Pimp My Blog Giveaway Details

As you all know (or maybe you don't) I am a blog designer. I love what I do! As I'm visiting other blogs I can't help and think of ways I would makeover that blog to make it more appealing and easier to read. I'm sort of like my mom in that way except she does this while visiting people's houses. Not only does she think about what she would change, she will actually tell people "you should move this over here" or "this would look best if you would put it there" and sometimes she even ends up moving things around... So I want to move things around! No not in your home but on your blog! I want to PIMP aka MAKEOVER your blog! There's a catch though... you must let me do whatever I want! I promise I won't make it look terrible. I will collect some info from you just as I would when normally designing a blog such as font/color preferences but instead of sending you 2 or 3 samples for you to choose from I will directly go and install your design and SURPRISE you! What do ya'll think? 
So here's how it's gonna work: 1. I will have this giveaway on my 2 YEAR BLOGAVERSARY which is next week: Thursday, March 7th.  2. You will enter your blog by writting up a post telling me why you need a blog makeover and adding all sorts of ideas you have and what you would like your blog to look like. Then you will link it (your post) to the linky party tool thingy that I will be setting up that day. 3. I will leave the linky party open for entries for a week. 4. My readers will vote for the blog THEY feel needs a makeover. Voting will be open for a week. 5. The blog with the most votes gets a FULL BLOG DESIGN ($160 Value) & the other two runner uppers (yup I made that up) will each get a $50 credit toward any blog design services. So what do you say? Would you enter your blog? If so start writting up a post! I would advice you to visit THIS AWESOME SITE for some color inspiration. If you add one or more of your favorite color palettes from this site in your blog post you will get extra points with me! ;) I will have a full set of rules and all of that good stuff the day before the giveaway. I'm so excited! Are you?

Sidebars: Adding A Colored Background

I haven't done a Blogger tutorial in a while and since I have no home projects or anything else to share I thought I would write up this quick tutorial for you all. I've gotten a couple e-mails asking how you can get sidebars like mine. It's SUPER easy! Here's how you can add a colored background to your sidebars: 

(I'm using one of my testing blogs I use for blog design for this tutorial...)

1. Go to TEMPLATE then CUSTOMIZE and you will see this....

2. Go to ADVANCED then ADD CSS (you will have to scroll down to see it)

3. PASTE this code in the white box:

.sidebar h2 {

background:#f1f1f2;

margin:0;

padding:0 .2em;

line-height:1.em;

}

4. Change the highlited section of the code above to the color code of your choice and then hit APPLY TO BLOG to save your changes. 

That's it! You've got yourself pretty new sidebars! Please let me know if this tutorial was helful. I have a couple more blogging tutorials here in case you are interested in beautifying your blog a little more. 

Levi - One Month

I can't believe it's February already. Levi is one today.... one month that is.

I haven't blogged in a while. Not so much because of having a newborn (which is hard especially having two other kiddos) but because two weeks ago this household was pure chaos! My son, daughter & husband all had the flu and it was just one of the worst weeks ever. Thankfully they are all ok now and Levi & I didn't catch it. I am finally starting to get a routine going now and Levi is sleeping much better at night so that helps me feel less sleep deprived. Having a baby in the winter is no fun! It's actually quite depressing but I'm thankful the "baby blues" didn't hit me quite hard as it did in the past. I've never had post partum depression but I did get those "baby blues", you know the ones that make you feel like crying for no reason. Sort of like when you're pregnant except you're achy, sleep deprived and sore from breastfeeding. To be honest with you labor + delivery didn't scare me, it was the post-partum that did. My post-partum experience after having my daughter was horrible. Mastitis, Thrush, An Allergic Reaction to who knows what on top of the horrible contractions you get afterwards + sleep depravation. Thankfully this time was WAY better! Not SUPER easy but MUCH better than I expected.
So I will be posting mostly about Levi and his monthly updates until I get a little more energy and time (yeah right) to get crafting again. I do have the awesome floating shelves to show you that my husband built. They are complete, I just need to accesorize them and take pictures. I would also like to do our kitchen reveal soon even though it's not 100% done but I seriously don't think it will happen this year. Appliances are EXPENSIVE! So bear with me as I try to learn how to manage my time wisely with 3 kiddos, a blog, a blog design business oh and those HUGE piles of laundry + dishes calling my name! Motherhood is not easy but it's one of the BIGGEST BLESSINGS! I love being a stay at home mom... dirty hair, spit up stained clothes & all! :)