New Look

One of the surprising things that I've learned about myself from starting this blog is how much I enjoy designing (and re-designing) it.  Two months ago, the thought of working with code (even using cut and paste) was not even in the realm of possibility but now I actively search out how to use the "advanced" features blogger allows.  As such, I wanted to share with you my sources for some of the recent changes I've made.

First on my list was adding a group of social media buttons.  I was able to figure out how to add individual buttons using "Add a Gadget" but I wanted to add a group of buttons together.  I also wanted to find cute icons.  The icons I chose to use were from Isa Maria of The Academy.  And to make this even easier, Isa Maria linked to Kira of her new leaf who wrote a great tutorial about how to add the buttons to a blog.  It was a simple step by step that worked for me the first try!  Yea!  I will say I was familiar with using photobucket to store images and get their html code from my original attempt last month but I think with Kira's tutorial I would have figured it out much easier this time.  (For some reason my icons had an extra /a> after each one but I just deleted that from the end of the code and it worked - not sure why or what I did but just FYI if that happens to you.)

I LOVE having the cute buttons.  Now, my RSS feed is all set and I've been using Pinterest for a while now so that link is good but I haven't quite gotten used to using Flickr yet (I have a few pics posted) and I'm really not sure what I'm going to do on Twitter.  Any advice from anyone on Twitter?  And I'll have to find (or make) a coordinating icon for Goodreads.

My other changes included a new header - I made the header using Picasa and some cute, free fonts that I found online.  Only problem was the header was too far to the left but with a quick web search, I found this post on Girlfriends are Like Shoes.  I just added the CSS where she said to and Voila! my header was centered.

Finally, I wanted to find a background that more suited my style.  I really am liking chevron right now so I did a search for chevron backgrounds and found Tinysea.  It took me a few minutes to pick a color but once I did, I had the new background loaded in minutes.

I have a few more changes I want to make design-wise but I think I need to put that on hold (at least for a few days) and get back to the sewing machine.  I haven't spent much time in my craft room lately and I'm starting to miss it.