Blog Makeover

Blog Before Picture Click for Larger

Finally! I found some time to work on a makeover of this blog. If you are reading this in your google reader, you won't see much of what was changed, you'll need to hit the blog page to see it.
The most obvious change is the header and the background color. I like a page with some richness, so the background changed to grey and the letters changed to white. For all those who prefer black 'ink' on white, you'll want to keep reading this page in your reader.
So many times images loaded were cutoff at the right side, on both the side bar and the main page. Those had to be expanded.
This meant that the header needed expansion, truthfully it needed a lot of things. Long admiring Susan's collage header at Between Naps on the Porch, I created a photo collage for my header. I used Adobe Fireworks but Susan has a tutorial on how to use Picasa to create a collage.
This rendered the Title less than readable. I changed it to Edwardian Script ITC, blew it up and we have the results you see now.
I added an image description and image citation style, which you can see above on the "old page" image. It's not working out as well as it did on the "Women of our Time" page I created sometime ago, the image of which is below. I am fairly certain that the success of the page from which the image was taken has to do with the table structure which kept everything in line and behaving.



Not all the print could be white. Links were rendered in various shades of green.
So, what do you think? Better? Worse? Not really different? Leave a comment and let me know!

Be sure to head over to Susan's for more Metamorphosis Monday!

Pink!

I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of pink, which is odd, because my favorite color is red. Odder still, pink roses abound in my garden, in fact I eschew red in the garden! Perhaps my less-than-beautiful mind believes pink to be simply a pale imitation of red.



But this Robert Abbey lamp could make me change my mind. It's just the right pop of color for a my soft grey, pink and white fantasy bedroom, a Benjamin Moore Dove White room with a white fluffy down comforter and white matelassé pillow shams. In summer, the comforter is changed for a white matelasse coverlet. These pillows are Sferra from Neiman Marcus, but JC Penney has a lovely collection.




A white linen box pleated valance and draperies at the window with a soft pink grosgrain ribbon placed precisely one and five eighths inches from the bottom of the valance.



A beautiful bouquet of Madame Ernest Calvat roses, from my garden, in a fat round antique mercury glass vase, from my Granny.




I'd place these on the antique, white bedside tables. This pair from Regan & Smith, might be just right. But,a small skirted round table will suffice until the budget allows.


To ground it all on the fantastic cinnamon maple floors, an Antique Oushak rug, from Keivan on 1stdibs. This keeps it from becoming too cotton-candy-ice-creamy.





To end on especially beautiful note, Jacksonville Florida designer Phoebe Howard has some lovely pink rooms.