The Observer • Demo • Download

Vexed.Box • Demo • Download

Graphii.2 • Demo • Download

Helium • Demo • Download

Negatendo • Demo • Download

[ Download Twilight Saga Theme ]

All of the following hosting providers are well equipped to host WordPress blogs. They offer one-click installs of the WordPress software, which means if you have no experience in setting up a blog, all you’ll need to do is press a few buttons and the host will automatically install WordPress for you.

WP Web Host
If only this host had been around when I started out! Although there are many good hosting services out there, few specialize in hosting WordPress blogs. WP Web Host is a relatively new kid on the block but they’ve quickly gained enthusiastic support for their hosting service among WordPress bloggers. It would be a wise move to go with a hosting provider that knows WordPress inside out. Their hosting packages are very reasonably priced as well.

Host Gator
I’m yet to come across any one who’s had a bad experience with Host Gator. Their customer service is highly rated. If I had to open a new hosting account today, I would definitely consider Host Gator. If you only want to host one domain you can get an account for as little as $4.95 a month. The next package up provides hosting for unlimited blogs and is still great value at only $7.95.

Blue Host
Blue Host comes highly recommended by WordPress.org. It’s great value at only $6.95 a month. New customers also receive $50 worth of Google credits which you could use to promote your blog on Google Adwords. You can also register one domain for free. A good opportunity to test the waters with a second blog using the free domain.

Host I Can
HostICan is another widely used and highly recommended host for WordPress blogs. Their basic package costs the same as Blue Host, priced at $6.95 and offers unlimited bandwidth and unlimited diskpace. You can host two domains with the basic account, one of which you can register with HostICan for free for life!

If you’ve been searching for a scrapbook WordPress theme for your blog, you’ll know that despite the 1000s of free themes out there, it’s really hard to find ones with a crafty design. Visual aesthetics are of course very important in craft, so it’s essential for your craft blog to be aesthetically appealing as well.

This list contains a range of blog designs, free and premium, that would be suited to scrapbook and craft blogs. I haven’t been able to find many themes specifically designed for scrapbooking, but the themes showcased here come pretty close. I hope you find “the one” for your blog!

Free Themes

Green Scrapbook Diary • Demo • Download

Floral Day • Demo • Download

Brown Stitch • Demo • Download

Club Red Tapestry Embroidery Theme • Demo • Download

Premium Themes

With loads of free WordPress themes out there, many people wonder why anyone would pay for a WordPress theme. I wondered this myself until I got fed up with searching and bought my first theme. Before I took the plunge to buy a theme I used to change themes every other month because I could never find a free theme I was happy with. Getting the right theme for my blog means I no longer have to worry about how my blog looks and can get on with the reason I have blog in the first place, blogging!

Craft Themes Under $30 at ThemeForest

ThemeForest is a great place to find professionally designed WordPress themes at an affordable price. Most are priced between $15 and $30. I’ve purchased two themes through ThemeForest so far (ThemeGrrl is using a customized version of Convergence) and have had an excellent experience both times. All themes submitted to ThemeForest are reviewed before being made available for sale, so you can buy with confidence.

Design Blog • $20 • Demo • Buy

I really like the clean layout of this design. The paper background and borders with paperclips gives it a nice crafty feel.

Karma • $20 • Demo • Buy

Karma has been labeled a “grunge theme” but with the torn paper design in the background it seemed like a good match for a scrapbooking theme. I think this theme would benefit from having the column widths adjusted, the right sidebar doesn’t need to be that wide. Narrowing it would leave more room for the main content and photos. This can be changed by editing the css file. If editing a stylesheet sounds daunting, don’t worry, the theme author may be able to help you out, or if not, contact ThemeGrrl.

Stitches • $25.00 • Demo • Buy

This theme would be particularly good for sewing related blogs. Stitches comes in a range of colors, flickr and twitter integration, and a theme options page so you can easily set up and manage the theme.

Book Template • $20 • Demo • Buy

Premium Themes Between $50 and $100

RedTrafik by FlyThemes • $50 • Demo • Buy

Papercut by Woo Themes • $50 • Demo • Floral Version • Info

Split by Premium Themes • $99 • Demo • More Info

And annoying and different is how some might describe the design of the new site. It’s bold, basic and rather crude, but we love it. In fact, WeLoveWP, liked it too, and they featured it in their WordPress gallery, as have a few others. WeLoveWp visitors haven’t rated it very highly. No surprises there. Does it bother us that WP designers who are mostly male, obsessed with blue, grey and woodtones don’t like our design? Not in the slightest. Lady bloggers are bored with your dull tones and conformity to trends, they wanna see something different. We design websites for people who will actually use the sites we create, not for the sensibilities of a male dominated WP design community.

How to Offend the Visual Sensibilities
of Smug WP Designers in Eight Easy Steps

• Call your work space a “studio”
• Refer to your web design business as a “design agency”
• Create a crude looking website to showcase your work
• Let your design have a sense of humor
• Take your design cues from 1999
• Use bold color without any photoshop effects
• Submit your design to a WP showcase gallery
• Sit back and enjoy the slander

It’s such fun!

When we write with a browser open, we often find ourselves jumping on google to find out this or that. In the process we can become distracted by reading material on the subject we’re writing about. This can interrupt the natural flow of your writing and prevent you from engaging your own mind and your own resources to develop something unique.

So why not try this. Disconnect your internet connection – that’s right, do the unthinkable and unplug the cord. Cut yourself off from the online world. Open up your writing software of choice, and write. Just you and the blank screen. Rediscover what it was like to write without distraction. If you need facts and figures from online, don’t stress. Just keep writing and fill in the blanks later.

Solitude is a great tool for writing. When we’re online, we’re not really alone with our thoughts because we’re continuously plugging into other peoples facts, figures and opinions all through out the writing process. Writing for the internet while you’re off the internet will help you develop or rediscover your voice, your writing style and what matters to you in your writing.

Set aside time once a week, or as needed, to disconnect from the internet and write. I find I get a lot more posts written when I do this, usually producing 5-6 posts in a session.

Do you get offline to write? Or are you disciplined enough to keep your browser closed?

Heed this advice, especially if you write a blog of a personal nature. Have both a blog and an offline journal. View the journal as part of your blogging tools. When you have the impulse to write, write in your journal. Use the journal as a filter and just blog the good stuff.

The good stuff is:

• relevant
• interesting
• educational
• inspiring
• funny
• helpful

Do your blog posts contain the good stuff?

Keeping an offline journal will allow you to get everything off your chest that you need to, with out boring your readers, and frankly, wasting their time. It is also a space in which you can experiment with your writing and to give yourself time to develop good pieces of writing into great blog posts. Your blog will be better for it and you will receive and keep more readers as a result.

When someone comes across a journey blog and decides to read it, it’s usually because they are about to embark on the same journey or are currently going through it, so they genuinely want to read about the author’s progress and insights. But all too often what they’ll find is an abandoned blog or something like “Billy’s Vegan Weight loss Blog” only to find Billy blogging about the new Pug he got at the pound for the past 15 posts.

A blog that records someone’s journey can be a wonderful resource and source of knowledge, support and inspiration for those on the same journey. But after the novelty of blogging about the journey starts to wain, an author may begin to treat the blog like a daily journal and the journey becomes secondary. It’s important to keep in mind that the journey is not secondary to the blog’s readers, it’s the primary reason they are there. Think about these folk when you write and design your journey blog.

Blurring the personal with the specified purpose of your blog is fine. But just make sure you do it in a way that is interesting and reflected in your categories structure.

If I’m on a nutrition blog and I click on the category “glucose intolerance”, that’s what I want to find blog posts on, not something Dr. Phil said about parenting. I do not want to wade through every vaguely and obscurely relevant post. I’m on your blog because I’m interested in glucose intolerance and I want to read about it. If you don’t have your posts organized properly, I’m not going to waste my time trying to find them, I’ll go elsewhere. Pick a category and stick to it. If many labels apply, use tags, that’s what they’re for. I’ve come to your blog looking for useful information – are you going to help or hinder me in that quest? Presuming you write great content for your blog, do your readers a favor and ensure new visitors can easily navigate your blog to find it. If they want to know about the Pug, they’ll click the Pug tag or category.

I make these comments as an avid blog reader and fan of the blog journey format. If you really must blog about your new pug and facts about your daily life (it’s OK, we all do it from time to time) either start another blog for that purpose or make sure you use your blog categories consistently.

Some useful things to include in a journey blog:

I’ll use a health blog on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) as an example.

Your Story – New visitors want to know on what authority you are blogging about PCOS. A few paragraphs outlining your story is all that is necessary. In most cases people will only read the first two paragraphs anyway, so keep it to the point and don’t waffle on. Leave the detail for other blog pages and posts. Create links to the page topics below.

Timeline – Provide a timeline of your journey up to the present moment, from the appearance of symptoms, to diagnosis, treatment, successes etc. This will provide your readers with an overview of your journey thus far. They will be able to see, for example, that you started treatment for a problem in July and achieved results in October, showing that it took three months to achieve a result with that particular treatment. It also shows in one page that you have make progress in your journey, which will add to your credibility on the subject. A timeline will also be a useful reference for yourself and health care providers.

Treatment – When people search online for information on a health problem they’re usually looking for treatment options. Summarize for your readers what you are receiving treatment for, what treatments you have tried for each, what works, the side effects, etc. These are the kind of things people who are newly diagnosed want to know. They want to know what the treatment options are and what success people have had with them.You could link to blog posts or tags where relevant. There’s no need to duplicate content on this or any other page. Your blog posts can do into more detail on each. A page like this will break the information down and make it easier for people to find.

Your Goals – What are your goals for your health journey? Goals are something that are often overlooked when it comes to health journey blogs, but setting them is a particularly useful thing to do, not only will it focus your energies for addressing your own health issues, it will provide key areas for you to blog about. For example, if you’re writing a PCOS blog, the goals may relate to: loosing weight, changing your diet, hirsutism, acne, and infertility (these goals could become categories on your blog, make sure you link to each category archive on this page if you do). If new visitors to your blog can learn quickly and easily that they share the same goals as you, they are more likely to subscribe to your blog. When you achieve your goals or make significant progress, update your timeline.

If you found this post useful or you have a journey blog of your own, please feel welcome to comment below.