Tip for blogspot bloggers...

I have a tip for bloggers here on blogspot who want pretty blogs but don't have the design skills (or time) to make them.

1. Head to http://draft.blogger.com/home
2. Click on Layout
3. Click on Template Designer
4. Pick the template you like the best! You can then change the backgrounds and colour schemes quite easily

Blogger in Draft has a lot of interesting new templates, and it will help those who currently have plain blogs against their will to find a more interesting design without needing to know any coding, design or to take up valuable time fiddling with graphics and code.

Here are some quick examples for you:

It is something to think about, anyway. And if you click the little check box at the top of http://draft.blogger.com/home you will be able to use all the unreleased features every time you start a new blog from your home page. I am really liking the new Insert Picture function because it links up to my Picasa Web Album - with all the other pictures I have ever inserted into this blog :D

Covers [website]

I just found a fantastic website!! It is a blog dedicated to cover design, where people submitt covers to and people comment. I am in love!

http://covers.fwis.com

Third Hunger Games book?

Oh God!!!!! Apparently it is true - I just found it on a Scholastic blog anyway LOL I literally started hyperventilating when I saw it on tumblr just now...  Final name and cover for the third book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games triliogy. The first two tied for my favourite book of 2009. I hope it does them justice! Bring on August!!! :D

The name Mockingjay seems quite apt, knowing the significance of the mockingjay in the Hunger Games mythos... especially seeing how Catching Fire ended...

I really love the other covers though, so I look forward to seeing the UK design...

Be Still, My Heart

jacq reposting from her old blog

Okay, this one is for all the bibliophiles out there.. You know you can't help yourselves! You swoon at the thought of a room full of books, you dither for hours at the bookstore trying to narrow down the selection of what books you can afford to buy this time, you enhale deeply the scent of old books - that musky perfume of aged paper and old ink. You, the people who dream about books - even when you are not sleeping.. I am guilty. My biggest obsession, addiction, passion in life is books - reading them, collecting them, reading them again and again. I look at my collection and I feel an immense feeling of elation. They are old friends I can visit whenever I please.

Now, my biggest day dream is of how I will eventually house my collection. I want to renovate an old house, and dedicate one room to my books. Wall to wall shelves that reach from the floor to the ceiling. Just enough room for a bay window and a door. The furniture will be in the centre of the room (a couch, 2 comfy armchairs and a small desk - standing lamps) and there will be a windowseat in the bay window. The sole focus of that room will be books. On this note, I did some searches to see what is out there.. some of the older libraries are amazing! Trinity College and Cambridge were the most facinating.. But there was just so many pictures... I will have to go back and blog again another time - i had planned on creating kind of a scrapbook about how i wanted it designed, but i got distracted by all this whimsy... so this is the big brother to my personal library... What my library wants to be when it grows up. The abundance of books, that deep rich wood funishings, that dedication to the World of Words...

And this is more what I will be aiming to achieve..

Innovative Bookshelves

jacq reposting from her old blog

Following the booktagger blog, i wanted to have a look at some other innovative ideas for bookshelves.. so i did a google LOL Some of them I found quite distressing - books stacked higgletypigglety in a way that couldnt be healthy for the books.. But others I saw and loved.. At a latter stage I will make some sketches of the design I want for my future library (when i buy a house and do it up, i plan to devote a book to reading, have a studio, a study, and a room for media, as well as a vegie garden and a paddock out the back for my horse.. i plan to get a dogey cheap house in a hobbyfarm-type area - probably at the moment i am thinking townsville.. but who knows where I will end up.. it is my eventual plan tho. i had thought to build a house - i have drafted so many designs, but i thought restoring and renovating a house would have more quirks - nooks and crannies and character - and no, i have no idea when i will get around to all this! after my Masters, in any case..

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/bibliochaise_wh.php

http://blog.stylehive.com/index.php/weblog/entry/hot-product-stagger-shelf-sustainable-asymmetry/

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/beautiful-book-shelves-for-book-lovers

http://www.shakinstyle.com/2007/05/tree_shelf_roun.html

http://www.geekologie.com/2007/11/bookshelf_cave_is_sort_of_neat.php

I plan to have a bay window with a seat, and wall to wall, ceiling to floor, bookshelves.. It would be cheery with a fire, but that probably would heat the wall up too much, so probably some artificial heat.. anyway, any comments or suggestions, or links to other great ideas?