Lookin’ Spiffy


To celebrate 99 followers, I’ve revised the layout to the blog. I’ve added another side bar, hopefully to keep relevant information from getting lost “down below,” and also to keep it more organized in terms of links and banners, etc. Yay graphic design!

For those of you who wonder about these things:
-I googled “blogger 3 column template” and found a “minima” template that could be loaded into the HTML section of Blogger.
-The pretty background is from Shabbyblogs.com, under “3 column designs.”
-I reformatted the header image (it was saved as a PSD file, so it made it easy). That’s it!

Lastly, Concraft and AmericanDuchess are trading banner ads this month. Here’s the one I made :-). If you love American Duchess, and want to help support the blog, please feel free to snatch the banner and post it on your own blogs and pages. Cheers!

8 Comments

  • Margravine Louisa

    January 26, 2010 at 4:19 PM

    I have always enjoyed your blog – and I refer to it often, especially the tips on constructing hats. I am starting a small theatre group for children(steampunk theatre) and will be searching for patterns for simple costumes for kids size 8-12. any advice you have would be most welcome.
    thanks for a great blog!

  • American Duchess

    January 26, 2010 at 6:41 PM

    Margravine, I have to admit that I am at a loss when it comes to kids patterns. For the most simple ones, if it were me, I would go right for the commercial pattern companies, Simplicity in particular, primarily because they are less expensive than non-commercial patterns, have many many sizes in one pattern, and they are usually pretty spot on, as in there's nothing funky with fit, or flaws in the pattern (I know sometimes there are flaws, but for the most part they go together fairly well.). There are a lot of non-Halloween costume pieces for kids, like Simplicity's surprisingly accurate 18th c. ensemble. Here's what I found on the Simplicity site:

    SIMP 2843 (girls western costumes)
    SIMP 3644 (girls and boys "pirate" 18th c.)
    SIMP 3725 (girls 18th c colonial)

    Sometimes Simplicity likes to put velcro and/or zippers up the backs of things, but these can easily be converted to lacings or hooks and eyes.

    I hope this was somewhat helpful. The nice thing about steampunk, as you know, is that pieces such as vests and breeches can be adapted from "modern" stuff you might find in your closet or at a second hand store. There's no hard and fast rule to it (that's why we love it!).

  • Lauren Stowell

    January 27, 2010 at 2:33 AM

    FJ, thanks so much! Actually, the cluttered sidebar is exactly why I split and went with two sidebars. I appreciate the advert, though!

    Sarah – I thought you were one of the first followers too! How very odd, but I'm happy to have 100 😀

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