Rock Star Blog Design

YouTube Channel – Veggie Gardening Tips

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:04:52 +0000

One social media customization that I don’t see very many people taking advantage of is customizing your YouTube channel. Last month, I did one of these for a gentleman named Kenny Point who is an expert on gardening.

Now, a lot of people may not know that the only way to be able to add a header to your YouTube channel is to be a YouTube partner. But there are ways to get around that.

Here’s what we did with the Veggie Gardening Tips channel:

Home Study Consultant

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:28:02 +0000

Home Study Consultant is another one of those sites that needed to be mostly static since it’s intended for an “online business card” type of site rather than a blog. I love using WordPress for these because it’s so easy for both the designer (me!) and the client. Using a flexible theme like Headway makes it easy for me to get the look they want and using WordPress makes it easy for them to update it with articles and blog posts or even make simple changes to the content.

Now for the screen shot:

(You can’t tell from the screenshot but the image on the front page is one of four rotating images, done by using the Image Rotator Leaf in Headway.)

SIN – A band site using WordPress

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:20:08 +0000

Another Headway site, made to be more of a “static” site with a blog added as opposed to primarily a blogging site.

SIN is one of the bands I work with as a social media manager for indie & unsigned bands. Their old site was desperately outdated and just about everything on it was incomplete and just linked back to their MySpace page. So they needed something more modern, current, and easy to update. We also used some widgets from Reverb Nation to add their shows and music to the site.

As always, a screenshot:

AprilTara.com

April — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:14:09 +0000

I am LOVING the Headway theme. So much so that I’m using it on all of my sites (although I don’t have all of them transferred over just yet.)

The first site I used it on is my own “work at home” blog, AprilTara.com. It took me about 1 hour and only one line of code in the custom CSS to get this done. That’s how easy Headway is! And flexible…I’ve done several more sites since this one, all using Headway and all with totally different styles.

Ok, here’s the screenshot:

Trust your graphic designer

April — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:20:34 +0000

If you’re a designer, you’ll LOVE this video. I cracked up…my boyfriend just looked at me like I was nuts.

“Because Mom Said So” contest makeover

April — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:20:31 +0000

Recently I posted about a contest over at Profitable Mommy Blogging in which the winner would take over ownership of Because Mom Said So from Carrie Lauth and I would transfer the blog from Blogger to WordPress then customize the new theme.

Here are a few screenshots of how the project progressed:

How it originally looked on Blogger

Step 2…moved from Blogger to WordPress, WAHM theme installed

And the final design after theme customization

Bad Mommy Blogger

April — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:48:35 +0000

One of my personal favorites, the Bad Mommy Blogger blogging network. This site is my baby. Jason Phillips of Print Market Direct created our logo. He is amazing! All I told him was I wanted something sassy in black and red and he worked his magic. I customized a free magazine style theme from Woo Themes. My favorite feature is the rotating ad spaces. That allows all advertisers to get some “above the fold” space on a regular basis without me having to do it myself.

Screenshot

@AprilTara – new denim Twitter background

April — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:31:46 +0000

I get bored with my Twitter background so I like to switch it up once in a while. Since I am hopelessly addicted to Flair on Facebook, I created this background. The buttons have my various sites listed on them.

Mom blog giveaway

April — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:01:50 +0000

I’m very excited to be participating in a special giveaway hosted by Kelly McCausey and Profitable Mommy Blogging! Now most blog giveaways involve some kind of product but this time the prize is the blog itself.

You’ve heard of flipping a house, right? Well Kelly, Carrie Lauth and I are flipping a blog. We’ll be taking a 4 year old blog hosted on Blogspot/Blogger and converting it to a self-hosted Word Press blog. The winner will receive all of the content which will be imported from the old blog to the new one, plus a “pre-loaded” WAHM blog package from MomWebs, and theme customization.

Be sure to visit the giveaway post at Profitable Mommy Blogging for details and leave your comment to enter!

@WAHMSuzanne

April — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:27:43 +0000

Suzanne wanted a Twitter profile that matched the natural, earth tones of her website. She also had an award graphic from a Blogging Idol contest that she wanted to keep on her Twitter background. So instead of sticking with the greens, browns and oranges of her blog, I kept the sunflowers and used a blue sky instead, making it easier to incorporate the Blogging Idol award in the design.