Construction On My 'Followed Blogs' Page & Shout Outs!

I've been putting off something for a while, and that was an overhaul of my Followed Blogs page.  It was just messy and REALLY out-of-date, and it's supposed to be a special thank-you to those blogs that I follow and who follow me.  So I knew I had to clean it up! But, I wasn't sure how to do it... not until I found CANVA.



Am I late to the party?  I had no idea this website existed! Working on canva.com is like using my Photoshop software, only my computer doesn't start making wheezing noises when I drag an element across the screen.  Of course, Canva doesn't have all the perks of Photoshop, but it's a quick way to make pretty stuff for the web and fast!

So, I got carried away making little banners for all the websites that go on my Followed Blogs page.  I know most of these sites have their own banners, but I thought I'd use Canva to put my own spin on how I see other people's blogs.

Note: I'm still working on these, and have a few blogs to go.  But I couldn't wait to share the ones I've already made!  If I haven't made yours yet, it's coming! No worries!



Thank you, Ali, at My Guilty Obsession for always swinging by here and leaving a note! For your graphic, I wanted to do a play on your butterfly theme, but use different colors than your regular palette.  I found this great butterfly pattern through a search that gave me a gold and blue color scheme!

These bloggers are superstars! I love reading their reviews and their website is so pretty.  Thanks to them, I was introduced to Ashley at Noze Graze, the foremost book blogging designer on the web!  I use Ashley's Sideways Theme for Quest Reviews.  For the The Midnight Garden, I wanted to do a sophisticated looking graphic, because their usual look is so happy, pastel-based, and light.  I was interested in suggesting a more severe garden, using rich, dark colors.

I've just now started to read Briana and Krysta's blog, Pages Unbound.  Their posts are so thoughtful, and I love that!  It really takes time and effort to put out such quality content, and I love reading what they have to say. Because their blog's visual concept seems dreamy and fantastical to me, I wanted to do a sort of fantasy theme.  At first I was going to have a castle in the background, but it didn't look right.  Then I saw these gorgeously colored clouds and knew I'd found the feel I wanted.

I love reading  the personal blog of Jamie from The Broke and the Bookish. It's called The Perpetual Page-Turner.  Jamie has a really sunny personality, so I wanted to reflect her perkiness in my graphic.  Luckily, on Canva, I found a free sunburst element and it added just the right pop!

There are quite a few bloggers over at The Book Geek, but it's the flagship website of Emily May, the first online reviewer I started following.  She tends to have dark taste, close to my own, so I wanted to give her a lovely background of a night sky.  I thiiink my elements are a little off-center here, but haha! WHATEVER.

Cristina's blog, Girl In the Pages, is another blog I started to follow recently.  Her reviews are so well written! More than that, she has such important ideas and ideologies that she discusses on her platform. Cristina's visual style for her blog is quite simple with modern lines. It has an aqua color scheme.  Here, I wanted to do a sort of play on what she already had going on.

Eileen and I started blogging pretty much at the exact same time!  She continues to impress me over and over with her dedication.  Not only does she post very regularly, but she does the work to get AMAZING author interviews, blog tours, giveaways, and more hosted on Book Cat Pin.  For Eileen, I know I wanted a simple look with cheerful colors.  Pink and green are complimentary colors so I put them up against each other.  Then, to finish the graphic off, I found this amazing cat illustration! Not quite like Ripple, Eileen's cat, but close!

I recently started following Keionda, at Keionda Hearts Books.  Her voice is just hysterical.  She has a really hip and free way of writing that makes it seem like she's right in front of you chatting, making you laugh.  Keionda has a self-admitted love of Native American iconography, so I chose this print for a bold, graphic background.  I also wanted to pop in an illustration of a bull skull, like Keionda has on her blog, but Canva wanted me to pay a dollar for it. Waaa?!

Kate at Ex Libris Kate is an amazing blogger with a great talent for reaching out to other, littler blogs (me). I love her blog title, which uses Latin to great effect.  For Kate's graphic, I wanted something a little spiky.  I found this branches silhouette to be perfect.  I also tried putting in more color, but I found I liked the monochromatic theme more!

Joy, from Joyous Reads, was the first blogger I made a graphic for today.  As a result, her graphic was less about my own creativity and blog-inspiration and more about me finding out what to do! LOL! Her graphic features palm fronds and tropical flowers and a more sedate color scheme.  I know Joy really loves minimalism, so I wanted to do something a touch different from the norm, but still keep a clean look. Joy is an amazing blogger who is as organized, dedicated, and scheduled as she is passionate and humorous.  I've learned a ton about internet socialization from her!

Louise and Gary from Lone Star on a Lark have such a fun blog, separated into sections, because they have so much going on and so many different things to talk about! This graphic is one instance where I wish Canva had an eraser tool because some of the elements got a little crowded and busy, I thought.  Nevertheless, I wanted to go with Louise and Gary's patriotic/Texas theme — red, white, and blue... and a lone star!

Nick and Nereyda are co-bloggers who put out tons of fun features and reviews on their website, Nick and Nereyda's Infinite Booklist.  They already have an incredible floral theme going on with their blog.  By this time in my designing, my juice was funning (typo, but I'm going to keep it) out, so I just chose a simple rose pattern and a dusky rose/leaf green color combination.  I hope it looks classy!

Brittany from Space Between the Spines is an amazing commenter!  It's something I've been trying to improve in my own blogging.  She's a great example and runs a wonderful blog.  For Brittany's graphic, I wanted to go somewhat similar to her pink and brown theme, so I chose burgundy and various shades of tan.

Thank you again, to all of these amazing bloggers!