Not Just Skin Deeps New Look

If you've visited my blog in the past week or so, you may have noticed it looking a little different. I've been slowly adding new things to it, and I have finally got it looking the way I want it!

I thought I'd fill you all in on what's changed, as I personally love these kinds of posts. I think it's lovely to see how a blog has evolved over time, and how far its come. I'm labelling this post as 'Blog Evolution', so this and any future changes will be altogether in one place.

In case you've already forgotten (or this is your first time here), here is the 'Before'

As you can see it was pretty bland, and I really wasn't happy with it. It really didn't reflect my personality - or any kind of personality for that matter!

I loved parts of the header (I thought the birds and the crowns were lovely, and I quite liked the colour scheme), but the text on it didn't work and it just seemed a bit dull and rectangular, especially with the huge expanse of white background.

The social media buttons I used were from a free website, and were the closest thing I could find to what I wanted. But all together it was too miss-matched, and the whole layout looked very cluttered - even though I had hardly anything in the sidebar.

I forgot to keep the favicon in the screenshot, but it was basically a small fuchsia flower. Cute, but completely irrelevant to my blog or layout!

'After'

The first thing I changed was my header, as I'd been using the previous one since my very first day blogging!
I wanted to keep parts of the old header within the new one, so I just kind of re-vamped it and made it a lot cleaner. I'm really proud of how it looks now.

However, that's as far as my 'expertise' went, so I asked Gemma from Little Tiny Pieces to design a new background, favicon, and social media buttons. She was very helpful the whole way through, and the background she came up with is perfect! Being light, it has a nice crisp feel to it, but the texture of the lace just makes this blog look a bit more 'complete', and not so....lonely.

I really like the social media buttons too - they're so much better than what I had in mind. The same goes for the favicon! I love that she used the crown from my header.

The background has also been continued onto my Twitter Page:

And the header is on my Business Cards:

I am so happy with everything now, and really grateful to Gemma for all her help. The only thing that needs changing now is that awful photo of me! Sadly the camera is not my friend.

Gemma also has an etsy shop where she sells pre-made headers, social media buttons etc, so if you're thinking about re-vamping your blog, you should definitely check it out.

I hope you like the new look!

P.S. - On an even happier note 'Not Just Skin Deep' turns 1 this friday, and it reached 200 followers over the weekend! Perfect excuse for a giveaway? ;)