For the past year I've been looking at blog designs and various designers but I just wasn't ready to take the plunge as I still wanted a bit more time to think about how I wanted the site to look and feel. In January I celebrated my 2-Year Blogiversary and thought this would be a gift to myself to celebrate.
Last month as I took a look again at Marina's website- Penny Lane Designs -I happened upon a super cute prefab design that was very affordable and I could see from her portfolio that she has consistently turned out beautiful and unique designs. While I didn't go the completely custom route, with all of the extras she offers such as font changes, blog button, page dividers, a new signature, a new background design, title banner and a much needed wide bar and overall wider design to showcase larger images, I knew I could really achieve a customized look that would reflect my personal style and the essence of the classy woman.
Marina is a sweetheart and was so easy to work with. I often felt guilty because we'd try a lot of different options for each component but her focus was on producing a blog design that I would be happy with in the end, I really appreciated that. After exchanging numerous e-mails and sharing my vision of what I wanted for the overall design, we've now achieved that. I highly recommend her to anyone looking at getting a custom designed blog and I think you'll like her pre-designed options too, you can check those out here. They are very affordable-her designs begin at $25 (not including all the extras I mentioned) which is a great way to quickly and inexpensively give any basic blogger site a face lift.
I chose the 'Paris' theme which is actually where Paul and I got engaged. Funny enough the actual post date that is shown on the design sample on her prefab page is my birthday-Aug.27th and the colors are so me. I just knew it was meant to be! Even though I'm not a huge fan of yellow in my home decor, something about it in combination with the other neutral, airy colors that I love (soft blue, taupe and white) gave it a little more personality and pop of color that I really like.
When any new design is installed, a designer must log into your blogger account to add the new code, which means they need to be granted admin privileges it also means they have access to everything-this was a little scary for me, I'll be honest. My blog is kind of my baby and a lot of time and effort has gone into it but Marina put me at ease and had everything set up in about 45 minutes. All of my content, followers, comments etc., that I had previously remained completely in tact. Thank you Marina for making it all painless!
While I loved my old design, it was time to move forward with a new look. Let's take one final look back at my self-created blog shall we?
*Note: I am in no way compensated for sharing Penny Lane Designs with my readers as I paid for my new design. I just believe us ladies need to stick together and help each other out when we find something worth sharing. Plus, I thought if anyone is agonizing over which designer to use, this might be helpful!
I hope you'll pop over and visit Marina to say hello via her website or blog.
Here's to a beautiful weekend!
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