My New Look! And other splendiferous things

Here it is! My lovely new blog design!!

And it's all thanks to the most amazing artist and designer that ever was!!

Victoria Caswell

Yup, that's right. The lovely lady who designed ELEMENTAL's cover. She's a genius. And I keep telling her she needs to do this kind of thing for a living.

And really, she's kind of a lifesaver, too because (gasp!) I tried to do this on my own. Yeah...

Here's the story:

I decided I wanted to change my blog look. You know, make it a bit more professional and a lot less girly. So I went to a site where you can purchase images for pretty cheap. I picked three I really loved and thought to myself, "I can do this! This is easy!" I then took my purchased images to photobucket.com and started playing around with them. After a few hours of torture, I produced something that was eh. The whole thing was all right, not beautiful, but all right. Unfortunately, despite the fact I purchased large and extra large images, photobucket did something to make them smaller and the whole thing looked fuzzy.

I then downloaded Gimp. *headsmack* One's ability to download images and image manipulation software does not a template designer make. 

After a couple more hours, I emailed Victoria with many weeping not-so-smily smilies. Basically, I was just sharing my failure with her, but she called me and imagine this...

She offered to do it all for me.

Yeah, that's right.

She offered to do it all for me.

So, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, we got to work. (by "we got to work," I mean I emailed the images and she did the rest)

This most amazing of amazing ladies spent her weekend creating my blog design with the three images I purchased. 

She turned this...

By the way, you totally can't take these pictures. 

I had to pay for them. If you like them, you can pay for them here.

...into what you see before you.

I know. She's amazing. She really needs to start selling her template designing services.

Now, there's a story to the look, too. If you've haven't already guessed, ELEMENTAL is about someone who can manipulate an element. And when you read this...

Just because Ella can burn someone to the ground with her mind doesn't mean she should. 

But she wants to. 

...I'm pretty sure you can guess which element it is.

So, this blog is going to celebrate Ella's awesome ability for the next few months! But when FAE's release date gets closer, the look is going to change again. Dun, dun, duuuun! 

By the way, did you know ELEMENTAL will be out in just a little over three months!! It's amazing!!! And so exciting!

To prepare for this awesome event, Spencer Hill Press has provided me with a countdown widget to share with all of you! 

(I'm hoping this shows up on the post. If not, it's over to the right)

Please put this on your blog and help spread the word! You guys are awesome and I would be so amazingly honored if you actually displayed it for your readers to see. It would give me warm and fuzzy feelings (not the creepy kind, though). :)

Here's the code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('c8fa1a8f-60a1-4bd8-84d1-670039c6f17d');</script>
<noscript>Get the <a href="https://www.widgetbox.com/i/c8fa1a8f-60a1-4bd8-84d1-670039c6f17d">Countdown Creator Pro</a> widget and many other <a href="https://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a href="https://www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox</a>! Not seeing a widget? (<a href="http://support.widgetbox.com/">More info</a>)</noscript>

Thanks, everyone!!!!