Build a Better Blog Week - Must See Event!

I want to share with you an exciting event going on this past week and over the coming weekend, Build a Better Blog Week. It is a multi-designer event, with lots and lots of free design products being given away. And, along with the giveaways, there are wonderful posts on how to improve your blog design, content and building a following.

Here's the exciting part - there are 36 designers holding giveaways through Sunday. You can enter each designer's giveaway by following the instructions at Simply Stacie.

Changes {For the Better}

In the past 15 months Beautiful Blog Designs has grown beyond what I ever imagined it would or could. And, with that growth has come new responsibilities and expectations for me. Each week I get emails from bloggers or designers requesting one thing or another, and for a while it wasn't too much for me to handle. However, I have started some new ventures (which I will share at a later date) and I need to streamline and set parameters which will help bloggers, blog designers and me.

Please, please don't take this post for snotty or full-of-myself, because I promise that is not my intent. I just have so much else going on that I needed change things so that I can better help those asking for service.

FOR BLOGGERS:

If you are a blogger, no matter the platform, and you would like me to recommend a designer for you, please copy the following questions in an email and supply your answers in a different color. I will respond as soon as possible (will vary from 24 hours to a week).

1. Do you need a full design or just some tweaking?
2. What blogging platform do you use or would like to move to?
3. What style would you prefer (scrappy, modern, shabby-chic, etc.)?
4. How much are you willing to spend? Less than $100? Between $100 - $200? Over $200?
5. What is more important to you - speed of design & launch or quality, i.e. do you have time to wait in a designers queue or do you want something quickly?

If you are a blogger and you would like me to look over your blog and give feedback, I can help you via a Budget Critic (sorry, had to discontinue the free critics, too many requests and not enough time):

• Budget Critic: $15 - I take a good look at your blog, click through areas, evaluate the overall user friendliness, speed of page loading, etc. and give you a detailed response including links to tutorials to help you improve problem areas. Included with the Budget Critic is a second look once you've made the changes.

To request a Budget Critic simply click on Buy Now below, and once I receive the confirmation, I will email you with a questionnaire for you to fill out and return. I will review your blog within 24 hours.

FOR DESIGNERS:
If you are a designer and you would like to be listed at BBD, please send me an email with the following:

1. Your design studio name
2. The URL address to your site
3. What blog platforms you design in
4. What lists you would like to be placed on (free templates, free backgrounds, premades, custom, etc.)

If you are a designer and would like me to publicize a giveaway on the giveaway page, please send me an email with the following:

• The exact HTML code in a TXT document, with the following information:
• Your linked button
• The giveaway item (and value)
• The giveaway end date
• Where to enter

I would like to keep the Giveaways page more up-to-date than I've been able to in the past six months and if you (designers) can send me that above information in a TXT document, I can easily do so.

If you would like to a sponsor spot on BBD, please email me. All the spots are currently taken, but when I move to Wordpress in September, there will be nine instead of six and I can put you on the waiting list (yes, sorry, there is already a waiting list.)

Beautiful Blog Series: My Two Seasons

Today's Beautiful Blog is My Two Seasons, a self-hosted Wordpress blog run by Michelle Johnson. My Two Seasons is a place for Michelle to share her love of photography, nature and family. Her photography is beautiful and inspiring, and I find myself drawn back there time and again.

The design for My Two Seasons was recently created by Michelle herself and I think it is just fantastic!

What I love about the design:

• Clean and simple design, with plenty of white space
• Tidy, well organized sidebar
• User friendly navbar at the top of the blog
• Simple, but very tasteful header with rotating pictures
• Soothing color scheme
• Great content!

If you have some time to blog hop today, I highly recommend popping over to My Two Seasons. You'll find yourself staying longer than you thought you would!

Congratulations, Michelle, on having such a beautiful blog! If you'd like to share this feature with your readers, here is a button for your sidebar or a blog post.


<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z78/mikerin3/Amanda%20Padgett/FinalFeatureButtoncopy.png"/></a><br/>

If you'd like to see all the past Beautiful Blog Series features, simply click on Beautiful Blog Series in the Categories section in the sidebar.

p.s. Don't forget about the giveaway going on right now. Two budget blog makeovers by Adori Graphics; to enter click here.

Giveaway - Blog Design From Adori Graphics

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

I am very excited to be giving away TWO Budget Blog Makeovers by my friend Louise at Adori Graphics. 

Louise is a talented graphic designer who creates most of the vector graphics that she uses on her blog designs, digital scrapbooking kits and stationary. And, she writes wonderful tutorials to help bloggers improve their own blogs, offers free backgrounds, templates and more. I truly think she is one of the most kind and gracious bloggers/designers out there. 

Two lucky entries to this giveaway will receive Louise's Budget Blog Makeover, which includes:

• a plain colour background of their choice (they can select a colour from Colorcombos or Kuler)
• a border in a colour of their choice
• a header made from a photograph, or number of photographs OR they can supply me with a vector graphic or other image stock. Image stock is available from I-Stockphoto, Vectorstock, Shutterstock and more.

The winners need to contact Louise within three weeks to claim their prize (but sooner is better), after which their prize is void.

To enter simply leave a comment telling me how many blogs are in your blog reader (guess if you don't know for sure - see my count at the bottom). You may earn extra entries by leaving additional comments after doing one or more of the following:

1. Follow Louise on Twitter (you'll get heads up on new products, freebies and more)
2. Become a follower/subscriber at Adori Graphics
3. Become a follower/subscriber here at BBD

Give away will end May 18th at 9:00 PM EST. Winners will be notified by email, so make sure I can reach you via the email on your profile, of leave it with your comment if it's not on your profile (which it should be, hint, hint).

The giveaway has been going on a few days and I'm really enjoying seeing how many blogs y'all follow. So far I have you all beat though - I follow 251 blogs! Yikes!! LOL No, really, there are that many because when I first started BBD I followed all the designers on my lists so I would know when they were having giveaways and could alert my readers to them. Well, too many designers on the list now and for some reason I can't get them to delete off my Google reader. I'm about ready to junk it and start fresh.

The Giveaway Results:

The winning numbers were 23 and 6. The bloggers who made those particular comments were Cheryl from Tidymom and SueAnn from SueAnn's Journey. I am tickled pink for SueAnn,  because she has been a long time follower of BBD and always leaves me sweet comments! 

Congratulations, Cheryl and SueAnn! I can't wait to see what Louise creates for you both.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

23
6

Timestamp: 2010-05-21 04:55:36 UTC