You might’ve noticed things looking different at ISWTG Blog.  I wanted something fresh now that a new year is upon us.  In addition to a new theme, I am cleaning up the business on the sidebars, too.  I’m talking mixing up the blogroll, changing out some badges, and getting some different widgets to spruce the place up a bit.

I made new social media icons last night to reflect EB’s fondness of obsession with cupcakes; I also reduced their number to a reasonable and clickable volume.  They are all the same size on a mobile device now, believe it or not.  I actually knew about this discrepancy for a while when I…looked at my own blog on my phone.  Yes, I’ve been known to do that.  Let’s just say I was showing pictures or a blog post to Hubs or the Grandmas and not just admiring my own blog.  Those follow-me buttons were linked to a dillion profiles that I set up when I first started rolling on this blog and wanted to save up any profiles unique to my blog name so no one else could swipe them, and maybe the use of those sites would grow organically.  Most of them didn’t.

Google +?  Nope.  G+ doesn’t like for me to not use my real name so it deactivated my account.  I suppose I could read up on how to use a professional (if you can call it that) name to create a blog profile again but, ugh, the only thing I use it for is Google chatting my ladies (and gent) from high school.

Amber and Bill in Seattle.

Ryan D in Houston (2/2 of the D’s represented).

GS in Austin.

Maru in Austin.

DS and Baby J (it’s cold in Winnepeg! Hence the suit she was showing off).

SD in Austin (1/2 of the D’s represented).

Me and A2. Eebs was running around somewhere. Austin, obvs.

I do have a Goodreads account filled out with every book I’ve read on my shelves surrounding my bed, but I haven’t updated it in a while.  Plus WP made a widget for that since I made the button, so I figured that would be part of the look change-up.  Stumbled Upon?  Don’t need a profile for that.  Digg?  That either.  I’m not on Instagram because I use this blog like I would that site.  I am on Twitter and occasionally get on there for more than just sending out blog post links.  Facebook and I see too much of each other, especially on my personal account, but you just get the blog link.

And as for an explanation of the buttons, it is two-fold:

A) The old buttons were burlap scraps and made around the time I was making seed grenades but I have made next to no mention of that until now, so it doesn’t really match the rest.  They were also the only interesting (to me) icons I could find at the time, so I made the buttons that I needed and weren’t represented in Photoshop.  Hence the small/big size discrepancy on a mobile device.  I never ended up fixing them because I wanted to change them by the time I noticed how weird it came up on my screen.

2) I’m happy to say I made these new cupcake buttons all on my own in Illustrator.  But if you want to make your own follow-me buttons, here are some directions that I copied and pasted from an old blog post of mine (that I transcribed from a WP forum link).

• find the icons online (or make them)
• upload to media library (click add media>upload files)
• create a new post (that you won’t publish, but it’s nice to keep as a draft for changes later)
• insert the images and create a custom link for each one to your profiles
• switch to HTML editor and copy the contents
• paste the contents into a text widget

I also updated my Gravatar to a recent picture of me sans-bangs, and not hiding behind sunglasses.  And if you’ve been following for any length of time, you know it’s a picture of me nursing A2.  Heh heh heh.  Because I think breastfeeding is awesome.  The new header of both of my children has been the most-commented change so far, so thanks guys!

Lastly, there are two badges for mommy blogs listed at the top of the sidebar to the right.  If you are so inclined, you can click on them to vote for me on their sites.  All you do is press them and it casts the vote.  It doesn’t go to a profile for some reason, but it does put my blog higher in their rankings so people looking specifically for mommy blogs can see mine higher up.  Just for funsies.

Ok, I think that’s all of the housekeeping that I felt inclined to document and share.  Hope you like the new look – and no, you’re not crazy, it does have a fresh coat of pain.

Mixing it up Jells