Arcania Facelift

My husband and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to join BRK and the very charming and utterly patient Mrs. BRK for dinner yesterday. After an evening of inspiring tales, I was motivated to do some minor work on this blog.

The ‘minor’ work got a little out of hand. Twenty-four hours of teeth-gnashing CSS later, we’ve got a whole new theme. (If you’re reading this via a feed reader you’ll just have to come take a look!) I am anxious to know what everyone thinks of it.

In addition, I’ve added an Archives page in an attempt to make it easier to find old posts, and I combined the blogroll and shared reading pages into one Blogroll page (and cleaned it up a bit to boot).

I used a local copy of Wordpress this time to test my changes before they went live so theoretically everything should be operational. (QA FTW!) But it’s quite likely I missed something somewhere, so if you see anything odd, e-mail me or drop me a comment after this post.

By the way, the new Archives page uses the Smart Archives Wordpress plugin. It’s extremely simple and does exactly what I wanted, so I am very happy that I found it.

25 Comments

  1. schattenz - February 3rd, 2008 @ 9:19 pm UTC

    Hi Mania and Husband! Great Layout, i really like it, keep the good work!

  2. Leviath - February 3rd, 2008 @ 11:12 pm UTC

    Oh my, this looks fantastic!!! :D

  3. wildwynd - February 3rd, 2008 @ 11:41 pm UTC

    This is wonderful, you should release this as a WP theme. I am impressed.

  4. Nina - February 3rd, 2008 @ 11:46 pm UTC

    It’s great, Mania! I like the Smart Archives plugin — I might start using that, too. Is this design a CSS-reworking of the Wordpress Classic theme?

  5. Lady-Jess - February 3rd, 2008 @ 11:47 pm UTC

    Beautiful work!

  6. Shrike - February 4th, 2008 @ 12:02 am UTC

    Nice changes. Looks good. Clean, but stylish. I don’t know how difficult, but it might be fun to see the featured pet change once a week or once a month. Cheers!

  7. Kestrel - February 4th, 2008 @ 12:44 am UTC

    Ooooh! Ahhhh! VERY nice!!! :D

  8. Rikaku - February 4th, 2008 @ 1:14 am UTC

    Love it!!! <3

  9. Mania - February 4th, 2008 @ 1:33 am UTC

    Thank you. :> I am glad you guys like it.

    wildwynd: I don’t know how to do the widget-ready stuff that a good Wordpress theme needs. This one is pretty hard-coded to what I wnated out of it. But I appreciate the compliment. :>

    Nina: This theme is actually built almost entirely on the same foundation as the previous theme, which was itself a heavily modified version of the Wordpress Classic theme. Other than hacking to get all the backgrounds working, I mostly just changed colors and fonts.

    Shrike: Theoretically simple. In actuality … *grin* Well, maybe we’ll see in a month or two.

  10. Jayhawk - February 4th, 2008 @ 1:53 am UTC

    Sweet and clean. Nice work =)

  11. Lienna - February 4th, 2008 @ 4:59 am UTC

    I love the mazzranache theme! The blog looks a lot more proffessional now, say can you do up mine too? ;-P

  12. Tiiaa - February 4th, 2008 @ 6:36 am UTC

    Mazzranache! This new look definitely reigns supreme. Its just simply awesome, great job!

  13. Kanaan - February 4th, 2008 @ 11:16 am UTC

    Flamingo! I like it! =)

  14. gareth - February 4th, 2008 @ 11:29 am UTC

    Hey mania husband ^_^ i must say

    THATS MY PET!!!!!!!!!

    its so imba :D

    anyways good job :D

  15. Faeldray - February 4th, 2008 @ 12:41 pm UTC

    Love it!

    Now I just need to redo mine… :P

  16. Shinryu Masaki - February 4th, 2008 @ 1:30 pm UTC

    This…

    this is just full of win! Looks very nice and the Mazzranache theme is definately a winner.

    s(^-^)-b

  17. Shawn - February 4th, 2008 @ 2:46 pm UTC

    Looking sharp :) Keep up the great work!

  18. Gebeorgan - February 4th, 2008 @ 2:51 pm UTC

    Cool redesign Mania :) Love the fixed-position Mazzranache. If I didn’t already know how much work goes into a WordPress theme I’d take my blog away from Wordpress.com and do something special.

  19. Messyah - February 4th, 2008 @ 3:59 pm UTC

    Site looks great… but I want to shoot at the Strider every time I come here… you should put crosshairs over it. That would subdue my anxious need to hunt. :-) LOL

  20. Lochaar - February 4th, 2008 @ 4:22 pm UTC

    Very nice! Love the pink Flamingo! Keep up the good bloggin’. :D

  21. Tevbryn - February 4th, 2008 @ 4:43 pm UTC

    Nice redesign, though I could do with less pink chicken. I love the new blogroll and the archives have already come in handy! Great work.

  22. Pike - February 4th, 2008 @ 4:55 pm UTC

    I absolutely love it! =D

  23. Bunnyfer - February 4th, 2008 @ 5:05 pm UTC

    Awesome job…Looks very nice!

  24. Wolfington - February 4th, 2008 @ 9:15 pm UTC

    Woow, I thought I went to the wrong blog when I came on to check for new posts. SOooo cool!
    Looks very neet indead, and the cartoony Mazzaranache.. Mazzarannche… Pink Chicken looks fabulous! You should, if you feel up to it, feature a different apearence of pet every month or so. That would be even cooler! (and thats hard to do.)
    }:(8D) – mooo
    Great Work Mania and Husband!

  25. Softi - February 5th, 2008 @ 8:34 am UTC

    wow looks awsome! wanna come rehash my blog? My coding skills are, well…. crap!

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