Here’s a before and after of a complete redesign that I did for Shameeka, of The Broke Socialite.

She wanted to use a chandelier as her focal point and really loves sophisticated but unpretentious design. We moved her blog from WordPress.com to Blogger to achieve some of the styling and widget effects that weren’t possible with the free version of WordPress. I custom coded her twitter box into her template so she’d have her very own unique Twitter box…I even colored the twitter bird to match her template.

If you love entertaining and decorating on a budget…she’s the gal for you. Seriously, that girl can find the best deals on things – it’s a gift. And one I don’t have. 🙂

Her before:

And the after:

Gina is the blogger behind “Mommy Making Money“, who says that part of her job as a SAHM is to save money as a way of making money to contribute to their family budget. Gotta love that, huh?

She shares her strategies, tips for planning and organization, and ways to have FUN on a tight budget. She also does lots of great giveaways! Whether you’re a working mom, stay-at-home mom, or anyone else, these strategies can work for you – and I highly suggest you check her out if you’ve never visited her before.

Gina admitted that she was tired of the green on her blog and really desired a change. Since her blog was about saving money and shopping, sprinkled with tidbits of her life with her three children, she also suggested a mom with a shopping cart or some other illustration that represented a mom with children. Here’s what her old blog looked like:

The challenge was to find an illustration that was connotative of her decision to be frugal and wise with money in order to help her family out. I thought about owls and found this graphic, and the rest, as they say, was history. Check out the cute little RSS and Email graphics I created just for her blog too!

Gina emailed me the day I installed it – here’s an excerpt:

I saw the preview this morning and was FLOORED! You did such a beautiful job capturing me, I don’t know how you did it! I was so surprised by the colors and stripes, I took this picture so you could see what my girls were wearing this morning when they got up. How did you know??? 🙂

And the photo? How cute are these precious little owls?

If you get a chance, stop by Gina’s blog and say “hi!” today. She’s sick, the kids are sick – I’m sure she could use the encouragement. 🙂

Since I moved my design blog, I haven’t posted any of the new designs I’ve done – I’ve been too busy trying to keep up with orders!

Here’s a before of a site I recently completed for Ashley of Sassy Gal Glamour. She wanted something fun and bright, with a retro/vintage feel.

This is her old blog after she moved from Blogger to WordPress.com:

We kept the cowgirl, but I added some texture and used some paper elements from Farrah’s Creations (with her absolute permission, of course) for the background and then brushed and painted until I felt it had enough color and texture. A fellow designer friend helped me find the perfect font (since I couldn’t locate her old one) and I put a gradient overlay on the letters to add interest. I think the letters look good enough to eat (they remind me of the Brach’s candies…do you remember those? the coconut ones? yum!).

Here’s the finished product:

I even gave her a cute little signature to match her header – you know I have a thing for birds, right? They pervade almost everything I do. I think it’s a constant reminder for me that if God watches out for the sparrow, then I can rest assured He’s watching over me.

Here’s her siggie:

I thoroughly enjoyed this design from the beginning to the end. It was totally different that anything I’d done before and really stretched me.