Wednesday, April 13

Matthewser Makeover

First of all, I want to thank everybody who's been wishing me a happy birthday! Between facebook and text messages, I feel like I'm in front of some sort of tennis ball launcher that's chucking waterballoons filled with loooove. Truly blown away.

So, THANK YOU, EVERYONE ♥ I'm a lucky lady to have you all.

Aaaand as promised, here's my little present to myself: the new Matthewsers page! Brought to you entirely by kind internet strangers who post HTML tutorials, and my (desperately naive) late night grit and determination:
(click to zoom)
...at least, that's what it should look like. Hopefully.

There were a few blooper reels-- for a while, I thought it would be a genius idea to draw cartoons of us on the sketchbook. After an hour or two of drawing, I got halfway done and decided STRONGLY against it:
(for the record, Jason requested to be upside down)
Can't. Do. It.

Why does it look cool on these guys and cheesy here? I don't know. But I can't bring myself to go through with it.

***
Here are a few tutorials I found especially easy and valuable:

How to make your post titles and widget titles a custom font.
How to make the top Blogger Navbar invisible until you hover over it.
How to make a custom browser icon (favicon).


And, for old times' sake, a screenshot of the original Matthewsers layout:
I'm sure the chalkboard will return again someday : )

16 comments:

Jenna said...

I LOVE it!! I see what you mean about the drawings of you guys but they're cute anyway! happy birthday :)

Jenna said...

and thanks for the tutorial links, I'm definitely inspired to go play with my blog now!!!

Srout said...

Oooh; lovely makeover :3

I'm loving your font choices. And I'm a suoer fan of the [for lack of a better name] Featured Post graphics. Very slick and fun. :D

PS custom favicons make you feel so special, don't they? I just did mine a week ago.

Srout said...

PS your blog totally convinced me to put rounded borders on all the images on my blog. I feel so classy now.

PPS: the captcha for this post is "whoppec" which is entirely appropriate, I think.

Srout said...

PPPS I got the depth of my postscripts messed up; in your head just prefix all but the first one with an extra P. Including this one.

Kelley @ Kelley Maria said...

Nice job April! I love the creativity and most importantly the UNIQUE quality & originality of your blog! In a world of copy cats - I respect that :)

Emilee9 said...

Happy Birthday April!! Hope you had a great workout last night! Looked fun! :)

April said...

Why thank you amigas! Glad you liked the links, Jenna.

Thanks, Kelley! What a sweet compliment, that makes my day : ) Your blog design is looking really great lately, too!

April said...

& Nan, I think yours is one of the best-looking blogs I've ever seen. (Although in my biased opinion it would look even better with rounded corners!)

& I noticed your favicon, nice use of a transparent GIF!! listen to me trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about : )

April said...

Thanks Emilee!! It was great to see you last night, you were totally cracking me up-- as usual. & I kept smiling about the little baby you told me about : )

Emilee9 said...

I guess your baby birthday buddy has finally been named--Bronwen Calla :)

Married In Chicago said...

Your site looks awesome! And thanks for the links - I like the idea of making the top navbar invisible.

Im curious - have you thought about installing a comment widget? I'm currently debating and I can't decide.

April said...

Thanks pal! & yes, I've definitely been considering a comment widget. I love how the "reply" feature makes things more organized.

I hope it wouldn't delete all the previous comments, though...! That would break my heart.

Kelley @ Kelley Maria said...

I've been wanting to figure out what to do with the Nav Bar thing so THANK YOU for sharing the link to make it invisible. I was a little nervous to try this HTML business, but it seems to have worked out fine :)

April said...

I thought you'd changed something major!

& yeah, it's so intimidating to click "edit html" and look at that giant wall of gobbeldygook... yiiiikes.

v o j a c q u e said...

loving the new look and i agree with Kelly, your blog is unique indeed! but i do miss the chalkboard. but maybe i'm biased because i love chalkboards.