On the first day of this year, I decided I would make things happen in 2014. Leyna had her arm in a splint after breaking it the day before, and my anxiety was at an all time high, but I sat in the car on the drive back to Dallas from visiting family in South Texas and made a conscious decision to stop waiting for things to come together.
I realized I had to put everything together myself.
Amongst other behind-the-scenes projects and visits to the doctor to get my anxiety under control, I began the long process of re-branding, re-designing (with the help of the FABULOUS and oh-so-talented Courtney Keim), and re-focusing this space. And as I started to put my mind to it, wonderful things started to fall into place. 
It’s taken over half the year, but this part of it is ready. There are tweaks and kinks that will still need to be worked out, and exciting new features I’ll showcase more as the week goes on. Soon, there will be a fresh new newsletter, a podcast, and a store-front featuring some of my favorite products.
But, today, for now… I celebrate what IS done, recognizing that I can’t move forward if I’m constantly worried about perfecting the past. I hope it’s easier to navigate, that it looks better on your mobile devices, and that it grows with me as I bring on contributors soon, and continue to work with wonderful brands in fresh ways. I also hope that this gives me the breathing room to add more photography and DIY content without my voice and the story getting lost in the mix.
As I mentioned, there are things to fix still, and Courtney and I are working on it together this week, but if you find any bugs or glitches, I’d love if you’d let me know! It may be something we missed.
If you landed on this post first, be sure to click through to my home page to take in the new view!
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19 Comments
JILL!! I LOVE IT!!! I am dying to get a simple and clean redesign for my blog — you NAILED it. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
Thanks, Kacia! I must say, clean and simple is Courtney’s specialty. It’s a HUGE reason why I chose her.
Congrats! I’m so glad you have a mobile site now! I saw this post on my phone and fired up my laptop that I just shut down so I could come see it!
One bug I noticed right away is that I can’t read the field prompts in this comment form that I’m typing in. The text is white on a white background on Safari. Also, your search field won’t let me click on it to type unless I’m in the right half of the field (not where I would expect the cursor to be). Also, the twitter icon is not clickable but all the other social icons are.
I love the new logo!
Thanks, Brett! I will add that to my list of stuff to work on tomorrow. I had to come back to my original pink/orange/white roots. I know you were a fan to begin with. 🙂
Couple of things to add to the work out the bugs list if they aren’t already there. On my screen all the text for the comment section text field boxes (Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked * Name * Email * Website Comment) appear to be white text and only show up if highlighted. At the top of the page, the ‘social’ links, Facebook icon has the link for Twitter and twitter doesn’t go to anywhere.
Working out the bugs is my least favorite part of web design, good luck!
Just a personal taste comment here. I love that you’ve kept the original color scheme and like what you’ve done with it. IMHO I feel like there is too much white space above the Baby Rabies top header banner… If something is coming yet to take up that space cool… if you’re in love with the white space, also fine… if not maybe shorten it up a bit so that the white space is only the height of one capitol letter above the Baby Rabies??
Hmmm…. there should be a banner ad up there. Do you have adblocker? Maybe that’s why it’s not showing for you. Thanks for the suggestions!
Hmmm indeed. No ad blocker. I see a top and a right ad in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox on this computer, other computer is seeing add in Firefox. Also among the missing on the 1st computer I see now is a facebook likes box on the top of the right side bar. Both computers are running Firefox 30.0 1st computer has more recently had a Java update (2 days ago), if that helps. The only other difference I see between the Firefox installations on the two computers is that PC 1 is running the Avast! online security version 9.0.2013.75 and PC 2 is not. Feel free to email if I can provide more info.
Nice!
It looks great!
Woohoo! Lookin’ good! 🙂
YAY! ::high five::
Incredible Work Jill!!!
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Love it!!!
It looks gorgeous! I love how it highlights your photographs! Congrats.
I had just found your blog and was starting at the beginning of the archives, but with the recent design update, it’s not possible to find the archives and read posts in order by date. Not sure if this is deliberate or an oversight.
Thanks, Jennifer! We are actually working on fixing that and should have it done by the end of the week.
Looks amazing! I love the new layout!
Thanks!