Drum Roll, Please!

It has been several years since I have changed the look of my blog. I worked hard on my last blog and was very proud of it and liked the style. But...I have been ready for a change for some time now. I had been seeing some blogs that I loved - vintage style, but still clean and easy to read. I wanted something similar!

I tracked down the designer of these lovely blogs, Viola Mahr (Sunshine: Just a Little Handmade Happiness). Viola is a college student, designer, crafter, living in Singapore! She's adorable, smart, talented, and just an all around sweetheart! Viola designed my banner and all of my graphics. Once she had that all finished, I loaded everything and got the blog to look like I wanted. I am happy that I know enough about Blogger and HTML code to deal with the "geek" part of this adventure!

I gave Viola a lot of information to enable her to design for me. My main inspiration comes from this scrapbook layout I made. I never showed this to Viola, but this is what I had in the back of my mind when I was talking to her! (It would have been much easier on both of us if I had realized that this was my inspiration and shared the layout!)



This morning when I was trying to find a project to share to introduce the new blog look, I remembered this project that I made as part of the Simple Stories DT call last month. (I did not make the DT, but that's ok. No hard feelings!) When I pulled this layout up I just laughed. It is my new blog look almost to a "T"! I am impressed that Vi pulled off the design without ever seeing these photos. She really asked the right questions and I shared the right information!

One of my main issues with my old blog was that the 3-column layout did not allow for my photos to be big enough. My projects contain a lot of small details that I wanted you to be able to see. I want my photos to be fairly large. The 2-column style works for this. It's hard to get used to after having a 3-column for so long...but we'll manage! Right?!

Are you noticing all the lovely Imaginarium Designs chipboard items? I am hoping that I will soon have good news for those of you wanting to buy these in the USA! For now, you can have them shipped from Australia. Click HERE for information.

I am so happy with my new blog design. If you want to make a comment about the new look, I will draw a random name and give away a prize...of some Imaginarium Designs chipboard items! And some fantastic ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon, and a few flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. How do you feel about that?!!

Imaginarium Designs Chipboard: Clock Face, Moments in Time Phrase, Lower Case Alphas

Simple Stories Papers: Generations, Elementary

American Crafts: Coffee Cardstock

Graphic 45: Clock sticker

Teresa Collins: word strips

Clearsnap: Colorbox Graphic 45 Decades Antiquing Ink Dark Cashmere

Ranger: Distress Ink Fired Brick

7 Gypsies: splotch stamp

Close to My Heart: "coffee stain" stamp

Fiskars: Postage punch

Wild Orchid Crafts: Flowers, leaves

Idea-ology: Brad, Game spinners

Craft supply: ribbon, glue

Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L: Foam squares

Scotch 3M: Tape runner, foam tape