New Theme Coming
Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 
8:57 pm ()
I made a new theme.
Why? Because I wanted to try something a little “calmer.” I recently won a contest on Rachael’s website. One of my prizes was a free, coded layout designed by Rachael herself. She made me a very nice layout for my collective. Check it out. It’s awesome. 
Anyway, so the new collective layout made me want a change. I decided to tone the brightness down a bit and go for something simple, yet cute. Here’s what I have come up with. I call my theme “Calm Rainbow” because the colors of the layout Rachael made me think of the color scheme, and her site is called Calm Banana. 
So, what do you think? I know the screenshot is a little scrunched, so it looks kind of distorted and it’s hard to read what it all says. I used white for the navigation at the top on a very light blue background. I can read it fine, but I’m predicting that others may not be able to read it as well as I can. Any other suggestions for a color other than white? I tried some shades or gray. Didn’t look right. Using black just made it all pop. :stunned: (Yeah, I really need some color suggestions on this.)
The coolest part of the layout is the navigation at the top. When you hover over the words, little clouds pop up that tell you what is contained under the page you click on. Also, hovering over the Rainbow Stuff clouds/rainbow does something cute too. The footer is also cloudy cuteness.
Anyway, opinions and comments would be appreciated. Got any suggestions? After reading Jessica’s recent post about her website, I decided to get crackin’ on my new theme. Seems Jem is also working on a new design.
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Filed in: Website Updates ()
18 Comments so far
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Arien scribbled this note on June 21st, 2007: 
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It’s cute and colourful as always!
I liked your previous before as well and can’t honestly tell you which one is my favourite.I need Melissa to come back from camp. She said she would create a layout for my art portfolio and I am determined to pay her for it. I love her coding skills. I love Rachael’s too matter of fact. But you know what? If Jem ever ran a contest like that or something, I’d SO enter. Knowing she’s coding my layout would cause much relief!
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Woo for me! I may not be a l33t php ninja like Jem, but I don’t think I’m exactly bad at xHTML and CSS…
I love the new theme, Ashley. It’s much nicer on my eyes. One thing I was actually going to comment on in your review was the fact that I won’t visit your site late at night ’cause it’s too bright.
I’m not entirely sure what I think of the cloud background…
And where can I see this collective of yours?
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Hey Ashley,
Thanks for leaving me a comment.
LOL I didn’t know you lived in western KY either until you told me. I have never been to Madisonville or Dawson Springs, but I don’t think it’s too far away from where I live. We live right around the Paducah area.
And yes I did take that picture of the flower in my header myself. It’s a day lily from my mother’s flower bed.
Anyhoo, I really like your new ‘calmer’ layout. As for color suggestions for the color of your navigation font - how about using one of the colors in the little rainbow next to it? I think I would go with the pink color since it’s the biggest and most noticeable ray of the rainbow. Anyway, I can’t way to see your new theme in action. Take care, my fellow Kentuckian! -
@ Arien: Yeah, Melissa does need to come back. It’s more… I don’t know, quiet (?) without here around at the BBS and stuff.
@ Rachael: I know my site is super bright and colorful and that it may not be the best idea design-wise. But, I consider this site to be “personal” and therefore I tend to go with what I really like and not worry as much about what others think. You know?
I had a plain colored background but it just looked so….empty. It needed something, which is why I added the clouds. Any suggestions?
I remembered last night when I went to bed that I didn’t link to my collective.
Anyway, it’s linked now.
@ Kristie: I go to Paducah sometimes to shop. I also love to go to Jungle Golf down around the lake.
About your suggestions- well, the links do change to those rainbow colors when you hover over them. But maybe I could start them out as those colors and have them change to a darker version of that color. Hmmm…. -
As much as I hate saying this… I’ll tell you anyway: I love your layout! Haha!
For the nav color, why not colors from the raindow in the header? I’m not sure though, just a hunch! lol
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Omg..your new theme looks awesome! Yes, the colors you used are really calming. I think that white looks just fine on the navigation. Hehe. Anyway, congrats on winning the contest
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The new layout looks pretty good in the screenshot. I like the little clouds in the background. Very, very cute. I think the title of the layout is appropriate because the colours are quite mild and not so bright. And blue has always been a ‘calm’ colour for me.
The navigation sounds good. I can’t wait to see it in action. I’ve always loved the different hover effects that people have for their menus. I also really liked the way you used rainbow colours in the theme. It’s not so bright and it’s totally you.
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How about blue stripes?
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Gotta say… I like it! It’s very colourful and cheery. It makes me think of… bubblegum and ice cream… which is a good thing.
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I like the calmer one which is your new one. I like the brightness here too but since I am a dark person to the bottom of my heart it’s too bright. Light & airy is best I say.
And I love your collective!! That color rainbow is the best variation of a rainbow.
May I suggest that you figure out what is making your site load slow? I think it has something to do with the footer area of sidebar as it gets stuck around that area for about 10 or so seconds.
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Very cute! The new layout looks really good. I’m getting a little bit of lag too though, not sure what’s causing that.
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Hey, the new theme is really cute. I like the idea of the clouds popping up. I tried to get this script to work on my site once to get images to pop up, but I couldn’t ever get it to work. I guess I suck! Anyways, congrats on winning the award. ;P
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Oh, the layout is cute
Congrats on winning the contest and getting a cute layout as a gift XD -
@ Skye: Hee hee! Thanks, even though I know it killed you to say that.
@ Jean: Thank you and thank you!@ Amy: Thanks! I like the background too. I’m going to try a stripe background like Rachael suggested just to see what it looks like, but I think I love the clouds.
And I personally think hovers are cool too! I’m sure more techy people think they’re dorky, but oh well.
@ Rachael: I’m gonna try stripes to see what it looks like, but I love my clouds.
@ Fruity: I like both of those things too! Thanks!@ Jessica: Thanks! I thought you might like it. Rachael did a good job with the collective.
Although, there’s no orange in the rainbow, but I don’t care too much for orange anyway.
I don’t know what’s up with the loading time and the sidebar. I took off the StumbleUpon and the TagCloud buttons because they were both there as scripts. That’s where it was getting stuck for me at. I checked my loading time, and it seems to be loading faster. Is this still happening for you??@ Emma: Thanks, and I’m not sure either. I’m trying to figure that out.
@ Angela: Thanks! And too bad for you! I’ve tried to get plugins to work before that I just can’t get to work. That’s annoying.
@ Sandra: Thanks! -
Ashley, if you wanted orange, you just shoulda said… I’d have given you orange…
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@ Rachael - I don’t want orange. That’s just it.
It’s like my least favorite color ever! -
Yep it still lags. I was having the same problem but I forgot what I took out to stop it. It does it on Opera & IE too for me.
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@Ashley. Oh thank god! I guess my crystal ball must have been working that day…
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