The Sims 2: FreeTime/Arts & Crafts

Arts & Crafts sims thrive on creating new decorations for their home. This article discusses everything to do with the Arts & Crafts hobby.

Life
The first thing to know is how Arts & Crafts gets chosen for sim's predestined hobby. The favoured interests are culture and fashion and thier personality is sloppy and nice. Personality only is useful for making it the predestined hobby. If you want to gain further boost in it, you'd do better with playful. Playful boosts creativity gain faster and creativity is the skill that helps Arts & Crafts.

It's useful to start at toddlerhood and invest in an activity table. If you try hard enough you can get to level 5 creativity during this age stage, even if you get all the training done. The activity table lets toddlers start their artistic flair by drawing fine or not-so-fine pieces of art.

When sims start to reach childhood, they now have access to the easel. If they've had time to practise their skills on the table, they should be able to bypass the cheap $1 pieces of art that so many sims create when they first try out the easel. Next, invest in some fine pieces of art to decorate the house and get your sims to look at them with the View or new View Many interaction. Sculptures also have the same effect. Make sure that you get the right painting or sculpture as some affect other hobbies. To know which one affects which, look at the wall hanging or sculpture, if it looks like it could affect another hobby, don't buy it, if not then do. Also, all paintings affect Arts & Crafts, no matter what the subject is.

When sims become teenager, they open up to growing in four talents; Pottery, Sewing, Flower Arranging and Toy Making. Choose one of them at your leisure to build your talent in. Family sims might prefer Toy Making over the overs. Note that toy making is boosted by Mechanical instead of Creativity unlike the others. Pottery and Flower Arranging simply create decorations although the snapdragon bouquet available at the gold level of Flower Arranging has a benefit on sim's need.

When sims reach college, it's time to select a major and continue building their skills and talent. If you want some rewards that affect Arts and Crafts, go for one of these majors; Art, History or Maths. Art and History affects the Artist career and Art and Maths affects the Architecture career. Also, if you opt for the Artist career, you'll know that its career reward. You can practise for it by taking pictures of your own with the Take Picture self interaction.

After sims graduate, they've got the best years of their lifea ahead of them. Go for the Artist or Architecture career. The Artist career reward is a camera that lets you take pictures in various styles. The Architecture career reward is a drafting table. The drafting table lets you draft blueprints, scenes or custom pictures. Continue through their careers until they reach elderhood, retire and pass on their skills to the next generation.

My Muse II-Art Studio
If sims are really enthusiastic, they can gain access to this hobby secret lot. This lot contains six distinct sections for boosting enthusiasm. The first section contains sewing machines and examples of what you can make with them including bears and quilts. The next section contains the grilling area, not for art but for the hunger need. Continue onward to the pottery room. Like the sewing room, it contains examples of what you can create with it. The centre room isn't special, it simply contains toilets and showers for bladder and hygiene. On the upper porch are three easels for painting. Unlike the other crafting stations, created paintings don't go into your sims inventory, instead they stay on the easel until you sell them. The final room contains the drafting station and an activity table. Drafted blueprints do go in the sim's inventory, but activity table drawings do not. While the studio contains a lot, it doesn't contain expansion pack items, namely the toy making and flower arranging station and the Artist career camera.

Chance Cards
Their are six chance cards that sims can get in their lifetime relating to the hobby. Three relating to school and three relating to work. The following is a list of each chance card.
 * Chance Card 1. In art class you are given a choice to paint an abstract elephant or a relaistic elephant. Each have the same outcomes. The good outcome is a boost in enthusiasm and the bad outcome is a loss in enthusiasm.
 * Chance Card 2. You're creating a class banner and you need an adhesive to put it together. You're given the option of glue or tape. If you go for glue, you could gain enthusiasm or lose $50. If you go for tape, you could gain or lose enthusiasm.
 * Chance Card 3. You've been doodling in math class and you're called to answer a question. The options are to come clean or to attempt to answer the question. If you come clean the outcomes are either a gain or loss in enthusiasm. The outcomes are the same if you attempt to answer.
 * Chance Card 4. You're asked to review an art piece in the bosses office and it's horrible. If you say something, you could gain enthusiasm or get demoted. If you don't you could either get a colleage over to home when you finish work or lose enthusiasm.
 * Chance Card 5. A party is up and you're given to option to help with the decorations. If you do, you get a bonus or a loss in enthusiasm. If you let someone else do it, you either lose or gain enthusiasm.
 * Chance Card 6. It's halloween and you don't know whether to wear a costume or not. If you wear the costume you could win $100 or get demoted. If you don't, you could gain membership to My Muse II or get a loss of enthusiasm.

Unlockables
This list summarises all interactions relating to Arts & Crafts There are also a few non-level based unlockables.
 * Level 1-Talk about Arts & Crafts
 * Level 2-Read Arts Section
 * Level 4-Browse Arts & Crafts on the web
 * Level 5-Gain Membership to Hobby if not already gained.
 * Level 6-Share Hobby Tips-only on Easel, Pottery Wheel or Sewing Machine.
 * Level 7-Blog about Arts & Crafts
 * Level 9-Instruct in Arts & Crafts
 * Level 10-Be in the Zone
 * Easel:
 * Creativity 5: Paint Portrait, Paint Custom and Paint Landscape.
 * Toy Making.
 * Bronze: Fire Truck, Clown-In-A-Box
 * Silver: Kite, Twirl, Spin & Wobble
 * Gold: Water Wiggler
 * Flower Arranging.
 * Bronze: Wildflowers, Tulips
 * Silver: Mixed Flowers, Roses
 * Gold: Snapdragon
 * Pottery.
 * Bronze: Vase, Tea Set
 * Silver: Pot, Pitcher
 * Gold: Amphora
 * Sewing.
 * Bronze: Teddy Bear, Curtain/Wide Curtain
 * Silver: Quilt, Clothes
 * Gold: Customised Clothing
 * Drafting Table.
 * Unlockables are more advanced blueprints. Not controlled by player.
 * Activity Table.
 * Unlockables are more advanced drawing. Not controlled by player.

Interactions
The following list summarises each interaction.
 * Easel
 * Viewing Paintings
 * Viewing Sculptures
 * Artist Camera (University)
 * Flower Arranging (Open for Business)
 * Toy Making (Open for Business)
 * Taking Pictures (Bon Voyage)
 * Activity Table (FreeTime)
 * Pottery (FreeTime)
 * Sewing (FreeTime)
 * Drafting Table (FreeTime)