A Brand New Look + Pipdig 'Nineteen' Blogger Template Review

If you've visited my blog over the last few days or if you're a returning reader reading this post right now, you'll probably have noticed that Polka Spots and Freckle Dots has been given a brand new look this week. If you haven't, then, ta-da! Look at my pretty new blog design!

I'm so excited to officially show it to you guys!

I've been dying to overhaul my blog design to something more colourful and professional-looking for years, as the old design, which I created myself, was outdated and far from perfect. To be honest, it was a big hot mess. I didn't feel like it represented me or my content anymore, and it was time for a change. The problem was, apart from colourful, I couldn't work out how I wanted my blog to look, so it's taken me all this time to decide, take the plunge and revamp my little place on the Internet.

Last Sunday, I decided it was time to bite the bullet, and finally chose a blog template from Pipdig after umming and ahhing over which design to choose for months. Towards the end, I was torn between 'Glam Romantic' and 'Nineteen', and in the end, I went with the latter. I'm so very glad I did. I'm so in love with my new blog design! The colourful look is a lot more "me", and I can't stop clicking on to my blog to take another look at it. It's so pretty! I think it's making me fall back in love with my blog all over again.

The new design is so different to my old one. Aside from being more colourful to match my content, the template allows for larger photos, and I think it's a lot more user-friendly. There's now a 'pin it' button on my images so you can pin anything that inspires you to your Pinterest boards, and there are buttons for sharing my posts at the bottom of each post. You'll find all the pages and topic categories, including how to contact me, along the menu bar at the top of the web page, instead of in the sidebar like they used to be, and it moves with the page, so you no longer have to keep scrolling to find everything. I also have new social media icons, Pinterest and Instagram widgets in the sidebar, and an Instagram widget running along the bottom of the site to display my latest photos and help you find me on social media. If you read my posts on your mobile devices, you should also find that the blog is finally much more mobile friendly, which I'll admit is a long over due improvement!

I've also created a new header, which is something I've been sitting on for over a year, but it may change again as I figure out the perfect look for my blog.

I still have more work to do before the blog design is perfect, including realigning text, and resizing photos for over 1300 old posts, and updating the pages in the menu bar, but please bare with me on that. It could take a while- especially as I'm currently having difficulty using my laptop as the electricity current is sending my tachycardic heart in to overdrive at the mo. Once I'm finished, though, I know Polka Spots and Freckle Dots will be better than ever. 

I'm so happy with my new look, and I only wish I'd taken the plunge sooner. I can't believe I was so worried about changing the design in case I didn't like it. What was I worried about?! It's the best decision I've made all year! 

I'd definitely recommend Pipdig if you're looking to revamp your blog with a high-quality template.

Purchasing and installing my new blog design from Pipdig was so quick and easy. I purchased the template from their website using Paypal, and instantly received an email containing a zipped download of the template, along with an installation guide to help me install it, which I then downloaded to my desktop and extracted the files from.

I chose to install my new template myself, but Pipdig do offer a free installation service with all of their blog templates, which you might prefer if you're not so confident with computers or the technical side of blogging. Personally, I'd recommend installing it yourself, even if you're not so tech savvy, because it is so easy with their installation guide, and I think it's important to get to know you blog inside out so you can fix, tweak, and change things if and when you need to. Plus, it's all part of the fun of giving your blog a makeover (or starting a blog for the first time)!

Following the instructions, I had my new template installed in seconds. It is that easy to do! Of course, it then took a couple of hours to modify the blog design to make it my own- removing my old sidebar images, adding new social media widgets and icons, tweaking fonts and colours, installing a new header, adding pages to the menu bar, etc.- but I had everything in place in just two or three hours. It probably helped that I know my way around Blogger like the back of my hand, but honestly, installing my blog design could not have been more straight-forward. Anyone could install it to their blog; it's practically fool-proof. I mean, my blog's living proof of that- look how great it looks now! I couldn't be happier with it.

I'm thrilled with my new look, and I can't wait to start blogging lots of fun new content again. It's time to bring this blog back to life!

To find out more about what Pipdig have to offer, check out their website here.

What do you think of Polka Spots and Freckle Dots' new look?