Oooo, pretty shiny new blog…

So here it is! (You, over there on Google Reader — click through and admire the fancy new design please!)

There’s more work to be done, but I’m tired of hacking it on my test site. I would have thought that early Saturday morning was the perfect time to tinker, except there’s thunder in the background and the power keeps flickering and if I don’t have Bob the Builder on DVD as a distraction, no work will be done here today!

So what do you think? The header is a set of rotating images, so every time you refresh or click a new page, it changes. There’s only half a dozen or so now, but I’ll add more for variety as time (snicker) permits.

I love it! The only thing I’m still waffling on is the sidebars. I do want two, and I think they’re a little less cluttered than before, but if I can’t find a way to clean them up a bit I might just go back to one.

And I did it all by myself!! If you are looking for a new blog theme, I am in love with this one. It’s called Thesis, and it is hands down the best WordPress theme I’ve ever found. I’ll write more about that later, too!

(Thesis has an affiliate program, so if you click the link to check it out, my cookie is added to your browser.)

Like I said, I’m still tweaking and tinkering, but it’s mostly done. I think! Do you like how the photos are framed? I thought that was cool. And the colours in the navigation menu above (with home, contact me, etc) are taken from the text in the banners, which in turn is taken from the images themselves. And of course the images are all mine, most from my 365 project. Scroll down, I love how the older posts are displayed near the bottom, too (if you clicked through from a feed, you’ll have to click the header or “home” button to get to the main page and see how older posts are displayed).

Please let me know if you’re having any troubles with the display or with the page loading, or if anything looks “off” to you, and if you see something, I’d be grateful if you let me know which browser you’re using, too. I’m particularly concerned about the overall size — on one of our computers, the very rightmost edge of the banner and some of the right sidebar text gets lost, and you have to scroll sideways to see it. I’ll have to find a fix for that if it’s more than just our computer that does it.

Ahhhh, it feels good to have a design that I feel is completely “me” again…

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

25 thoughts on “Oooo, pretty shiny new blog…”

  1. Looks VERY clean, and the rotating header is a great idea – and the 3 pics that I’ve seen so far are gorgeous and fit in so well with your blog! Way to go, doing it all by yourself!

    The only thing I will say is that there seems to be a bit of empty space in one of your sidebars. The one closest to the blog itself, right underneath your twitter widget there’s a BIG gap until it gets to your “I’m such a joiner” bit. Not sure if that was intentional or not but if it weren’t like that, your sidebar would be that much shorter.

  2. Love the rotating banner. I kept refreshing to see what was there. Love that idea. The whole thing looks great.

    Just a note: The side banner text is really small on my computer. Looks like it is about 6-8point font. Don’t know if that is what you have or if it’s a glitch. I’m on a Mac using Firefox and my screen is 20″

  3. Thanks everyone!!

    Yep, I’ve got to look into the sidebars a bit more. The second sidebar is leaping into the space of the first sidebar at the end because it’s longer. I’ll either have to add more to the first sidebar or rearrange them a bit.

    Julie, for some reason in FF (I’m using it on a PC) the font size is much different than in IE. I’ve seen discussions on how to specify different font sizes for different browsers (have I mentioned how much I adore this theme???) so I might look into that. Some of the sidebar widget titles are off in Firefox, too.

    Thanks all!

  4. perhaps I can drink more coffee before I try to type again…

    my input font on this site is a little distorted…maybe it is just my settings, though

  5. It looks great. The rotating banners are cool and I’m impressed that you did it all yourself. I hope there wasn’t too much profanity involved (although that may just be the way that I do these things). Way to go, Dani! ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. LOVE your new design. Congrats Dani! It’s definitely your best design yet and I think the rotating photos idea is ingenius. Really puts a personal stamp to the blog as a whole. As for reading, I much prefer this layout to your last one … less clutter on the eye when it hits the homepage and really draws you in. You must be so pleased! ๐Ÿ™‚

  7. Of the three designs I’ve seen since i began reading your site, this one is by far the best. l love how clean it is. I did like your flickr widget that showed three pics though. SIdebar font is teeny for me too (PC using FF).

  8. Rona Maynard reads your blog! I love that woman and miss her column in Chalelaine.

  9. Looks lovely.
    Didn’t think it could really look better, but I think it does!!
    I’ll be clicking through all the time just o see the header.

  10. Love it! Thanks for the reco! I’m looking to start over and was debating Square Space, but this looks like the cheaper option. Looks fab and I might be emailing you when I run into trouble while tinkering…

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