You may have noticed that the site looks new! Does the new design make you feel more relaxed? Well, that’s the major target in this entire blog makeover—for you to have a great time here!
I have long wanted this redesign. It was five years ago since I gave this blog a new look so it’s really about time I jump into this beautiful makeover! How do you like it?
For the new design, I wanted it clean, classy and pretty! More importantly, I wanted it to be so easy for you to navigate! Targets hit? I guess yes! I am absolutely in love with the new look and the simplified interface! Everything works together wonderfully!
Thanks to Patricia of Fancy Girl Design Studio, the graphic designer behind the lovely look. Pat is so amazing. She just asked me to make a Pineterst board of the feel I want to convey for the redesign and then she created the rest in a snap. I am so blown away by her talent! She even works so fast!
Here’s the mood board that she sent over for approval prior to designing the blog. She curated this from the Pinterst board I submitted to her. This mood board that she made for me carried the most important elements of the design—the blog’s color and the overall feel.
Absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? And happily, Pat was able to incorporate the feel in this new look! However, it was quite shaky behind the scenes when this new theme was launched. Let me share it with you…
BEHIND THE SCENES
The move to this lovely new theme wasn’t seamless. There were challenges that came along with it. For some odd reasons, my blog wasn’t responding well to the new theme. A lot of images disappeared on search engines and we couldn’t get the homepage to work right. Maybe because one of the plugins I had previously installed wasn’t compatible with the new theme anymore or maybe because of my recent upgrade to the newly launched WordPress version…. I really didn’t know. But you can imagine how everything rocked my world then!
Happily, a dear friend came again to help, Jenn Tan of the Techie Mom. She checked all the plugins, fixed the codes and indexed the blog to search engines. I just love Jenn. She has always been so passionate in checking all the details to make sure the blog is running well and she has been doing that for five years! And as I can see now, it’s working perfectly again! Truly, someone up there blesses you with people to keep your shine! I have worked with Jenn ever since I migrated to WordPress and she’s quite the only one who handles all the technical side of the blog and she handles everything with utmost care!
I am likewise very grateful to Pat because she helped me all through out! She is also the only one who designs my blog ever since!
And currently, I am still working hard behind the scenes; not on the technical side this time but just to prettify things. I am changing graphics, updating posts and pages, and coordinating some elements to match this whole redesign together. Things will get better each day so hang in there!
WHAT ARE THE BEAUTIFUL CHANGES THEN?
Firstly, there’s the whole new logo. Look, Shining Mom logo now looks prettier in that gold bling! Pat did a truly amazing job on that!
Then, the cleaner look. As you may see, the sidebar and the footer of the blog are waay cleaner than before!
Next, newsletter the sign-up form. This is quite embarrassing. I have been blogging for years and yet I don’t have a newsletter yet! Well, I am jumping to that now, finally! Worry not, I will not flood your emails, I will only send really awesome posts once in a while so join me now and you can be one of the firsts to sign-up!
Finally, the improved navigation. This has been really my greatest push for the redesign, to create a more user-friendly Shining Mom that will easily guide the you to the topics you keep coming back for in the blog. Defining what I love to share and the topics you are most interested in which are — family, party planning, free calendars and free printables— you can now find them easily right in the menu icons on the top page. I am happy, everyone’s happy!
ENJOYING THE LITTLE THINGS
It’s still about that. New look but same old joy. You still should expect for my heartwarming motherhood stories here plus a whole lot more printables for your daily bliss!
Sincerely, I’d like to thank you for sticking with me all through the changes. Even in times you can’t find my images in search engines, a lot of you still went directly to the homepage, my blog statistics say. Thank you, thank you. Now that everything is back to its normal run, we are all back to our old joy. This improved blog is for you.
I shall stop here so you’ll have more time to enjoy the ‘new’ site. =)
Cheers to Shining Mom’s new look! Let’s all keep shining, moms!
Leave a Reply