New Blog Design!

Hello pretty blog!  I have finally left the boring behind and entered the awesome!  I have a new banner, a new background, an official blog button, and a sweet signature!  I am so freaking excited about this I think it looks amazing!  The banner is designed around my favorite quote from J.R.R. Tolkien that goes like this:

“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”

The elvish running along the bottom of my banner is the first two lines of that quote and the English words are faded behind it.  Loooovvvveeee it!  The gate in the middle is my favorite though.  I love how it looks otherworldly just like the views on both sides of it.  I am so incredibly happy with it, when I saw the banner for the first time I literally sucked in my breath and said “Omg, that’s it!”  It was exactly how I saw it in my head.

I could not have done any of this without my sweet blogger buddy Susan from Wastepaper Prose.  We had constant IM and phone conversations about this design and she helped me find all my images, so pretty *pets screen*.  She also hooked me up with the designer, Nicole from Word For Teens who, poor girl, had to put up with my always changing mind for at least 50 emails.  Yeah, she is a saint to deal with all that.  She worked so hard on everything for me though and it really shows in the final outcome. Everything looks a-m-a-z-i-n-g!  So a big thank you to Susan and a HUMONGOUS thank you to Nicole 🙂  Now that you know my thoughts, what do you think?