New Design: The Young Mommy Life

Tara is a 20-something momma who blogs about The Young Mommy Life. She contacted me a few weeks ago and wanted to update her blog to Wordpress.org as well as freshen up her look.

She was great to work with and I’ll most likely be frequenting her blog quite often as my very own mommy life is about to start in a few weeks!

New Design: OutDoor Afro

Rue over at OutDoor Afro has one goal in mind… to get more African American families out of the house and into the Great Outdoors!

She is obviously an outdoor enthusiast and an adventurous spirit and I tried to capture that in her new design. I had a great time working with her and the design was so much fun to work on.

From Rue:

First off, WOW — it was so thrilling to see how you materialized the concept in such a fun and accurate way to my description. You simply did a terrific job and I can see that working with you was the right choice. I really like the foxiness of the woman, the outdoor iconic accents, and how you changed Outdoor to OutDoor — Well done!

Oh and did I mention I just LOVE the site? :)

Redesign: 3 Bay B Chicks

The 3 bay b chicks are back! This time with a fun new redesign for Spring. I love their cute little birds from before and this clean, fresh design is perfect for them :)

The chicks are also launching a fun new series starting today called "Chick Chat" I was able to work with them to create their logo for the series as well as a button for their sidebar. Check out "Chick Chat"... I believe there is even a giveaway scheduled for today!



A few weeks ago, I was also able to create some virtual postcards and button for their series "Where's Wenda" Tons of bloggers participated in finding Wenda over the course of a few weeks and had a blast. I loved this little logo!

Redesign: Ovolina 3.0

I love working with this Italian Mama, Ovolina.

Once again, we changed up her design. This time with a new color scheme and a fun new header. This Italian, military mom is "Living the American Dream" and proud of it!

From Anita:

Oh My goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it! LOVE IT LOVE IT!
It's completely perfect.

Aww :) Thanks!

Design Update: Lazy Moms

Before I left on vacation, I was working with the Lazy Moms to get their new site up and running. A few weeks after I returned, we were able to finalize the design and get their new and improved site launched.

The site has now become a great place for moms to gather to share tips and fun stories in their forum, blog posts and comments.

The Lazy Moms are gearing up to launch a new book and product line! It is so much fun to work with these girls and it has been very exciting seeing the logo I created for them being placed on books, shirts and other products!

Last night Amanda and Leslie were on their local news station promoting Lazy Moms. Check it out :)

New Design: Vagablonde Traveling

Paula at Vagablonde Traveling has the life. She spends her time traveling all over the world and wanted to set up a place where she could blog about her trips.

We set up a WordPress site using a template with a few modifications and a custom header for now... a complete custom site will be showing up in the future :)

Check out her recent trips, pictures and videos Vagablonde Traveling. Just be warned... you will definitely want to go on vacation after reading about the amazing places she has visited!

Redesign: Mary R Snyder

Back in July, I gave author and speaker, Mary R. Snyder a new look for her site. A month ago she contacted me again and wanted a fresh new design that portrayed the new direction she is heading. She wanted a fun, retro site that showed her and her girlfriends on the adventure of a lifetime.

I really enjoyed working with Mary once again and had so much fun drawing and playing with this fun new design.

Check out her site and join her on the Adventure of a Lifetime!

Backup those blogs

I posted this on my design site, but thought some of you might want to see it as well...


Family events. Photos. Memories. All gone with one click.

Unfortunately it is very easy to accidentally delete your blog and lose all your precious memories. In the last few months I have had two clients accidentally delete their Blogger blogs and have had to restart from scratch :( It is so sad and I feel terrible when things like this happen... especially because there is nothing that can be done aside from hoping Google will restore the old blog.

Whether you are using Blogger or WordPress.org, it is very important that you make backups of your blog.

Blogger:

Blogger just added an Import/ Export feature that makes backing up your blog posts and comments as easy as one click.

To export your blog in Blogger, simply click Export Blog from the Settings | Basic tab.


Finally, click the Export Blog button. You blog will be stored as a Blogger export file (.xml) file which can be kept as a backup on your hard drive or imported into another blog.

Note: Exported blogs are not deleted from your dashboard or Blogger.com

NEVER hit Delete Blog unless you are sure you no longer want your blog and want to lose all your old blog posts.

I would recommend backing up your blog every week or two depending on how often you post. Also be sure to backup those custom Blogger template designs as well (I always keep a backup of the designs that I do, but it is still good practice to make a backup for yourself as well, especially if you make any changes)

WordPress.org:

If you are using WordPress, backing up your blog is as simple as installing a Database Backup plugin. I use and recommend WP-DBManager and install it on all WordPress blogs hosted on my site.

WP-DBManager allows you to schedule automatic backups of your WordPress database (including all your posts and comments) and have them stored online or emailed to you. Every week I get a new backup file emailed to me and it is easy to keep the backups current just in case.

In 2009, make a point to backup your blog posts.

If you need help exporting your blogs, installing backup plugins or would like me to automatically backup and store your blog for you, just send me an email and I'd be happy to help.

New Design: Marcelain Photography

Tammy from In the Grip of Grace contacted me last week to design a blog for her photography business Marcelain Photography.

I was able to play with Blogger and pushed it to do much more than I thought was even possible.

Go Check out her site and see what an amazing photographer Tammy is :)

From Tammy...

I am so excited to unveil my new photography blog. I have muddled through for a while trying to use a .mac site and for the lack of knowing who to go to I just stayed put. Then Jen@BlueYonderDesigns came into my life.

My friend Denise won a "new look" from Jen for her blog last year. When it became time to redo my personal blog I loved what I saw on Denise's blog and I emailed Jen@BlueYonderDesigns right away. The speaking group that I travel with needed a fresh blog, so Jen@BlueYonderDesigns redid our Coffee Group blog , then we needed a blog button and she quickly took care of that. When I decided to move my photography blog back to blogger I knew Jen@BlueYonderDesigns was the gal for me.

She made me look good!! She was able to exceed my needs in service and quality. All that to say, I think Jen@BlueYonderDesigns is way creative and a leader in the blog service industry.

Awww! Thanks Tammy. I think you are great too :)

New Design: Joyfully Living *Fall Edition*

Chelsey from Joyfully Living for His Glory came back once again for a Fall design for her blog.

We used some pre-made graphics that Chelsey loved and just updated the layout and colors of her blog to match.

This is the third design I have done for her and we are *hoping* to add one more in the Winter so she has one for every season!

New Design: Judith Leigh's My Space

A few months ago I was able to work with author Judith Leigh on her new blog. She contacted me again last week about getting a matching, custom design for her MySpace page. Once again I had fun working with her.

Her new book, "When the Vow Breaks" comes out this month!

New Design: The Herrold Collection

Amanda over at The Herrold Collection contacted me after I designed her friend Penelope's blogs.

Amanda was fun and easy to work with. We went with a bright fun beachy feeling for her new header design and made sure to incorporate a photo collection of her beautiful family.

New Design: Just Julie

Julie contacted me a few weeks ago and wanted to start her first blog. She is such a sweet lady that gives of her time as she does foster care for four women with mental retardation who live with her 24/7, and her husband was also diagnosed with Parkinson's two years ago. She feels that having a blog will be a way to make her feel like she can still reach out and be a part of her friends' and loved ones' lives. I wanted to giver her a design that she loved that made her site feel like a home on the internet.

Based on her comments, I think I did ok :)

"Welcome to my blog! Isn’t it the neatest space? I worked with Jen at Swank Webstyle and she was a creative delight.

As I look at the elements on the page, they stand for so much of what I most cherish: my family, and the quiet times in my chair when God speaks truth and hope to my heart through His Word and through His creation. You can see that my three beloved daughters are represented here. Sharon, my oldest daughter, hand paints and sells beautiful yarns. Carolyn, my middle daughter, is a gifted actress and singer. Sara, my youngest daughter, is an amazing and creative floral designer. There is so much more to say about them and about life, but that’s what a blog is for, and those posts will be forthcoming."

New Design: Home on the Range

Penny from Penelope's Pitstop asked if I could also give her a new blog header for her personal blog, Home on the Range.

We came up with a fun, western design. We plan on giving the entire site a matching design later on.

New Design: Bellydancer Queenie

Queenie is a belly dance instructor in the Netherlands. She is beautiful, fun and elegant and we wanted that to reflect in her design.

We added many plugins including English/ Dutch language switcher, a gallery slide show and a great schedule/ class sign-up form.

I absolutely love how it turned out. If I am ever in the Netherlands, I am totally taking a class from her :)

New Design: Penelope's Pitstop

I just finished a cute new design over at Penelope's Pitstop.

Penelope has a great blog full of fun items she finds while shopping. She is such a nice person and was great to work with.

Go check out her site :)

New Design: Ovolina

Ovolina means little mozzarella in Italian which is appropriate because Anita is Italian and has six children! Anita is originally from Rome Italy and has her own radio show. She is also a wonderfully sweet lady who was very easy to work with.

I went with an old-world Italian feel for her site and incorporated her six little ones in the design. We are still working on uploading all of her work, magazine articles and videos, but thought I'd share the site with you all anyway :)

New Design: Espresso His Love

A few months ago I did web designs for Not-so-Deep Denise and In the Grip of Grace Tammy. Last week I received an email from them wanting me to revamp their women's group blog... Espresso His Love

These ladies are so funny and great to work with. They wanted a site that was fun with a header picture that had characitures of all five of them!

I absolutely love the way it turned out and had a great time working with all of them.



P.S. Denise is the second from the right with the fun reading glasses and Tammy is the one on the far right with the red hair :)

Need a little romance?

I just did two sites for romance authors/ publishers. Now, I personally don't read romance novels... except for the rare Christian romance (I still remember when I read my first Janette Oke book... Love Comes Softly... ahh) but these two ladies I worked with were so sweet and I am very happy with their sites, so I figured I'd show them off here :)

New Design: Mary R Snyder

Christian author and speaker, Mary R. Snyder, just had me redesign her website and blog. She wanted something fun and retro. Her new book comes out early next year... check her out!

Jen Rocks! Armed with only my rambling ideas, she created this amazing website and it's perfect. Anyone who sees this will think of me. I can't believe with only a few words, some color ideas and a couple of pictures that Jen could create exactly the site I'd been looking for. (Believe it's one of a kind!) Her talent, creativity and sweet spirit make her a joy to work with.

Awww ;)