You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I have a new blog design! When I started this space in March 2021 I chose a WordPress theme that, at the time, I liked. It had the basics of what I wanted, which was minimalist, one column with a side bar, and lots of white space. But I wasn’t in love with it. I always knew one day I would set aside some time and truly make my blog theme reflect me.

When I stumbled across Jordyn’s blog, Birdie’s Book Nook, I fell in love with her blog aesthetic. She has since rotated into a new (just as awesome) theme. But her last one was warm orange tones, full of fantasy art images, and amazing. So I reached out to Jordyn and Chris @ Biblio Nerd Reflections to gain some wisdom about what themes they use and how they create their graphics. If you’ve ever had to try and search through all of those free WordPress themes, then you know how frustrating it is. Ugh. Anyway, little did I know that Canva is where so much magic lies! You all, that site is amazing. I haven’t quite figured out how to query for images yet, but regardless, there are so many graphics to use. But I digress.

Needless to say, Jordyn was my inspiration to plow ahead with a redesign. I didn’t want to copy her design outright, because that’s just rude. But I focused on a few fantasy graphics from the same designer that sort of physically reflect my likeness: female and blonde hair. Those are in my blog header image and this default blog post image. Initially I wanted to make something work with cats and stacks of books. But I didn’t find a cat graphic that looked like my dilute calico kitty. Alas, I scrapped that idea.

You’ll also notice there’s a lot of green around here. Green is my favorite color. So I’ve known for a long time I wanted to switch to that as my main blog color. Plus, I’m an avid gardener, so I incorporated green plants into various images for themed blog posts. Now I feel like this space better reflects me and what books I blog about.

I still have some thinks to tweak, like the color of the “Older Posts” button. (Searching the internet to make sure you use the right css coding takes a lot of time, y’all. Especially when it’s not your day job and you’re a hobbyist instead.) I also have a massive amount of posts I want to update with the new blog theme images. And I need to better organize my WordPress Categories so I can make a better Book Review menu. So bear with me if things look a little wonky. I’ll sort it all out in the end.

Anyway, I’ll end this with a MASSIVE thanks to Jordyn and Chris for being kind enough to share their experiences with me! <3