New Blog Design

You may or may not have noticed my week long hiatus from blog-land (sorry!), but it's because I've been working on something very exciting - redesigning Awake + Make! It's something that I've been meaning to do for a while now, and I've only just mustered up the courage to face coding. So, let me talk you through the new design...

I had a few issues with my old design. Basically, there wasn't much design to it, and coupled with the fact that it was fairly hard to navigate meant that I knew something had to be done. Hopefully now, it looks more welcoming, as well as being easier to navigate. I've added some extra pages to Awake + Make, so that you can easily find the information you're after. So now, you can find out more about me, read the small print, look what I've been up to on social media, and share the blog love. I'm also planning to add a picture gallery for tutorials, so that it is easier to browse through all my projects and find the ones that you are interested in (hopefully coming soon!).

There are also a few social media buttons at the top of the page, so you can catch up with me when I'm not blogging here. Don't forget to say hello!

After having a pretty minimal looking blog for a while, I have to say that I found minimalism just isn't for me. I love pattern too much. However, I didn't want to go back to the crazy pattern I had as a blog background in my early days of blogging (not many of you will remember this, it was soon discarded to the "bad blogging bin"). Instead, I wanted a more subtle pattern, and came up with this instead. It's made up of a few of my favourite things; custard creams, carnations, and loafers. It actually works a lot better than I imagined!

I have to say, coding isn't half as scary as you think it's going to be. Ok, it's not the sort of thing that you can do whilst watching The Vintage Clothes Show, but once you get the hang of the basics, it's easy to start making some small coding steps. There are so many lovely blogs out there which specialise in everything from SEO to HTML Coding, and they simplify everything wonderfully. I cannot recommend Codecademy enough - essentially it's a website which specialises in teaching coding, and even gives you exercises to practise with before applying the results to your blog or website. It's especially great if, like me, you are one of those people who has to learn by physically doing something.

Have a look around, and let me know what you think!