One of my favorite ways of procrastinating – yes, even better than cleaning – is giving my blog a makeover. And that is what I did tonight. I had found this theme a couple of weeks ago and decided that I wanted to give it a try. I had been eying the Thesis Theme that so many of you are using now, but to be perfectly honest, spending $87 on a blog theme is just not possible for me right now (or maybe ever, because I like to change it up every now and then).
Which is why I was absolutely thrilled to find out that someone modified another theme by the same designer to look similar to Thesis. It kind of does, doesn’t it? Close enough for me anyway. And this one is free. Like most people, I am a huge fan of all things free.
After some further editing on my part, the theme now looks the way I want it to. I kept the background and colors from my old theme because I did love that part of it. I redid my category pictures (changed some pictures and kept some), so all in all, it doesn’t look terribly different. A little less colorful and a little more clean & grown-up (but not boring!) is what I was going for.
I cannot believe how long all the editing took me. I am the kind of person who loves playing around with a theme, and who is an absolute perfectionist as to how the theme has to look at the end. If something doesn’t look the way I want it to, I keep trying until it does. That would explain why I am still up even though it is almost 3am and I have a cold and am absolutely exhausted. But you know, regardless of how grown-up my blog may look, I can still be a little crazy sometimes. Now that everything does look the way it is supposed to, though, I can finally get some well-deserved rest.
I would love your feedback on the new look!
Well, I love what you did to the Theme too.
Good Job!
.-= Costa’s last blog post: How Long Does It Take? =-.
Thanks for the comment and the compliment, Costa. And most of all, thanks for providing this theme! Your modifications are great, love the theme! Like you, I prefer my theme to have one uncluttered sidebar, so this works perfectly.
i’m back i’m back!! sorry it’s been so long! i love the new theme. looks great!
.-= texpat’s last blog post: patience =-.
Hey, no reason to say sorry but I am glad you’re back. And thanks. :)
Lovely!! I purchased custom CDD for mine the other day and I still haven’t quite figured out how to use it :) I like to change things up pretty often too so I wouldn’t spend $80+ on a theme either!
.-= Emily Jane’s last blog post: My (Literally) Naked Fear =-.
I read about that on Twitter (or wherever?), I wish I could help you but the CSS customization on WP.com works differently from how you can customize on a self-hosted blog (seeing as on a self-hosted blog you can simply edit the existing stylesheet), I’ve never done the custom CSS on WP.com. Have you had a loom at their support forum? http://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/css-customization
Beautiful! Everyone seems to be getting a new blog makeover lately. I might cave in soon and revamp up mine. :) I’m still not sure what that the big deal is about Thesis. I think I’m behind!
.-= steph anne’s last blog post: Money Free Activities! =-.
Thanks. That’s true. Quite a few blogs I read, have been getting new layouts as well. Maybe that’s what (subconsciously) inspired me to get mine even though I stuck to the same idea (I didn’t change the fonts or colors in my header and stuck to the same background).
As for Thesis, all I know it’s supposed to be really good about SEO (search engine optimization), but I don’t know how useful that really is for a smaller personal blog like mine (though apparently this theme is also supposed to be good about it!).
I would really like to see the backend of the Thesis theme. I know it allows ‘skins’, child-themes, to change the look of the blog without touching the code of the (parent) theme itself. But even then, I don’t think it would be worth that much to me.
I know enough HTML and CSS to be able to tweak the little things of a theme to make it look how I want so I don’t mind editing the code myself.
I really like it! I think your colours are really nice. You’re right, it isn’t terribly different but I can see the more grown up feel you’ve gone for. I love giving my blog a makeover as well so you’re not the only one who can spend hours editing the CSS and HTML. I went through a few different themes before my blog arrived at it’s current state, but I really like it now and am trying not to let myself get bored else I’ll spend more hours (that I don’t really have) tweaking it!
.-= Jen’s last blog post: Blog Swap: The best thing about being a blogger =-.
Thank you! You know, the inspiration for the colors were actually a picture I found via Google, I believe it was this one: http://steiderstudios.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/turquoise-and-purple/ I wanted to do a purple/turquoise theme and then went looking for the right shades and found that picture.
I took a look at your blog and I love its look! I also love the cute little social icons. May I ask where you got them? (Or did you make them yourself?) Also love the vector image you are using.
It looks great. I adore simple layouts with an interesting color scheme – just like yours. :)
.-= Stefanie’s last blog post: Home Improvement: The Dining Room Edition. =-.
Thanks, Stef!