29 January 2012

High time for a little Zhush up!

A New Year is the perfect time for a bit of a bloggy spring clean don't ya think?

So settle yourself in a comfy chair, grab a cuppa and let me show you round the new look MNM's.

Pages
For a start have a wee gander at all the new-look pages by clicking on the tabs along the top of the home page. Or just click on the links below.

Meet the MNM's - so who are these people?
Photographing - magical moments captured so far
Creating - word art, photobooks, crafts, Christmas gifts, party ideas and more!
Blogging - favourite posts
Adventuring - road-tripping here and there with MNMs
Cooking - low-fat recipes or high indulgence treats and everything in between, take your pick

I hope you find lots in these pages to enjoy and inspire.

A new Favicon
Remember that little red Pohutukawa Favicon? Well now MNM's have a new chocolate mnm favicon. Kinda appropriate don't you think?! If you don't know what a favicon is, it's the little picture that shows up next to your blog's name in either the URL field (if you are in Safari or Internet Explorer) or to the left of your blog name in the tab (if you're in Google Chrome). Nifty huh!


And you can get your very own favicon at the click of a button. These days all you have to do is click into your Blog Layout page and select the Favicon gadget and upload a square picture and voila! your favicon is created.



Although I had a few technical glitches, so I went with the good old method I learnt from the queen of favicons Angela Noelle over at Striking Keys using www.iconj.com to host my little icon. If you'd like to know about how to create your own, leave me a comment and I'll send you some instructions (or better still write a blog post on it!)

Social Media Buttons
I saved one of Simone at Greatfun4kids tutorials a few months back (you really should check it out!), and finally got around to creating some cute social media buttons so now you can subscribe via RSS feed, contact me on Facebook, follow me on Pinterest, or send me an email with the click of a button. The more ways the merrier right!


Favourite Topics
I've also made it easier for you to search by favourite blog topics by creating some clickable links on the sidebar.


Water marks and Upsized Photos 
I'd been meaning to watermark my photos for a while, but hadn't found a really easy, foolproof way to do it in bulk where I could also choose my own fonts and placement etc.

And I wanted to be able to post photos larger than Extra-Large size but that would still fit onto the blog page. Enter a bit of HTML coding tweaking and lo and behold much bigger photos. You can see the difference between extra large:


and this even larger size which makes much better use of the available space on the page - you'll only be able to see the difference in size if you're reading this post on the blog rather than through a reader or on your mobile though!


Note the cute little watermark in the bottom right corner. I might even have to post a wee tutorial on how to create watermarks and upsized photos soon!

Moving with the Mobile Times
I had been wondering for a while why when I read some people's blogs via Safari on my phone (i.e. not through Google Reader which I mostly do), they came up all neat and fitted to screen and others (including mine) didn't.

And then I had an AHA lightbulb moment. So it turns out under the Design Template page there's a little place where you can choose how your blog appears on mobile devices. And all you have to do is turn it on! Easy peasy Japanesey. And what a difference for your readers viewing pleasure believe me, it is so much easier to navigate and scroll through individual posts and between posts on the mobile template!


And just so you can see, here's the difference on the phone.


So..that's about it. It's taken a wee while to get it all done, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

And I hope you've enjoyed your look around the new look MNM's and maybe you might have even learnt something along the way too!

8 comments :

Jen said...

hi
enjoyed looking at your blog
love your photos
i think ill be back
Jen

Simoney said...

Good onya Meghan! What a whizz you are with the html!
I love your new "favourite topics" buttons and yay that the social media ones worked well too. Will check out your pages (I LOVE pages) and THANKYOU for the insight about mobile templates! I had no idea (since I only posess a very old cellphone which barely texts let alone has access to the web);

remaliah said...

Wow, this is GREAT!!! I would love to know how to make the larger photos and watermarks...and the the favicons! (whenever you have a moment of time to write the posts!!). It all looks great...I'm very impressed! :) xx

Tracey said...

Very Flash!! if only i had a tensy bit of your creative & IT talents! Love the enhancements.
CAnt wait to catch up with you guys xox

jacksta said...

great stuff....*runs off to make a favicon*

Mika said...

Love how you figure out all this stuff by yourself, and love to share it with others.

Blog looks great!

Angela said...

Oh, GOOD JOB on getting the mobile view switched on! And good job all round!

You're such a cutie.

Sarah at Catching the Magic said...

Meghan this is super! What a fabulous and useful post and your new pages and links are ace - particularly love the 'blogging' and 'adventuring'. You really have some gorgeous posts on this blog. The new buttons are beautiful too. It must have taken you hours to do all this!!!

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