I collect free WordPress themes like most women collect shoes. Clicking that preview button to see what my content would look like dressed up in a different template gives me the kind of excitement a nerdy Carrie Bradshaw would appreciate.
Always with an eye out for that sexy new theme, I came across the Whitehouse WordPress theme by Pagelines. What I like most about it a free theme like this one, is that there’s a premium option available, if I ever decide that the one I have isn’t customizable enough. While I doubt I’ll ever have any issues that a few simple CSS style tweaks can’t fix, I’m a big fan of having the option available at the very reasonable price of $77.
It all started when I came across Jolie O’Dell’s website. She writes about social media and technology for Mashable and is using her site as a way to organize her various online portals like Twitter, Mashable, her WordPress blog, YouTube, etc. I was particularly impressed with how she’s branded the various sites with the same image and decided to steal that concept.
I began by redesigning my Twitter page with one of my favorite images of Americana, the fabulous Miss Rosie the Riveter, and incorporating that design into my website/blog. For some time now, I’ve been wanting to use WordPress like a CMS and have been thinking that upgrade to WordPress 3.0 would be the solution, since I wanted to include links in my navigation to a photo gallery, essays and various other categories of blog posts.
After doing some conceptualizing of how to organize my content, I decided to take a cue from Jolie and utilize existing external sites and simply using a plugin (Page Links To) to create links to those sites within my navigation bar. I also figured out that I could use the plugin to link to an existing category and treat it like an external page. To wit, I’ve decided to start utilizing my Flickr pro account (free, since I’m a AT&T/Yahoo customer) for my photo gallery needs.
And voila, as it turns out, all the functionality I thought I would need from a WordPress upgrade already exists in what I’m currently using. It’s still a work in progress, but it looks like the majority of my work is been finished!
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Great job with your blog. I’m impressed with the new simple yet pro look. Thx for placing me on your blogroll as well – guess I better get back to writing a bit more for fun myself.
Oh, and just so I can reply to both of us….i LOVE to preview my blog in new themes. Sometimes I just go back through all of the free ones, just to make sure I’m not missing anything, or that I wasn’t drunk when I previewed them all the first time:).
This, Debbie, is just one of the many reasons why we get along so well. Thanks for checking out my latest updates!