Oh, hi! Happy Monday! Notice anything new and different around here today? New year, new look!

When I switched to WordPress early last year, I told myself that the days of updating my blog theme were over. Let’s face it – it’s not as easy to make updates yourself on WordPress like it is in Blogger, and WP templates tend to cost a little more money. But, as I stepped away during the holidays and did some soul-searching, I realized that my previous theme was so not me. I definitely chose the previous theme based on what I thought was popular and trendy in the blogging world. I think that is the first time ever in my life that I decided to go with the crowd instead of against it. Obviously, it didn’t sit well with me! I was tired of logging onto my site and never smiling at my own work.

Well, now I’m definitely smiling again! You guys, I really can’t tell you just how stinkin’ happy I am with this design refresh. I wanted something simple with just a little pop, and this theme delivers on just that. No more worry about page breaks, the size of slider featured images … it’s clean, streamlined and easy-to-navigate. I hope that you’ll take a few minutes to click around! My favorite features are the search bar in the top navigation and the pretty portfolio-style archive pages. Seriously, those archive pages are GOLD. I love the grid layout so you quickly and easily can find what you are looking for.

I want to give a big thanks to White Oak Creative for the fantastic (premade!) template and Karli Bell Branding for my new design elements.

I’m excited to start the year fresh and hope that this only will help inspire my creativity going forward!

Psst – can anyone recommend their favorite Popular Posts widget and/or how to set up a MailChimp widget for email subscribers?