V. Dumb Question: How do I put a custom sim into a hood?

[Alie]

This question is so dumb I've been searching for about an hour trying to find an answer anywhere, but you can imagine the kind of results "sims 2" "custom sim" hood brings back.

Okay.  So I've downloaded some madeupanimals, uncompressed, double clicked the .sims2pack file, and the installer claims they are good to go.  So I load game, go into my custom hood, and there are no new people in the people area.  (There should be a better word to describe this, and there probably is, but I can't think of one and hopefully you know what I'm talking about.)

What am I doing wrong?  I'm sure it is super simple but this is driving me up the damn wall.

[Flamingo]

Go into CAS. Create a new Sim. At the top of the window displaying his/her skintone and gender, there should be an icon that is of about six Sims. Click it.

[Alie]

THANK you.  Like I said, I know it was a stupid question, but sometimes the easiest stuff in the game takes the longest time for me to figure out.  Ironically.

(After Nightlife came out, I spent about half an hour in game trying to figure out where they'd stuck the damn driveways.)