OCD-ed & OD-ed...all over a blog design!

so yes, if you haven't figured out yet, i spent quite a lot of time obsessing over the layout & design of this blog...so much so that i completely lost the whole point of a blog which was actual blogging! so after a couple of weeks (ok, maybe a little more than that!), i decided to stop obsessing and am finally quite happy with my current blog design. i've googled & googled & googled over & over again various topics on blogs & this is what i came up with:

 

the raison d'etre behind this design:

• i love the concept of scrapbooking but have not had the time or resources to indulge in this art - the lovely bits & bobs available in malaysia are really expensive. so whilst looking at other blog designs, i discovered digital scrapbooking! hence i wanted to add elements of it into this layout. i'm thinking this is something that will come up more often in this blog ;)

• the main part of the blog itself had to be plain & easy to read, which is why it has a white background in the centre with very simple fonts.

• for the background, i wanted a damask print as i, well, love how a damask print adds  understated elegance & romance with a touch of the "old-world" charm.

• i actually wanted to do more & design my own templates but that would mean learning photoshop which is next on my to-do list. so for now, it's just amateur editing on powerpoint slides!
  

• last but not least, it had to be simple & sweet.

i used a few templates from various blogs; amended them here & there (the header especially) to make it a little more personalised. i hope in doing so, i have not violated any copyright policies and if i have, i sincerely apologise for my ignorance and of course, do let me know and i will amend it asap. 

many many many thanks go out to the following sites for without them, i would not have had such a pretty layout (well, i think it's pretty pretty...) :

• kevinandamanda.com
• check this site out for lots of wonderful fonts - all free too! Amanda also has tips for newbies to both scrapbooking & blogging. a site i will definitely visit very often.   

• shabbyblogs.com
• Shabby Blogs provides far from shabby blog templates - this is where i found the damask print for my background and also the pretty buttons found in the side bar.
  

• ShabbyPrincess.com
•  Shabby Princess also brings you not-so-shabby scrapbooking templates - lots of them! very pretty designs & so many frebies to choose from....and if that's not enough, they also have an online shabby shop for your scrapbooking shopping spree!

• thecutestblogontheblock.com
• this was actually where i first started with my design. they have lots of blinkies & lovely freebies - a great place to start for beginners like me ;)
  

• independentfashionbloggers.org
• i found great & easy to follow tutorial on realigning the blog header with the rest of the blog - a problem that was bugging me for days on end!

so now that i've got this design up...i am finally ready to start blogging - am stepping out of my comfort zone and announcing this to the world, and by that to my world of facebook! feedback & comments are most welcome...do go easy on me though - i am still learning through trial & error...

xxx

izreen

site under construction

please bear with me as i work on the design on this site...am such a newbie & blogger dummie so am still trying to work my way around here...i pwomise it should look pretty good pretty soon ;)

xxx

izreen

chirp chirp tweet tweet....

it was ilaika's first school trip...

the day started out with a mad rush with Ilaika not wanting to wake up & then not finding her sunnies.

and then of course, being the BIG girl she is now, she insisted that only her friends & teachers were going..."mummies cannot!", she insisted but she quickly changed her mind when she saw the other mummies waiting at school!

so with the rest of the SAL bunch - teachers, toddlers & mummies, we got on the big yellow school bus and made our way to KL Bird Park.

ilaika definitely had a lots of fun today...ate lollies, ran, played, drank too much ribena for my liking, etc etc etc...oh and she was ever SO thrilled to be allowed to have so much sugar & so early in the morning too! just imagine how sugar high she was by 11am...

the birds were so pretty and colourful and i might hv gone a lil overboard snapping pics of them.

now, the last time i went to the bird park was probably 20 years ago, back when they had KL's first Carl's Junior there (has the park really been open that long?!), so i had forgotten how large the park was & hence, my feet were really missing my havaianas by mid morning.

*mental note: must buy new havaianas...*

half way through our tour of the park, we stopped at a photo booth to take a pic with the birds but we had quite a bit of trouble trying to get the lil ones to stay put...especially as we had parrots on our heads, shoulders & arms!

even ema, ilaika's nanny, enjoyed herself tremendously...

...though ilaika was probably more thrilled to see the slides on the playground than she was with the actual birds!

so expectedly, she wasn't too pleased when we dragged her away from the slides & swings to watch the bird show, which she eventually enjoyed (to my surprise!)...she was even laughing through out and commenting, "silly bird!" every time it made a funny trick!

ilaika also adopted two furry friends - "one from mummy & one from daddy" was how she negotiated for two toys when i said she could only have one. how could i say no?! sigh...i am a sucker though; i secretly found both the flamingo & penguin too cute to resist so i gave in.

by the time we got on the bus back to BSC where her school is located, she had very little energy left but enough to have two sausages, a chicken nugget & chocolate cake, after which she just dozed off!

needless to say, i konked out myself when we got home ;)

xxx
izreen