New layout & important updates!

You guys, I’m so excited. Amybites.com has a new look and a ton of new features! But hold up. First, I’d like to start by apologizing to any of you who tried to stop by yesterday and were confused by the “under construction” splash page. I hope you were too busy having fun on your Saturday to notice.

But now, the fun stuff. I hadn’t been happy with my layout pretty much since I started this blog. Basically, even though I’m a designer in real life, I was never able to make this site pretty because I’m not super great at WordPress, and I didn’t really have the time or effort in me to learn. So I was kind of locked in to something that really wasn’t me.

But finally, I just got too fed up with the old site. So on Friday night, I just decided to take a deep breath and dive in. I’ve been staring at this screen, coding almost nonstop since then, and I am so, so happy to finally share. I would be shocked if there weren’t still some kinks to work out, so please bear with me over the coming days. Let’s go on a little virtual tour of some of the new features, shall we?

The Header & Menu

The fancy new logo isn’t all appearances. You’ll also see my new tagline/blog philosophy, “Food for real life.” It’s really just a more succinct way of stating what my blog philosophy has always been. You can read more about that on my updated about page.

Also new on the menu:

• Blogs I Read: A much better version of my previous blogroll page. Now, the list of blogs is pulled directly from my Google Reader, so it’s much more up-to-date and comprehensive. If you’re looking for new blogs, check it out!
• Recipe Index: Finally, a complete list of every recipe on the blog, organized by category and alphabetically. Lots of you have asked for this.
• Contact: A simple contact form so you can send me a message easily.
• Social Icons: Quick links of where you can follow me online. You guys know I’m on Twitter and Tumblr, but I literally just started and Instagram and Pinterest just for amybites. Please feel free to follow me—I have exactly zero followers on both at press time. I’m feeling super cool.

Blog Posts

The only major change here is bigger pictures! This is definitely a case in which you’ll have to bear with me—since the images are now larger, I’ll have to go back and resize my back catalog of images. Please don’t judge me too harshly for blurry or missing feature images in posts prior to today as I’m resizing, because this will probably take about 4,000 years to do. I’ll be doing it little by little, but I’ll try to get it done ASAP.

Sidebar

There’s a fun new “trending posts” feature in the sidebar now so you can see which posts are getting the most attention. These will be updated on a monthly basis, but spoiler alert: the Butterbeer Cupcakes and Cake Pops will probably always be trending, as they are both my most popular posts ever by far.

Footer

There are two exciting new features in the footer:

• Subscribe via Email: I can’t tell you how many people have asked me for this, and it’s finally here! Very exciting!
• Recent Posts slider: There’s a handy-dandy little image slider of the five most recent posts down here. It may save you some scrolling or help you dig your way out of the archives.

I hope you all like the new look! Please feel free to explore the site and leave a comment or send a message if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Thank you again for your patience! I’ll be back after the weekend with a new recipe.