think I'm gonna try building something on purpose for the challenge.
Let's see if I can come up with something :D

I love this theme, I have a floor plan I've been meaning to simify for years which will be perfect for this. I better go dig out my old plan notebook and get the game fired up

I guess I should have been more explicit about this, but of course only uploads that have been uploaded after the theme has been posted will qualify...
Something that has been sitting in your WIP-folder for years but has not been uploaded to MTS yet is of course fine :D
This is a general announcement and not addressed directly at the people above me, just to be sure I'm not stepping on any toes.

My apologies for not understanding this! The tag has been removed. Good luck to those who participate!

I've thought of some lot ideas:
* Eco cafe or coffee shop
* Green living/fair trade clothing store
* Eco/recycled park
* Green living loft/apartment
* Green living cabin
* Organic farm
* Commune
* Campground
* "Mini" house
* Organic gardens
* Sustainable energy center - wind farm, solar panels, dam, etc.

No worries! My apologies for not making this clear from the get-go.

Allright.

Hmmm... I failed to come up with a satisfying beach lot last month, but I'm gonna try this month too! Plant nursery? National Park? Off-the-grid living? How will I choose!? AAAAA!!!

How do you do participate? I wanna!

Upload something here through Create > Upload Items and tag it with 'themegreen'

Ooooh, this may lead to me first foray into lot building (for upload, that is). I have so many ideas! :-) Exciting! :-D

Hm.... I think I'll participate in one of these for once! I already have several ideas running through my head!

*EDIT* BTW, I uploaded my submission but didn't see anywhere to add tags.... Are those to be added on later?

No - you use "add search tags" when uploading or when this is approved,you can just edit your upload and add the tags.

If I have a large amount of wall sets that are of the same nature -- they are all made from the same type of "material" so to speak, should I upload them all together or break it up into separate posts since there are over 20 of the required pics of each wall set and then I have a swatch for each wall set, but I thought I could shrink them down and lump them together into as few group pics as possible.
How shall I do this?

@Deatherella, you are allowed up to 100 pics for upload. So it just depends how many sets you have. If it's say 4 sets with 20 pics each, you are good. If not, you can collage them, or maybe take a larger pic of 2 or 3 styles on one long stretch of wall (still making sure to show at least 3 tiles of each, so let's say 3 styles, 3 tiles each, 9 tiles of wall total). If that helps and makes sense.

@justJones:
It makes sense. I just didn't know if you all wanted me to do up an upload that had tons of pics. I have corner shots with 10 or so tiles showing of each wall set. I have 16 sets with one to four tiles per set and some of the sets have more than one style (ie, two different colors of moulding trim). And I have swatches for each set. I was thinking of shrinking those and collaging them altogether in as few pics as possible. I think it's like 60 or so wall panels in the whole works. That's why I didn't know if I should break it up into more than one upload post.
I guess I will start resizing wall-tile swatches and turning png's into jpg's since whenever I take a screenshot, the png gadwin pumps out is over a mb to start with.

Thanks for your help.

There is a lot I have been meaning to build, let's hope many others do not have the same idea.

Glad to see the interest in this theme
I am building a lot as well, hopefully will have the time to upload at least 2 while the month is still running!

I might as well join in!

oh well when the sticker come .already posted a creation for greentheme

Please,note that the stickers are handed by moderators and we don't check for new theme posts every day. I've added your sticker,but please be more patient

I know what I want to make for this! After looking at the TS4 build mode, I noticed that there is one glaring omission: there are no recycling bins! So, I think I'm going to make the Windows 95 Recycle Bin for Sims 4. Why Windows 95 and not a later version? Because I feel like making the Windows 95 one!

If I make a lot can I use cc?