Beachy goodness!

I've been busy the past few days trying to terraform and landscape my land. CT agreed to give me an extra 320sqm, so I moved my pond and decided to try creating a beach once again. Most of you won't remember, but the last time I tried this, almost exactly a year ago, it ended up in epic fail.
 
But this time I was determined. The first problem was finding some sculpty sand. I have sculpty ground covers, but they all seem to undulate in strange ways or are too square and I needed something that was relatively smooth with a curved edge. First I bought a stretch of beach off Xstreet but that didn't really work:
 
 

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The sculpt was too long and narrow. It might have worked for a straight stretch of beach, but I was trying to create a little corner, so the shape wasn't ideal. And since it was on a megaprim, I couldn't stretch it or alter the size in any way. Back to the drawing board.
 
Then I got the bright idea of using one of those popular off-sim island thingies. Only, I thought, why does it have to be off-sim? I could use it on land to create a little beach! I found one on Xstreet that was copy/mod, put it down, and started modding it like crazy - moving the plants around, adding extra copies of plants, and putting in some rocks, also from Xstreet. The rocks are copy/mod and come with a set of textures too. Fantastic stuff. (Whaddya know? Never thought I'd get excited about rocks :P)
 
 
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Seemed to me I was about done, except that I needed some waves. Now all the while, I'd been plurking about terraforming, about looking for a good sand sculpt, about trying to create a beach, and finally, about needing waves. Ted Cornell offered to come over and help me out. I didn't realise it, but he loves beaches and happens to be somewhat of an expert on building them! And if I hadn't plurked about this, or hadn't been on plurk, I would never have gotten to know this or met Ted ever... scary thought!
 
But since I am on Plurk and I do know Ted... he kindly took some time away from other friends and Halloween parties to come over today and have a look at what I'd done. Once he'd seen the set-up, he suggested some modifications. I gave him the go-ahead and he proceeded to add some wet-looking sand, making it so that the sand dips in the water (notice in the previous picture, the sand is above the waterline). Now I could not only walk in the water, I could even laze around on a floating lounger... which he gave me, too! *dances*
 
He even helped me to terraform. I thought I was in heaven!
 
 
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I'm so happy with the beach now - the only thing missing is waves. I want the Las Islas waves but they cost a bomb, so I'm still thinking about them. Been TPing everywhere, but none of the other waves I've seen look as pretty or realistic as the Las Islas waves *sobs*
 
Here's Ted and I consulting about the beach. The blanket on the sand has some pretty good cuddles in it and cost only 99L on Xstreet... and yes, I did indeed wear a dress and heels to do landscaping! Well, actually, the truth is I was just lazy to change :P