When Melissa contacted me about doing her blog design, I went to her blog and began to read through it to get a feel for her style and was hooked. I think I might have stayed for an hour reading - she's got a wickedly superb sense of humor and her family has some pretty interesting adventures in the inner city where they live and minister.

She wanted something that married who she is and where she lives. When I asked her what she thought would describe her surroundings - she said "graffiti and gunfire". I thought to myself, "oh goodness." But then she added, "skinny white girl and shopping", so we were in business once again and this is what I came up with for Melissa:

I've recently revised a couple of Wordpress.com blogs. Originally, Ellen B. from Happy Wonderer contacted me to widen her template and give her a background that fit the theme of her blog, which I did below:



When Bernideen of Bernideen's Tea Time Blog saw Ellen's template, she had to have one as well - after purchasing the $15 CSS upgrade for Wordpress, she told me that she wanted lavender or purple lace for the background and her template widened as with Ellen's. Here's the outcome of that blog:

When Cyn from Knightly Chats hired me to do her header, I loved her immediately. She had a fun, outgoing personality and a quirky sense of humor -- much like me. Thank goodness she was so easygoing and friendly -- because her WordPress.com design presented to be a little bit more of a design challenge than I thought it was going to be (I actually had mistaken the ".com" for ".org" and thought it was self-hosted - which would have made all of this a moot point).

I also inadvertently changed the name of her blog - on my order form, the tag line and blog name were juxtaposed and I didn't notice - just used her tag line for her title - but she ended up liking it. Of course, I don't normally suggest that you do that and I offered to change it back, but she loved it and even came up with a new and improved tag line - so it all worked out in the end.

Thank goodness for Heather from Desperately Seeking Wordpress and Lisa from Simply His - without those two ladies, this design would not have happened - Sandbox is tricky and I'm apparently...not. :)

I have teamed up with Karla from Looking Towards Heaven and Fruition Designs to offer two lucky readers a very special prize this summer.

Do you know a deserving blogger who desperately needs a blog makeover? Perhaps it's you? Blog your most compelling story as to why you think this person deserves a blog makeover and then send your link to us at Blissfully Domestic. We'll choose 10 semi-finalists and let you have the deciding votes for the two finalists right here on Blissfully Domestic!

The Extreme Blog Makeover team could be coming to your blog soon!

Contest Rules:

~Blog your most moving story about why you or someone you know deserves a blog makeover and link up at Blissfully Domestic on Wednesday, July 30th by midnight EST.

~If it's not your blog, please provide links to the blog to be made-over somewhere in your entry.

~We will choose 10 finalists and post the links to their stories here.

~Reader voting will begin August 1st and end Monday, August 4th.

~The two blogs that have received the most reader votes will be declared the winners – so make your stories good!

~The winning blogs will enter each designer's queue and depending on the size of their queue, may have to wait up to 4 weeks, but hey! It's a gift from us to you!

~You can check out their work at Fruition Designs and right here on Simply Amusing Designs!

Grab our button and help spread the word!

When Megan of Fried Okra first contacted me about her upcoming blog anniversary, I was positively estatic about redesigning her blog for her.

She said that she wanted something that spoke "welcome" to her readers and suggested a porch swing or something of that nature. So, I commenced to look for a porch swing or something of that nature. (I'm so complicated, no?) However, finding a porch swing in stock photos that either did not have people already in it, or was large enough (as in wide) proved to be quite a challenge.

I sent her several shots that I thought would work (I was thinking I would just crop them down if necessary) and she picked out this photo:


Now, at first glance, I thought the photo would work - it was 819 pixels wide. What I wasn't counting on was the thing that Megan loved most about the photo was the arched windows. Ay-yi-yi. The only way I could keep the arches was to shrink the photo by at least half, which would mean it would then be only 410 pixels wide, about half the size I needed. What to do? I had already sold her on the photo - and now it was too small. (oh the horror!)

So I manufactured the rest of the photo in Photoshop - it took a bit of manipulation, but I think the outcome was beautiful. Her eye for color and detail was a guiding force in the overall design, but she left the details completely up to me. I think it's one of my absolute favorite designs so far - what do you think?






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When Stephanie from Keeper of the Home contacted me about doing a business card, blog button and banner ads for her site, I was happy to pull the elements out of her beautiful blog design to create her very first business/blog card. She was pleased with the results - which I now show to you:

When Kendra from The Adventures of the Headless Family originally contacted me about doing her blog, she told me she liked the idea of a very simple layout with a photo in the header and gave me two blogs that she liked as a reference. When I asked her to pick out a few stock photos for me to choose from, one of the ones that really stood out for me was the hand with the heart for some reason.

I liked the idea of incorporating it somehow, but wasn't too hopeful, since she had said she wanted something basic. During our discussion, she told me that she really loved the hand and that anyone that knew her knew it would have significance, because she collects them!

So I knew right then I had to use it. The funny thing about the design process is sometimes people have a very clear vision of what they want that that's what they get. Other times, it is nothing like what they originally wanted, but they love it nonetheless, which is what happened here. She was thrilled with the outcome - it's fun and colorful and has personal meaning...something I think is important, because you've got to look at it every day. :) Here's the outcome: