New Site - New Swag

It's here! It's here!
The new site is here!

I didn't know if this day would ever come. For the love of Pete! We've got some little tweaks to tweak, but we're live and I am so excited!

Mucho love to Adam, Russ, Wil, Jared, and my kindred spirit Alisa for their brilliance and hard work and friendship. Enormous thanks and deepest love to my sweet and ridiculously supportive husband and family...who have been shushed and unattended to way too many times during this crazy process. I recognize I didn't just win a Golden Globe or something, but I'd be completely remiss if I didn't acknowledge these amazing people for all they have done. :)

What are you still doing here? Go check out the new site!

Don't freak out, okay?

So you may have already made the switch, but if not, your Shabby Blogs background has probably been sporting a little notice that looks like this:


I tried to make it as unalarming as possible, but still, we've probably gotten over 300 emails from Shabby Bloggers who are a tiny bit...shall I say freaked out? Hang in there, lovely people. It's going to be okay! I promise. Here are the candid answers to your most frequently asked questions:

What the heck is going on???
A few months ago we switched servers. We used to host all of our images on Photobucket. Photobucket, however, started to really not like the bandwidth we were using...so they began charging us...a LOT. Since late this past summer, I have personally been paying around $800 a month to Photobucket to cover the expense of the bandwidth used by Shabby bloggers. Unfortunately, Oprah and I don't have the same salary to work with. So, we began looking for other options...better options. (Shabby Blogs did, I mean. Not me and Oprah.) We found a much more feasible alternative, switched our image locations over, and rewrote the code for our backgrounds, buttons, and blinkies. The code that is currently on ShabbyBlogs.com is the code you should be using.

How do I know if I have the new code or the old code?
If you've got the new code, you won't have the above image on your blog. Instead, it will be the usual white, chippy wood tag that simply says "ShabbyBlogs.com." If you have switched to the new code, but the above image is still there, you haven't deleted the HTML gadget that contains your old background. Make sure you either replace your old code with the new code within the existing gadget or, if you create a brand new gadget for your new code, delete the old one.

Do I have to update anything besides my background?
Yep. I know this isn't ideal, but it's what we have to do to keep Shabby Blogs a free site...and we truly don't anticipate ever having to do this again! You also need to update your buttons and blinkies.

I don't see my background at ShabbyBlogs.com anymore! What gives?
You're sitting down, right? Take a deeeeeeep breath. Okay. Some of our very early designs have been...retired. Eeeek! Sometimes (okay, one time) digital scrapbooking designers change their terms of use or become difficult to work with. We ADORE the insanely talented and sweet designers we currently work with and feel so blessed to know them. In fact, we may use their products to recreate some of our more popular retired backgrounds in the future. We are constantly looking for new designers and adding to our already vast collection of backgrounds. While I know many of you have become very attached to our retired backgrounds, I hope you understand.

What happens if I don't change my background by the end of January?
Shabby Blogs isn't the type to send brutes with gold teeth and hockey sticks to your house. Good news there! The bad news is that instead of sporting a lovely SB background, your blog will simply display an error message from our friends at Photobucket. That's all. Nothing too exciting, but there you have it.


I hope that answers your questions! I realize this is a bit of a pain, but we have to do what we have to do to ensure that we will always be able to offer you the absolute BEST blog goodies free of charge. Thank you so much for visiting our sponsors, making donations, sending us super sweet emails, and being so patient and awesome during our recent changes...and always, actually. I know I always say this, but we seriously have the most outstanding fans and followers on the planet. We genuinely love and appreciate you!!! It is because of your support that we will be able to launch the brand new and even more fabulous ShabbyBlogs.com next week! Eeeeep! We are so excited about the direction SB is heading and we are sooooo looking forward to all of the upcoming awesomeness in store for 2011!

I never win a(nie)thing.

I really don't. But I'm okay with that because I am totally blessed in other ways. I always get good parking spaces, for example. You know who DOES win though? Amy Baldwin from Curly Q Mosaics, that's who! Congratulations Amy!!!!!

Just FYI, I did use an actual, official random number generator for this giveaway. My kids are sick with the flu and I didn't want to upset their world record for most episodes of "Scooby Doo" watched consecutively to make them choose a winner for me. I'm not going to lie to you. It didn't feel right. (The random number generator, not the Scooby...although, that didn't really feel right either.) So...

The only thing better than a chance to win the Nie Nie calendar is TWO chances to win the Nie Nie calendar, am I right? So this time I just sort of closed my eyes and pointed. Waaay more my style. And you know who I picked the second time? Sarah from Texas...who purchased the calendar for her friend, but not for herself. Now that is friendship! I love you already Sarah and I'm so excited to send you your very own Nie Nie calendar. :)

Amy and Sarah, please send me an email (through our website) and let me know your addresses! Congratulations ladies!!! I'm so excited for you!!!!!

PS. I made that lovely "winner" image up there using Michelle Underwood's Vintage Colors Collection...which I looooooove!

Retro Blog Tags Freebie & Giveaway

I hope you all had an extremely lovely holiday season. Ours was divine! I got to spend tons of time with the people I love most and the rest of the time ironing out the final details of the new Shabby Blogs website...which I promise really does exist. (And anyway, I do rather love the super sweet people I get to work with on that as well so it worked out quite nicely.) While I was in Arizona, I got to see the calendar I designed for Stephanie Nielson (Nie Nie) on the shelves of actual book stores. Totally uncool of me, but if one makes something like that, one has just got to see it in an actual store, hasn't one? It was pretty fun. I may even post a completely dorky photo of myself in said store on the SB Facebook page for those of you who would like to see Uncool in action. The calendar itself though? Pretty dang cool. Have you ordered one yet? I'm pretty sure everyone and their pet iguana has one by now, but just in case you haven't snagged it yet, I've decided to give one away. Just leave a comment here for your chance to win. I'll have one of my little "helpers" choose a winner on Monday. Easy enough, right? Good luck!


In other news, we recently hit 10,000 followers. You guys are awesome and we appreciate and love the heck out of you! In honor of your awesomeness, here is a retro tag set for you to customize and use on your own blog. Wooohoooooo! Rather than make you download it, I'm just going to post the images here and let you right-click to save them to your computer. (That's easier, right?) We hope you enjoy these little pretties!