Site Updates and News

by | Nov 7, 2014 | Notices

So it’s been a really, really, really long time since I did a round up of the site updates I do behind the scenes but I finally have a minute to sit down and breath so I wanted to put one together!

Design:

  • Changed theme and recoded the entire thing.
  • Remade responsive design to work on tablet and mobile devices.
  • Removed left side bar
  • Made top navigation sticky.
  • Removed a bunch of right sidebar widgets
  • Removed social media buttons. Will be looking to reintegrate them once I find a design which isn’t a drain on resources.

Pages:

  • Deleted a whole heap of pages which weren’t needed anymore.
  • Updated About, FAQ, The VLB, Categories, Shop, Hire, Contact, Editorial Policies.
  • Tutorial page totally reworked.
    The layout of the tutorial pages had been a problem for quite some time. There is still a lot of work in sorting which needs to be done but this is a decent start. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or if there’s a particular way you want to be able to organise things?

Navigation:

  • Menu structure updated
  • Category pages actually work now, yay!
  • Archive pages work
  • Fixed the page numbers for easy browsing

Subscription:

  • Added better support for bloglovin.
  • Changed the email subscriptions from Feedburner to Mail Chimp
    This was another decision that took some thought, Feedburner has been rumoured to be ending soon and I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to switch. I really prefer the look of the Mail Chimp emails too. To import the current subscriptions I had to remove everyone who hadn’t completely the double opt in. If you have stopped receiving emails please just sign up again in the sidebar!

Comments:

  • Installed Disqus.
    There was a lot of debate over whether I should do this on Facebook/via email. People have very strong feelings about Disqus and so I didn’t really want to install it. The problem I had was server load, there are over 20,000 comments on my site and calling them from the WordPress database is VERY labour intensive from the point of view of the server and I can’t afford to bump up my plan which is already quite pricey. So the choice was getting to be Disqus vs no comments rather than Disqus vs regular comments. Hopefully this will work for the moment until we can find a better solution later.

Advertisements:

  • Removed Glam ads because they were a nuisance for people and their ad system kept applying features that I had specifically asked to not be a part of.
  • Added PassionFruit ad serving system so I can manage things myself. Still finalising the sizing.
  • Signed as a blogger to The Remarkables Group for sponsored content.
  • Added BlogHer advertising system for a trial period. Please let me know your experiences and thoughts on this in the comments!

Still to do:

  • Confirm mobile sites work on all devices
  • Fix sidebars on mobile devices
  • Make series of posts
  • Make sure each post has the correct thumbnail, particularly in the tutorial section
  • Add extra navigation to find tutorials eg. crochet, sewing, knitting, etc
  • Add social media buttons back in.
  • Remove gallery links, still considering this as I’m not happy with the gallery in it’s current form.
  • Change theme and update Bergamot Bunny site
  • Change theme and update Violet’s Cuties/tumblr site
  • Consolidate all of the FAQ’s I’ve done and add resources page

As always, let me know what you think! If you ever find anything which isn’t working, please let me know about it! This site has grown so big that I can’t keep track of everything all at once so I rely a bit on people telling me if something is not working correctly!

I’m planning some changes to the way that I make videos and blog this coming year as well. It seems a nice sense of symmetry to just finish off the year and start fresh with the different things I want to do in the new year. I’ll post properly about that all in January then!

So basically… good things to come ^_^

Thank you all for sticking with me so far, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next!

Pastel Leopard Print – Simple Nail Art Tutorial

by | Nov 5, 2014 | Nail-Art-Tutorials, Nails, Tutorial

I’ve done leopard print nail art before but I wanted to do an updated version to show how versatile this print is so here is some cute pink leopard print ^_^

You will need:

  • Light pink base polish
  • White polish or acrylic paint
  • Dark pink polish or acrylic paint
  • Clear top coat
  • Thin brush

Begin by painting the nail light pink and allowing it to dry.

Next paint white splotches all over the nail randomly. You can keep them in a pattern but random tends to look more natural… as natural as pink leopard print can actually look anyway >_>
Once that is dry prepare some dark pink and paint a little splotch as if you were going to paint an outline of the white.
Do this broken outline in either 2 or 3 splotches. Don’t worry if it’s messy, it really doesn’t matter.
Do this broken outline to each of the white splotches. Paint some of the dark pink off the edge too so it looks like the pattern continues.
Once the polish is all completely dry, top coat it with clear polish to finish off the look.
Leopard print really is my favourite pattern! It’s just so simple to do but so effective!
Hope you found it useful and let me know if you give it a try!

 

Stand ‘N Stuff Tortillas WHY? Snapshots

by | Nov 1, 2014 | Life

I want to grow big trees like this in our apartment but even our window boxes are dead again.

I think that’s because the people above us keep dropping their filthy cigarette butts into our garden though 🙁

Sad plants are sad.

There was a pop up store in town by Old El Paso to promote their new range of tortillas and it was super cheap so we decided to try it out!

It was completely empty every time we went past *_* But the decorations were fun!

The concept however, was really silly. The tortillas are boat shaped which means you can’t actually eat them standing up because the second you take a bite it looses structural integrity and goes EVERYWHERE.

But you know, cute display!


This is also silly, it’s an art installation that gets bigger/smaller depending on how many people are in the shopping centre. All I can see is how dirty it is >_> It’s like a gigantic air filter cover full of dust from the ducts and no matter what time it is it never seems to get any bigger or smaller *_*


On the plus side, strawberry cheesecake drinks are AWESOME.

 

And I love all food which comes on stands bigger than me.

And Lottie is cute.

And apparently Little Golden Books are kitsch enough that hipster places use them as menu covers.

It’s warmer now so the streets are super busy. I’m not a big fan of crowds.

I find myself staring at the ceiling a lot waiting for people to move.


I think I’ll just stay home and be a hermit…

 

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